‘It’s a tough industry’: What First Journey Trails’ founder sees inside Canada’s trail-building boom

Trail building is having a moment. Municipalities are suddenly talking about climbing trails, berms and pump tracks the same way they talk about sidewalks and rec centres. Riders see new networks opening every year. And people across the country are launching small trail companies hoping to ride the wave.

From Williams Lake, B.C., First Journey Trails founder Thomas Schoen has been watching that momentum build for nearly two decades.

“Yeah, absolutely, there’s definitely a boom,” he says. “There’s just so much happening within our industry for sure.”

But the reasons behind the growth go deeper than adventure tourism. Municipalities and regional districts are now tying trail infrastructure to economic stability and quality of life.

“Municipal governments in smaller to mid-size communities are now realizing that trail infrastructure really attracts professionals and it keeps them,” Schoen says. “You have to have something to offer in your community if you want to grow the labor market or if you want to keep people.”

Twenty years ago, trail projects had to justify themselves strictly through visitor spending: hotel rooms, gas stations, bike shops. That shift in thinking has pushed trails into the realm of essential infrastructure: something communities use to retain workers, attract families and improve health outcomes.

An industry splintering into specialties

Schoen was early. “I started in 2008,” he says. “I definitely was one of the first three major companies in B.C. Joyride, Gravity Logic and then First Journey Trails.”

In the early days, professional trail building was an emerging idea. Now the industry is splitting into specialized branches.

“You’ve got companies that mainly concentrate on big bike park development,” he says. Others focus exclusively on pump tracks or skills parks. Some are hand-built specialists, shaping steep tech lines and rugged climbing trails.

And e-mountain bikes are reshaping design entirely.

“We now see e-bike specific trail design companies slowly emerging,” Schoen says. “Where you would build a climbing trail completely different. Uphill berms. Nobody knew what an uphill berm was six years ago.”

Schoen’s company has carved out another niche; deep partnerships with Indigenous communities. “There aren’t many of those companies out there yet, but it’s slowly happening,” he says.

The hard truth: most small companies don’t survive

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