Almost a year after a forest fire scorched the Mantario Trail, provincial parks officials remain unsure whether Manitoba’s most popular distance-hiking trail will reopen in 2026.

Roughly half of the 63-kilometre trail was burned by the fire known as EA063, which began near Ingolf, Ont., in May 2025 before spreading into Manitoba’s Whiteshell Provincial Park.

The trail has now been closed for 11 months. Manitoba Parks has conducted what it calls “an initial assessment” of the fire damage.

“That work found that roughly half of the trail was affected to varying degrees, with some sections experiencing more significant impacts that have made the trail difficult to follow in places,” the province said in a statement it did not attribute to any official.