People from here often think of a vacation as an all-inclusive Mexican resort, a cruise to Alaska, maybe a trip to enjoy the urban setting of Las Vegas or Paris.
But for many people when they think of a vacation they think of the great outdoors — beautiful scenery, hiking, working up a sweat with a mountain bike and lots of adrenaline.
For those kind of adventure tourists the Cowichan Lake area has lots to offer, but at present it’s largely untapped.
A recent session on tourism for the area took a close look at hiking and biking and what these activities could bring to the area. Unfortunately, there’s some work to be done before Cowichan Lake could be marketed as a destination for such outdoor fun.
Almost no mountain biking trails have been developed in the area — this in contrast with some areas in North Cowichan, Maple Mountain among them, which are becoming well-known recreation spots.
Hiking trails are in various states of disrepair and there’s no plan around who is responsible for fixing them or on what kind of timeline. There’s also virtually no way for visitors to find the trails that do exist. Any trail maps out there are old and thus now inaccurate, and there’s a distinct lack of signage to direct people even to the trailheads.
There’s also a dearth of places for tourists to stay in the region, particularly if they’re not the camping kind.
But these are all fixable problems, if there’s the will. Which there should be.
The lake area has a lot to draw visitors, but we need to look beyond the beach and water recreation to develop a full suite of sustainable, eco-friendly experiences.
If Cumberland is any indication, once some of these amenities are developed it is the locals who can benefit the most, and not just economically from the tourists. That community has found that huge numbers of locals have taken to using the infrastructure too. So it increases healthy physical activity and the well-being that can be found from recreation out-of-doors.
Key now is developing a plan and going after things like grant dollars to put into the necessary building and marketing work.