How Many Trails?

Developing a book is quite different than building a Website. With a Website there is almost unlimited storage potential, as well as the opportunity to make changes and additions as frequently as required. A book, however, is inflexible; what can be included is constrained by space and once printed it can only be changed at infrequent intervals.

So it is critically important to the success of a book to plan what will be included long before the writing begins. In the case of Hiking Trails of Ottawa, that meant, among other things, deciding how many trail listings will be profiled.

In the previous entry, "What Trails are Included?", I said that I had selected an area within a 100-km distance of Parliament Hill as the region to be profiled in this book. As any outdoor person knows, we are blessed with hundreds of possible hiking destinations inside that small area, and thousands of kilometers of possible walking.

However, if I attempted to profile every trail, the book would be little more than a shopping list, with very small amounts of information available about any particular trail. Either that, or I could produce a volume of 1,000 pages or so - but I think the resulting price tag would be too high for most people. Creating lists is excellent for Websites; books need to be more selective.

For me, two facts are critically important for each trail profiled: how to find the start (trailhead), and what will be seen when on the trail. Obviously, you need to be able to find your way to the trail in order to hike it, but many books I have seen somehow fail to provide adequate directions, and I find few things as frustrating as driving an hour for a hike and being unable to find "the third driveway past the blue house", or some similarly unhelpful postings. Perhaps even more importantly, once on the trail you should be able to follow a route without becoming lost. Again, some books provide such vague comments about a particular route that it is as much by luck as by design that a hiker is able to navigate their way.

To provide this information accurately approximately 1,000 words of text is required for each trail listing. Add supporting information such as natural history facts, hiking tips, maps, and general background, and for a book limited to about 350 pages - about $20-25 retail) that works out to about 50 listings possible.

So, expect that Hiking Trails of Ottawa will provide detailed descriptions of 50 hiking routes within a 100-km circle of Parliament Hill.

Next Post: How were the profiled trails chosen?

What Trails are included?

The most difficult question to answer for this book had to be, "What trails do I include?" As anyone who has hiked around Ottawa knows, there is an incredible variety of options available.

The first issue to be decided was what I meant by "Ottawa". Was it the city, the river valley, eastern Ontario, or something else? In one of the books I reviewed, Nature and Natural Areas in Canada's Capital, published by the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club, the region was defined as a circle of 100-km centred on Parliament Hill. I found this definition particulalry helpful, because it did not attempt to use political boundaries or even geographical features, but simply anything within a prescribed distance.

As I continued to hike various trails and collect information, the more reasonable this 100-km circle appeared. There were clearly enough possible routes within that distance, as it included Gatineau Park, substantial portions of the Outouais region of Quebec, and most of eastern Ontario.

Next Post: How many trails, and what kind?

Brief Outline of Hiking Trails of Ottawa

Hiking Trails of Ottawa, or "HTO", as I will refer to it, will be composed of the descriptions of 50 walking routes within eastern Ontario and western Quebec. These are all found within a circle, centred upon Parliament Hill, of a radius of approximately 100-km.

The region is divided into five districts: Gatineau Park, Quebec outside of Gatineau Park, Ottawa within the Greenbelt, Eastern Ontario outside the Greenbelt, and the Frontenac Axis. In each of these districts 10 distinct routes of varying degrees of difficulty are profiled. The difficulty factor ranges from "1", or suitable for almost all fitness levels, to "5", recommended only for fit and/or experienced hikers. The lengths of the selected routes, always given for return trips, vary from 3-km to 42-km.