Close Call!

Trails change more often than you might think. This was demonstrated again for me at the recent Annual General Meeting of the Ottawa Rideau Trail Club. I was there to give a presentation about the upcoming Hiking Trail of Ottawa, and as with most guest speakers, I was scheduled to present after the business meeting.

Imagine my surprise as I listened to the report from the club's trail maintenance leader. Among the recent changes he outlined to the route of the Rideau Trail was a section through the Marlborough Forest, a section which I have included in the upcoming book - and which I now heard was changed from what I had walked the previous spring and written up! It appears as if my text, already written, edited, and put into galley proofs was already wrong.

Fortunately, I did have the chance to make corrections. The galley proofs of Hiking Trails of Ottawa had arrived from my publisher only that day, and I was able to make the necessary changes in time to have them appear in the printed book. But it had been so close. If I had not attended that meeting, I would not have known about the trail changes. If the galley proofs had arrived a week earlier, as originally planned, I might have already reviewed it and sent it off for printing.

In this case, the text in the book will match the signage on the trail. However, it also shows just how quickly, and how often, trail routes do change and the text becomes obsolete and inaccurate. One of the reasons that I created this blog is to provide a forum for people who use Hiking Trails of Ottawa and find that the trail and text do not match. If this happens to you, please write a comment to the blog and share your findings with others.

As we all know, written text is outdated almost as soon as it is printed. With the help of this blog, maybe we can reduce the chances of each reader of the book from making the discovery of trail changes only when they are themselves on the altered route.