Working in a Good Way: The trail is the start
Ucluelet Mountain Bike Association photo
A mountain biking trail partnership in Ucluelet benefits everyone
As part of this story series, we will feature recreation organizations that are advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples through trail and outdoor recreation projects. We hope these stories inspire other community groups to contribute to advancing reconciliation in a meaningful and positive way, thereby ensuring the long-term sustainability of the outdoor recreation activities we love.
Like many west coast First Nations, the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ tell a flood story. A long time ago, a chief named č̓umaat̓a lived in a village of the same name near present-day Ucluelet. When the waters wouldn’t stop rising, he loaded his family in a canoe, and the waves swept them away to the summit of a nearby mountain.
The ancestors of those survivors are the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ, also known as the Ucluelet First Nation, and the mountain became known as č̓umaat̓a, meaning “water coming from a high place.” When settlers came, they mispronounced Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ as Ucluelet – it’s actually pronounced Yuuthlu-ilth-ath. They also renamed č̓umaat̓a, Mount Ozzard or Mt. Oz.
Today, č̓umaat̓a’s summit is easy to spot from Ucluelet: its heavily logged slopes top out at a giant golf ball-shaped radio tower. Despite its industrial purposes, č̓umaat̓a remains a sacred place to the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ. That says a lot about the cooperative agreement the Ucluelet First Nation has signed with the Ucluelet Mountain Bike Association. The partnership focused on the slopes of č̓umaat̓a represents a growing recognition that mountain bikers and trail builders in B.C. need the permission of the original land stewards before getting dirty and that First Nations know fat tire fun can benefit them too.
“I see the trails as an opportunity to lift up First Nations people,” says Gordon Taylor Jr., a Ucluelet Nation citizen and owner of T̓iick̓in EBike, a rental business in Ucluelet. “It’s job creation, economic diversification, a way for our people to get into the woods, and an environmentally friendly use of the land.”
Local riders built the first mountain bike trails on č̓umaat̓a in the early 2000s. Steep, gnarly and downhill-oriented, experts loved them, but they weren’t a place for new and intermediate riders to learn the sport. When a few key trail workers moved away, the ferns and salal reclaimed the trails.
In 2011, the Ucluelet First Nation signed a treaty with the provincial and federal governments, granting them uncontested ownership over a big chunk of the area around Ucluelet, including the flanks of č̓umaat̓a. Then, in 2016, Louis Maddiford opened Ukee Bikes in downtown Ucluelet. It revived the local mountain biking scene, the Ucluelet Mountain Bike Association formed, and a small crew started uncovering the trails on č̓umaat̓a.
They, like the riders that came before them, should have asked for “free, prior and informed consent” from the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ. Consulting with traditional land stewards is not only a best practice, it’s now required by the province for just about every kind of project, from a major pipeline or mine to guiding hiking trips or building a mountain bike trail.
The riders didn't and neither did the club, at first. But as the small crew grew in size and ambition, they realised their misstep.
“It was pretty obvious, if we wanted to continue to expand the trail system it should be done with permission of the [Nation],” says Markus Rannala, the executive director of the UMBA.
He didn’t know how to start the conversation, so he reached out to the Canadian chapter of the International Mountain Bike Association and nearby clubs, like the United Riders of Cumberland, for advice.
Better informed, Rannala approached the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ government with the idea of building new trails in their territory and employing their youth to do some of the work. Living in a resort town, the Nation understood tourism and the potential benefits mountain biking could bring.
The club and Nation signed a land use agreement in the fall of 2020, and with a grant from Tourism Vancouver Island, a mixed crew of Nation youth and club members started building the trail, Yellow Brick Road. They finished during the spring of 2021.
For Rannala, their first collaborative trail represents a new relationship between First Nations and the rest of the community.
“There’s been a lot of hollow gestures made in the past,” he says. “This is a real, solid, practical step toward working together on something positive and building a relationship with mutual trust.”
Taylor Jr. of T̓iick̓in EBike sees plenty of room for it to become much more. He’d like the network extended around the mountain and beyond to other nearby First Nation communities. In the future, trail stewardship and maintenance could offer year-round employment for Indigenous peoples. Other Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ citizens see mountain biking as a positive alternative to all the negative vices kids tend to gravitate toward.
There’s a lot of work to do to get there. The trail network is still small, and the terrain and rainforest conditions make the riding challenging. The next phase of development will focus on easier trails that will make the sport more accessible.
There's still more work to be done to incorporate the nation's citizens in every step of the process says Carey Cunneyworth, the Director of Culture, Language and Heritage for the Ucluelet Nation. The club posted the trail network on TrailForks, a mountain biking app, before the Nation held an important, official opening ceremony. And there are the trail names. Cunneyworth is translating them into Nuu-chah-nulth, the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ language. It’s a struggle: Yellow Brick Road may be catchy on Mt. Oz but has no Nuu-chah-nulth equivalent.
"Names are important to First Nations people," he says. "They hold a lot of meaning."
The club's all for the name change, says Rannala. And he knows the mountain bike community can do better, and it's worth trying because the partnership between the club and the Nation, grounded in consent and reciprocity, can be the first stroke in a long pedal toward reconciliation.
“Reconciliation is the most complicated question of our generation,” Rannala says. “I don’t pretend to have the answer. But a trail is not such a bad place to start.”
Ryan Stuart started writing about his adventures as a way to get paid to play. Twenty years later he’s still at it. Look for his name in magazines like Outside, Men’s Journal, Ski Canada, online at Hakai and The Narwhal. When he’s not typing at his home office in Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley, you can find him skiing, hiking, mountain biking, surfing, paddling or fishing somewhere nearby.
