About Us
Board of Directors
Rick Martinson, President
John Makson, Vice President
Mike Evans, Treasurer
Robin McDaniel, Secretary
Dan Berard
Mark Wallace
Colleen Barbalinardo
Cass Currie
Jemima Monro
Eliott Kennedy
Derek Angevine
Leigh Belton
Peter Rody
Staff
Lorrie Mansey, Executive Director
Brendan Gauthier, Trail Director
Ian Macey, Trail Crew
Cowichan Trail Stewardship Society
Building nature’s networks. Great times, great trails.
The Cowichan Trail Stewardship Society acknowledges that we work and recreate on the unceded traditional territory of the Quw’utsun Mustimuhw (Cowichan Peoples).
The Cowichan Trail Stewardship Society is an incorporated nonprofit organization and registered charity based out of the Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island. It was founded in 2013 by a small group of passionate trail users that recognized the great potential and need for trail management in the North Cowichan Municipal Forest Reserve. Today, CTSS has an excellent working relationship with the Municipality of North Cowichan and works to develop and maintain the trails of Mt. Tzouhalem, Maple Mountain and Mount Prevost. It is the goal of the society to construct, maintain and advocate for hiking and mountain biking trails that are sustainable from an economic, environment and social point of view. Beyond that, CTSS works to enhance the community through volunteer trail days, group rides and hikes, races and more.
Perhaps the best way to describe the Cowichan Trail Stewardship Society is to borrow an example from nature. If you’ve ever stopped and gazed at an ant colony along a trail, or anywhere else for that matter, you’ll know how industrious and dedicated they are. As a team, the worker ants diligently volunteer their time expanding and enhancing networks within the established colony. Conditions aren’t always ideal, but that doesn’t seem to phase them, for each has an innate connection with what they are doing and each knows that their efforts will benefit others.
We may not be a frenzied colony of workers, but this example does aptly describe what we do at the CTSS: lots of people volunteering their time to make world-class trail networks in a place that they love and call home.