Christina Lake groups press province for action on Columbia & Western Rail Trail
Groups seek provincial review, stakeholder committee and interim agreement allowing local organizations to help maintain the corridor
A mountain bike rests beside a trail. Christina Lake groups are pressing the B.C. government for a new approach to management and maintenance of the Columbia & Western Rail Trail.
File photo.
Christina Lake community and trail groups, joined by a provincial powersports association and RDKB Area C director Grace McGregor, are pressing the B.C. government for action on the Columbia & Western Rail Trail after years of uncertainty over who is responsible for managing and maintaining the corridor.
Christina Gateway Community Development Association, Christina Lake Tourism, Christina Lake Trail Alliance and the BC Powersports Dealers Association signed a Sept. 3 letter asking Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Minister Randene Neill for a formal provincial review of corridor-management practices and a new process for dealing with the CWRT.
The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary board was asked at its Sept. 9 meeting to endorse the letter. The recommendation before directors supported doing so, although the final board decision has not yet been confirmed through adopted minutes.
The dispute centres on a roughly 67-kilometre section of the former rail corridor running from Castlegar to near Fife, about two kilometres north of Christina Lake.
The province removed the section’s recreation-trail designation in July 2020, saying at the time that it would remain part of The Great Trail and continue to be available for year-round recreation. The province also said the change would allow limited industrial road permitting and the development of maintenance and management standards involving government and forest licensees.
In material submitted to the RDKB, the Christina Lake groups say that replacement management framework was never established.
Their chronology says stakeholders were told in June 2025 that there was no preventative maintenance program or maintenance funding for the corridor and that it was being managed to a “wilderness status.” By December 2025, according to the submission, the province was describing the route as vacant Crown land with no formal designation and no maintenance funding.
The groups say no ministry or provincial agency has since accepted responsibility for ongoing management, preventative maintenance, repairs or long-term planning.
Their Sept. 3 request asks the province to conduct a formal review of corridor-management practices within the Selkirk Natural Resource District, including the decisions and commitments surrounding the Columbia & Western Rail Trail, and to compare those practices with approaches used elsewhere in B.C.
They are also asking the province to establish a stakeholder committee involving industry, recreation organizations, local governments, First Nations governments and provincial agencies.
For the CWRT specifically, the groups want an interim partnership agreement that would provide provincial liability coverage and allow qualified local organizations to carry out approved maintenance and risk-management work.
The issue has implications beyond recreation. In a 2025 campaign concerning the trail, the RDKB described the corridor as a critical access route for 76 residences in Coykendahl, Brooklyn, Renata and Shields along Lower Arrow Lake, while also raising concerns about the consequences of losing public motorized access.
The current submission places the CWRT dispute within a broader discussion about how B.C. manages former industrial and transportation corridors that continue to have recreation, tourism, community-access or emergency-management value.
The groups also point to the Rady Creek and Incomappleux Forest Service Road files as examples of similar questions over corridor management, but say their direct interest is in the Columbia & Western Rail Trail. They are not asking the province for a particular outcome on those other roads and state that they are not alleging wrongdoing by Selkirk district staff.
The latest request follows an Aug. 5 visit to the trail by Neill, Kootenay-Monashee MLA Steve Morissette, local-government representatives and ministry staff.
According to the material submitted to the RDKB, Neill agreed during the visit to look further into the barriers preventing a resolution. The Christina Lake Trail Alliance followed up Aug. 25 seeking timelines and continued stakeholder involvement before the Sept. 3 letter was sent.
The dispute also comes as the province begins implementing its 2026 Outdoor Recreation Strategy. The strategy says recreation access in many parts of B.C. depends heavily on resource roads and notes that the industrial base that historically funded much of that road maintenance is shrinking. It calls for new solutions and a modernized framework for high-value recreation access and resource roads.
The Christina Lake groups are asking for both an interim way to manage and maintain the Columbia & Western Rail Trail and a longer-term provincial approach to prevent similar management gaps elsewhere in B.C.
Christina Lake community and trail groups, joined by a provincial powersports association and RDKB Area C director Grace McGregor, are pressing the B.C. government for action on the Columbia & Western Rail Trail after years of uncertainty over who is responsible for managing and maintaining the corridor.