Connecting people to trails: Ferraro helping local groups realize their vision

October 22, 2025

To say Emery Ferraro’s arrival in Inverness County was serendipitous would be an understatement.

Hired in June of last year in the Municipality’s new role of trails coordinator, Ferraro met their wife through a shared love of Gaelic music and culture. Born in Alberta, they moved to Oregon when they were seven, so neither they nor their Iowa-born wife had any natural connection to Gaelic but met through that interest.

“We both just kind of stumbled into it, both through a love of the music and a love of the culture,” Ferraro says. “I always wanted to move back to Canada someday and ‘someday’ became last year.”

“We always had our eye on Cape Breton as a place that we thought we’d feel at home, and we decided it was time to leave the US and come back to Canada, and so we just started looking at Cape Breton and when the trails job opened up at the municipality, I thought, ‘well, this is just too good to be true. I’ve got to at least try.’”

Ferraro has a degree in environmental science, but they learned everything they know about trails while on the job in Oregon.

“I worked primarily with an organization called Trailkeepers of Oregon for a little over six years, learning the ins and outs of trail building, trail engineering, trail design, as well as grant writing skills, management skills, and community engagement.”

Ferraro says their position is the result of a consultant’s report on the needs of local trails groups in the county, noting that “the primary recommendation of that study was the county hire a trails coordinator to be a liaison to all the wonderful trails groups we have here in Inverness County.”

“I like to get in the woods whenever I can and I definitely wanted to support the existing volunteer groups, so I spent last summer getting out with volunteers as much as I could, just getting to know people, but mostly focusing on building those relationships, both with the local volunteers as well as other organizations in the area, and of course organizations at the provincial and federal levels as well, to make sure I knew who my support networks were, and where funding comes from,” Ferraro explained.

They work closely with the volunteers involved with the Celtic Shores Coastal Trail, but Ferraro is quick to point out that there are many other groups throughout the county who work tirelessly to build and maintain other trail systems.

Like the trails that serve hikers and snowmobilers alike, Ferraro’s job is year-round, and much of the time they’re not in the woods helping to create trails, they’re building relationships with various organizations, including the Nova Scotia Trails Federation, which represents and supports the many volunteer groups that help maintain the more than 10,000 kilometres of trails in the province.

Ferraro is also partnering with other groups to promote environmental education, including the Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP), and the Young Naturalists Club, which has branches throughout Nova Scotia and focuses on environmental education for pre-school children.

“I’m partnering with them to start a branch of that club here in Inverness County and trying to get that off the ground,” they say.

Until the provincial ban on entering the woods came into effect, Emery Ferraro, left, was tirelessly working with their team to create trails in the county. Taking a break from their work (right photo) are, from left, Joseph MacDonald of Port Hood, Alexander Rankin of Mabou and Roddie Gillis of Mabou. (Photos: Dave MacNeil)

But building and maintaining trails still remains the main focus in their position, and a lot of that work is done in conjunction with the Inverness County Trails Federation.

“That’s a volunteer-run group and the Municipality has a set amount of dedicated funding that goes to that group, and then that group of volunteers field applications from the member organizations, which are all groups that have trails in Inverness County and then, based on the need, they divvy it out.”

Ferraro is also a consultant on the Jajiktek Seawall Trail project which will develop a 50-kilometre, high-difficulty multi-day coastal trail hike through remote backcountry in northern Cape Breton.

“The Municipality has dedicated staff to help manage that project, and I’ve been consulting on the trail alignment and just generally supporting the more technical aspects of that project,” they explain, adding that the team working on that project hopes to break ground next summer.

Another project in the offing is a proposed cross country ski trail in the Margaree area, as a group reached out to them after they recently made a presentation to the Margaree Development Association.

Ferraro says they’re open to working with any group that has an idea for a trail.

“If someone reaches out and says we’re interested in having a trail in our community or they’re interested in accessing resources to maintain and expand an existing trail, I’ll definitely sit down with that group and find out what their goals are,” they note.

“It’s always about understanding how equipped they are to either get the volunteers required to get things done or help support them, because I’m just one person so my main goal is to figure out what it takes to empower the groups to see the goal they have come to fruition.”

On August 5, the Government of Nova Scotia restricted any travel or activities in the woods due to prolonged hot and dry weather conditions. The ban, however, did not stop Emery and their team. Although unable to access trails, the team supported the municipality’s Get Active students with youth programming, garbage clean-ups, fleet and rental bike maintenance, and held events focused on stargazing and youth environmental education.