The Community Center Trails
The Community Center trails were cleared of regeneration/overgrowth during summer, 2020. Wolves are regularly active on these Q.C.C. trails, so, keep your dog leashed and near you for its best safety while walking these trails.
Open Streets Map copyright: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
Double click on the above map to enlarge it, to see the Community Center Trails, as marked within the red line.
Community Center Trails
Cellphone coverage is good on these trails.
The Community Center trails form a very popular trail system of walkways/bike trails all lying between the community center on West Road, and Heriot Bay Road. The system runs through the center of this well-forested zone, close to the main roads and many residences, yet still has wolves and occasionally cougars and bears using it, along with bikers and hikers. It is virtually all through flat forest with no climbing and is very popular with bikers and joggers as well as walkers and hikers. Be sure to keep your dog on a leash on these trails as there have been several dog fatalities here due to wolves meeting free-running dogs. As long as your dog is on a leash held by you, it should be totally safe.
Across the road from this old truck outside the main Quadra Firehall on Heriot Bay Road you can see here the white. posted signs marking the entrance from Heriot Bay Road to the Community Center Trails System. From here to the Community Center takes about 15 minutes to walk and is a flat walk.
Park your car in the Community Center parking lot, where you will see a map of the trails carved into a wooden sign on posts beside the parking lot. Then walk up the right side of the baseball field and follow the trail past the Judy Leicester memorial sculpture. Judy was a long term dedicated volunteer trail worker on Quadra who headed the Trails Committee and led the trail-work volunteers for more than ten years and died suddenly of cancer in 2012.
Walk along this, the Community Center Trail, into the forest and it will take you in about 15 minutes through to the fire-hall on Heriot Bay Road. However, as you walk this trail towards the fire-hall you will see the Daisy Trail then the Sheppard Trail and then the Homestead Trail each branching off to your left. These first two side-trails take you to the Homestead Trail which in turn takes you back to the Community Center Trail if you go right on it, or, if you go left on it, it will take you to the linking trail which forks and will take you either to your right, southeast, in about 10 minutes to Smokey’s Bike Shop on Heriot Bay Road, or, left, for about 10 minutes back to the Community Center, and to a further little side-branch trail directly onto West Road to a spot about five minutes’ walk from the community center. There are also cycle trails crossing the main trail on this left trail branch.
Here, above, is ‘The Forest Watcher’, a century-old stump standing on the south side of the Sheppard Trail, about two-thirds of the way along the trail. The Forest Watcher’s two eyes are actually the 100-year old loggers’ cuts where they cut into the tree and then placed their peg boards in the cuts, in order to stand on the boards while they felled this great old tree. Like a helmeted sentinel this old stump silently watches all who pass, and very, very few people even notice him. Children would probably like to try to find this stump along the trail, and maybe the Forest Watcher will notice them.
There is now a new little short-cut trail to the Homestead Trail off Animal Farm Trail, giving you two options, within 100 meters of each other, to take from Animal Farm Trail to the Homestead Trail.
Look for this sign hanging beside Heriot Bay Road, opposite the Animal Farm Road intersection. Here is Smokey’s Bike Shop driveway and also the Animal Farm Trail going into the Community Center Trails System. The Animal Farm Trail was once an open airstrip! The forest here re-claims its man-made open spaces very quickly if not kept open.
Here is the Smokey Bike Shop sign again, showing the Animal Farm Road sign below it. There is now a new short-cut trail to the Homestead Trail off Animal Farm Trail, giving you two options, within 100 meters of each other, from Animal Farm Trail to the Homestead Trail.
When you walk up Smokey’s driveway off Heriot Bay Road you soon meet this little forest gnome pointing out the entrance to the walking trail to the Community Center Trails, the gnome points out the right way so that you do not end up at Smokey’s Bike Shop when you simply want to hike the trail.
Here is a cute alligator lizard, a native BC reptile.
The Homestead Trail is so named because along this trail you can see the remains of the Bryant family farm where the first European child was born on Quadra Island to the first European woman (Mary Bryant) to settle on the island, during the 1800s. There is a huge maple tree beside the Homestead Trail near where it meets the Community Center Trail, and this old tree marks the site of the Bryant homestead. Further along the trail you can see where ditches were dug by hand and a swamp was drained during the days when the Bryants lived here. Also running off the Homestead Trail is the Blackjack Trail which takes you in about 10 minutes back to the baseball field beside the community center.
Another native BC reptile is this red-legged frog, above.
The Swale Trail was the first mountain bike trail on Quadra and runs off the Homestead Trail in the Community Center Trails system. Now there are many mountain bike trails on Quadra but Swale Trail is very popular because it is central and in the middle of the general residential area. Here, below, are some of the island’s keen mountain-bikers working hard on the Swale Trail, on 10th of February 2018. Trails work on Quadra is voluntary and the trails need regular maintenance to keep them in good shape.
It’s hard work but generally very rewarding for those who enjoy this work, to help build Quadra Island’s hiking and biking trails. Most hikers using these trails are very grateful to the volunteer workers for keeping this amazing recreational trails asset open for all to enjoy.
This page was updated on 3rd August, 2020.