island Park heading to Gov Land Single Track

Location: Island Park at Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway
https://www.strava.com/segments/7264271

​Colonel Atilla Altikat was on his way to work on August 27th, 1982 when he stopped at a red light on Island Park at the river parkway. He was killed by an Armenian guerrilla, who fired nine shots into his car. Despite this being one of several violent incidents related to ongoing conflicts between Armenians and Turks that spilled over into Canada,  to this day Altikat remains the only foreign diplomat assassinated on Canadian soil. There is a monument to Colonel Altikat near where he was shot that you may have seen, as it is very large and very distinct. 

Regardless of how you feel about Turkish-Armenian relations, there is a pretty cool kilometre of single-track that starts just behind the Altikat Monument and runs along the tree line before darting into the woods and heading east to the Tunney's Pasture campus. There's access to the path that starts just off the sidewalk behind the stone pillar before the intersection. 

As of the spring of 2021, someone has been at work in this trail system with a monster wood chipper, so it's totally dry and quite wide. At the very end of this segment is a little climb that rolls up a bit, which can be fun to try to carry some speed into. It's also pretty fun to ride this in reverse, as the little downhill gives you some nice momentum to rip through the trails. 

Like all segments, you need to keep an eye out for pedestrians, although I haven't seen anyone in here the 4-5 times I've ridden it. There are some occasional rocks and roots, so you do need to keep your eyes open. Generally though, I wouldn't say it's particularly technical terrain. 

There is another section of packed dirt pathway just behind the Indonesian Embassy at the end of Parkdale that leads to the Bayview Yards area. You can also cross over to Lemieux Island from there. The possibilities are endless. 

I've been riding this segment as part of a fun loop that takes about an hour that you can find here.