by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

When Jeff Harrison motors between the white lines between here and Ontario, he’s never hypnotized by billboards, roadkill and rolling rubbered concrete.

Instead, he sees every highway exit as a missed opportunity to direct travellers to ecological wonderlands where geese, ducks and other little-seen avian inhabitants flap.

For a decade, Harrison has plotted, schemed and dreamed of hatching a birding path linking Ontario and Quebec. The path would be marketed via tourist maps, highway signage, brochures and Web sites to inform those so inclined to wander down dirt roads leading to hidden paradises where Technicolor plumage glows and weathered wings soar towards the sun.

But while his birding path has yet to take flight, in recent years Americans have been frantically turning such notions into reality, and multitudes have been flocking to walk them. “Virtually every state in the U.S. either now has a birding trail or is planning one,” says Harrison. “It’s turned out to be an important feature to their tourist resources and they often work really well in areas where there’s not a lot of employment.”

Harrison, who wrote a column called The Urban Naturalist in the Ottawa Citizen, moved from Ottawa to Montreal West in 1998 when his wife, Victoria Dickenson, was named to head the McCord Museum. He launched a bird watching contest called the Taverner Cup, but has given that up in hopes of creating a fledgling route for bird-lovers and fans of other animals from the book of beasts.

As well as tickling the fancy of feather-loving folk, the nature trail would also infuse small towns with tourist cash in the sometimes-hungry shoulder seasons. “The spring and fall are generally your major season for bird watching, and those are before and after the major tourist season, so you’d be enhancing tourism in months that are much quieter,” he says.

Harrison believes a trail between Toronto and Montreal would be ideal, and says that some scattered efforts have already begun in isolated areas. “There are groups in western Ontario that have already started to do trails,” he says. “The idea is coming along, but it’s very slow to mature because there isn’t any coordinated authority. It seems that there’s more development of this in Ontario than Quebec.”

He says a path could include flightless animals too. “You might also want to identify places where trout might be known to spawn, or where there’s moose or deer, so you’re identifying all the natural history assets,” he says. “Americans have tended to get away from calling them birding trails. They’re now calling them wildlife trails to cash in on all the possibilities.”

Harrison admits that—just like when the original Canadian railroad was laid—some community boosterism and local battles might erupt over bragging rights on which region is the best for nature-watching. “I had talked about a trail from Toronto through Kingston and Ottawa to Hawkesbury to Mont-Tremblant Park,” he says. “It’s a superb boreal park and better in many ways for birdwatching than the really well-known Algonquin Provincial Park, but virtually nobody knows that. Politics shouldn’t enter into it. You really want to take a route that offers the best opportunity for wildlife viewing and birding.”