The Buckeye Trail: More Than Just a Trail

The BTA office moved to Shawnee, Ohio in 2010 and started collaborating with local actors to expand access to the wealth of natural spaces in the area. While Tecumseh Lake has been a popular gathering place since its creation in 1953, the BTA created a trail that gave people a new way to engage with Tecumseh Lake. Tecumseh Lake was built on a former XX mine site and many of the pine trees there were planted as a remediation effort. Plaques around the lake help people connect with this history and the way this ecosystem has progressed over time.

In the eyes of those making it, the state-wide trail offers more to the intrepid hiker than simply access to nature - although, of course, this is also invaluable.  A trail offers connection to place, and an engagement with history. 

Just as a map is not the territory it represents, the Buckeye Trail offers a conduit to encounter history and culture in concrete, non-abstract ways. It is an opportunity for its hikers to emplace themselves, seeing, in person, the historical context that has created the places in which they find themselves, and the forces that brought them there. In the words of Andrew Bashaw, director of the Buckeye Trail Association, a trail is an “invitation to experience, to learn about yourself, and to learn about the place, which benefits yourself. The more you understand and appreciate a place, then you know better your place in that place. [...] I think that's a quintessential human question, when you live where you do, why am I here? What is my role?” It was emphasized to us that, while you can learn about a place by studying it, and this can indeed be enlightening, to be able to see firsthand the history of a place, how it got us here, and how it has changed is, in the words of Andrew, “life-affecting”.

Apart from this, the lake and its surrounding forest present as picturesque and natural. However, the various interpretive plaques and maps provided by the BTA remind us that, not all that long ago, this entire area was clear cut. With this interpretive help, the hiker can now experience the legacy of coal mining as it moves forward through time: the valleys and depressions are roads and sinkholes that are being reintegrated into forest; the pine stand on the southwest side of the lake was planted because of the tree’s tolerance of the acidic soil that mining left behind. One imagines, while hiking, a time when the trees weren’t there, and, in doing so, is forced to confront how they have come back. 

But the Buckeye Trail didn’t appear out of thin air, and, as Andrew posits, it is no coincidence that it finds itself at these contextualizing and emplacing points. We must remember that the trail is created by those who work on it. Rather than finding itself at these important places, it is led there, by local chapters and individual volunteers who do the work of maintaining it. In working to redirect the trail to places they consider valuable from their local historical knowledge, it offers an opportunity for comminutes to have control of their own historical narratives – the Buckeye Trail, then, is both a display of a place’s context, and a manifestation of it: at once, these places are meaningful to people because the Buckeye Trail goes to them, and the Buckeye Trail goes to them because they are meaningful to people. 

Evidence of a changing narrative is everywhere in Shawnee and along the nearby sections of the BT. In our walk from the BTA office to Tecumseh Lake, Casey and I saw some signs outside of Shawnee. Shawnee was designated a BTA “Trail Town” in 2018, a Clean Energy Community in 2023, and is a Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council (SOPEC) member. Where the community’s history is intertwined with extractive industry, the path to the future is being paved by those who are dedicated to creating opportunity and agency in the LCBD.  

The Buckeye Trail is more than just a trail. It’s a way to interact with nature. It’s a way to connect with local history. It’s a way to rewrite the narrative of a community for a brighter future. In the wise words of Grant Joy, a Shawnee resident and former Americorps volunteer in the LCBD microregion: “A trail to me is like a best friend. [...] There’s a great amount of comfort and solace that comes from spending time on the trail. It feels natural and authentic which isn’t too dissimilar to being around an old friend. Regardless if you’ve spent time away from the trail once you step back on it’s the same as reconnecting with an old friend. [...] The trail holds you accountable all while also reminding us to spend our free time doing things that allow us to feel joy and happiness. It’s a constant source of catharsis, joy, and familiarity. It’ll stand the test of time as it was here before and will be here after us. The trail is like the funniest friend you can think of because it serves as a reminder to not take things too seriously.”