Trails across the world are safe, green pathways that promote the use of multiple physical activities and provide recreation for their users. Trails are typically public paths that allow for active transportation through built or natural environments. Apart from users in the local community, trails attract domestic and international tourists.

Trekking Our Trails: The Benefits and Significance of Canada’s Trail System discusses the use of trails and related benefits and the significant role that trails could play in the revitalization of local communities and through this the wider Canadian economy. It emphasizes the need for a Canada-wide consolidation of data on trails and best practices to obtain the most out of trail usage. While the focus is on trails in general, the discussion has implications for Canada, since trails could be an important catalyst for economic growth given their focus on local communities and trail usage being a relatively COVID-19-safe activity.

• Key findings
• Introduction
• Trails generate significant benefits
• Trails as an economic catalyst for Canadian recovery
• Resurgence in domestic tourism aided by trails
• Appendix A
  

Appendix A—Methodology

Appendix B—Bibliography