• Park farther away from the door at work or when running errands
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator
• Do 10-15 minutes of stretching to start your day or wind down at night
• Walk or bike to work/school or while doing errands
• Break up long periods of sitting with a stretch or walking break
• Sign-up for an exercise class or try a new sport
• Register for a charitable walk/run in the community
• Plan something active when spending time with family or friends (e.g., a bike ride or hike)
• Put on your favourite music and have a dance party
• Go for a walk after dinner with a neighbour, friend, or family member

More Information and Tips:

• ParticipACTION - 8 great ways to sneak physical activity in during your day
• ParticipACTION - Physical Activity Videos

Many Canadians know that physical activity is important for overall health and want to be active, but still less than half of us meet the recommendations for moderate-to-vigorous activity and daily steps. Time, cost, lack of motivation, tiredness, and weather are key barriers to being active.

A few tips for overcoming barriers:

• Choose activities that you enjoy and have fun
• Build your confidence by working with a recreation professional who can explain how to do exercises correctly and avoid injury
• Set small, manageable, and realistic goals for adding activity (e.g., a 10-minute walk may be easier to fit in than a 30-minute walk)
• Schedule movement into your day, just like other important activities
• Disconnect from social media and replace time scrolling with physical activity
• Listen to a podcast, audiobook, or music while walking, stretching, or doing chores
• Try active video games instead of sedentary ones
• Boost your mood by being active outside in nature
• Energize yourself by eating well and getting enough sleep

More information and tips:

• ParticipACTION - How to move past 5 common physical activity barriers
• ParticipACTION - 6 sneaky physical activity time thieves (and how to outsmart them)

Active play during the early years is critical for healthy physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. Early childhood educators can support active play programming and help young children develop important physical literacy and fundamental movement skills.

ActivePlay.ca provides free videos, posters, and articles to show how to deliver important play-based physical activities in a wide variety of indoor and outdoor settings.

Learn Through Active Play is a free program for early childhood educators and child care professionals to help build their understanding of physical literacy and create enriching learning environments.

The 24-Hour Movement Guidelines recommend trading indoor activities for outdoor activities. Active outdoor play helps children build resilience, self-regulation, and skills to deal with stress. Outdoor Play Canada has resources to support outdoor early childhood education, such as the toolkit liked below.

• Risk-Benefit Assessment for Outdoor Play: A Canadian Toolkit

Children and youth spend a large portion of their day at school, making it an ideal setting to integrate daily movement and build healthy habits.

Our School Health page has resources for elementary and secondary school teachers to support the physical and health education curriculum. Elementary schools are required by Policy/Program Memorandum 138 to provide a minimum of 20 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity during instructional time to all students each school day.

Only 7.5% school-aged children in Algoma use active modes of transportation, such as walking, biking, rollerblading, or scooting, to get to school. Walking or wheeling to school can be hard in rural areas and can be challenging during the snowy winter months. Where and when feasible, schools can work with parents, public health, and other school partners to increase active transportation to school. Ontario Active School Travel also has helpful information and tools.

Special attention should be given to providing fun, inclusive, and positive programs and environments for girls to enjoy physical activity. In Ontario, only 28.6% of girls aged 12-17 were at or above the recommended level of physical activity in 2021. This is compared to 48.5% of boys the same age.

Adults spend roughly 60% of their day at work, making it an ideal setting to integrate daily movement. Employers can encourage physical activity through education, policy, and creating supportive environments. It makes good business sense, as healthy employees are happy, productive, and more present at work.

Ways to encourage physical activity in the workplace:

• Post maps of nearby walking routes with various times/distances for staff to use during their break or lunch
• Offer ergonomic assessments of workstations to prevent strains and injuries that can inhibit physical activity
• Provide a standing desk option for workstations
• Create a space for secure bike storage for staff who bike to work
• Integrate active time (e.g., standing, stretching) into meetings
• Ensure stairs are safe and accessible
• Offer opportunities for staff to be active together, such as an exercise class or walking/jogging group
• Provide a room or space with basic equipment where staff can stretch and/or exercise
• Develop a flextime policy that allows staff to adjust their working hours to accommodate physical activity (e.g., a lunchtime exercise class)
• Use health spending accounts to help pay for memberships and/or team registration fees
• Register a workplace team for a community event, like a charitable run or golf tournament

Public health is available to consult with workplaces on using health promotion strategies to support physical activity.

How communities are designed can encourage and enable people to be active in their everyday lives. Offering opportunities for people to be active and social also helps enhance community belonging.

A few ways municipalities can support physical activity include:

• Designing streets and transportation networks that are safe, accessible for all ages, and support active modes of transportation
• Creating connected and walkable neighbourhoods
• Prioritizing the preservation of and access to parks, green spaces, and natural environments
• Investing in new and updating existing recreation infrastructure
• Offering free or low-cost recreational opportunities for all ages and abilities
• Including culturally relevant activities that make connections to the land and reinforce cultural identity
• Helping parents or guardians be active while attending children’s activities by providing walking maps, a walking track, or stationary bikes in recreation facilities
• Supporting open streets programs that close streets to cars and encourage walking, as well as other forms of physical activity

The resources below are helpful tools for integrating health into planning and identifying opportunities to support physical activity.

• BC Centre for Disease Control - Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit
• Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute - A Standardized Tool for municipalities to evaluate sport, physical activity and recreation opportunities 

Public health can support municipal partners by providing evidence-based recommendations and community health data to support decision making. 

Algoma is full of natural beauty to explore and experience! Find places where you can hike, bike, ski, snowshoe, canoe, kayak, or bird watch on the Algoma Country website.

Many municipalities also have information about parks, recreation, and outdoor skating rinks on their websites.

North Algoma

• Dubreuilville
• Wawa
• White River

Sault Ste. Marie & Area

• Prince Township
• Sault Ste. Marie

Central Algoma

• Blind River
• Bruce Mines
• Echo Bay
• Hilton Beach
• Huron Shores
• Laird
• Jocelyn
• Plummer
• St. Joseph
• Thessalon

Elliot Lake & Area

• Elliot Lake
• North Shore
• Spanish

The health, economic, social, and environmental benefits of active transportation make it a good investment in community well-being. There are a variety of community members with an interest in active transportation, such as municipal departments (transit, planning, tourism, recreation), schools, workplaces, public health, police, cycling enthusiasts, and environmental groups. 

A comprehensive approach means working in partnership on a variety of initiatives, such as policy development, building supportive environments, skill building, and education.

Policy

Developing an active transportation strategy or action plan for the community helps formalize your commitment, set goals, and prioritize actions. It’s also a good way to stay accountable and identify roles and responsibilities for different partners.

Municipalities can support active transportation through land-use planning, Master Plans, and committees. Prioritizing initiatives for people who are less likely to own a car and more likely to choose active travel and public transit (e.g., lower-income families, newcomers, people with disabilities or health challenges) can help reduce health inequities.

Supportive Environments

Convenience, accessibility, and feeling safe are key factors that make people choose active modes of travel. The following elements of the built environment help make it easy and safe for people to walk, bike, or roll to where they need to go.

The following elements of the built environment help make it easy and safe for people for walk, bike, or roll to where they need to go:

• Separated bike lanes
• Streets designed in a grid pattern
• Well-connected trails, paths, sidewalks, and crosswalks
• Good street lighting and street furniture
• Neighbourhoods with a variety of stores, restaurants, and community services close to home (e.g., 15-minutes cities)
• Places to safely store and/or lock up a bike

Skill Building and Education

People are more likely to do something when they see a benefit, have the skills and confidence to do it, and enjoy it.

Below are a few ideas to help build a positive active transportation culture.

• Deliver road safety awareness programs in schools to help children learn the rules of the road and proper safety precautions
• Offer cycling programs in the community (e.g., CAN-BIKE )
• Organize fun community events and challenges, such as bike rodeos, group rides, and Bike to Work/School Week
• Plan active routes to school and organize a walking school bus or bike train (see more at Ontario Active School Travel)

More Information

• Bicycle Friendly Communities - Share the Road Cycling Coalition
• #CycleON Ontario’s Cycling Strategy
• Ontario Cycling

BIKE LANE BASICS

TIPS FOR DRIVERS

TIPS FOR PEDESTRIANS

• Early Years 0-4
• Children & Youth 5-17
• Adults 18-64+
• Adults 65+

Under the Ontario Highway Traffic Act (HTA), a bicycle is a vehicle, so cyclists must follow the rules of the road. The HTA also requires anyone under the age of 18 to wear a safety approved bicycle helmet.

By law, bicycles must have: 

• bell or horn
• lights and reflectors:
  • a white light mounted on front of your bike
  • a red light or reflector on the back at night
• reflective tape:
  • white reflective tape on the front forks
  • red reflective tape on the rear forks

TIPS FOR CYCLISTS

• Wear a safety approved bicycle helmet.
• Adjust the bicycle to fit your height.
• Keep both feet on the pedals.
• Keep pant legs tucked in.
• Always wear closed-toed shoes.
• Keep your bicycle in good repair.
• Do an ABC check before you ride:
  • A is for Air in your tires
  • B is for Brakes and Bars
  • C is for Chain and Crank
• Control your bicycle by keeping both hands on the handlebars, unless you are signaling to turn.
• See and be seen. Wear bright, neon, fluorescent or reflective clothing (yellow and white stand out best at night).
• Use pedal reflectors and reflective materials on wrists, ankles, and heels.
• Watch for and avoid road hazards such as debris, potholes, ice, broken glass, puddles, gravel, sharp rocks, and dogs!
• Consider registering your bike with the police to help recover your bicycle if stolen.

More Information

Cycling in Ontario | ontario.ca

The Ontario Highway Traffic Act (HTA) requires children and youth under the age of 18 to wear a safety approved bicycle helmet. Everyone should wear a helmet to reduce the risk of permanent injury or death.

Wear your helmet right every time! A helmet that does not fit correctly will not protect you as well in a crash. Follow the 2V1 rule of helmet fitting. 

Helmet Do’s

• Replace your helmet after 5 years (plastics dry out).
• Replace your helmet after a crash or dropping your helmet hard (foam inside helmet can crack), even if there is no visible damage.
• Parents, coaches, educators are encouraged to model safe, responsible behaviours, like wearing a properly fitted helmet when biking.

Helmet No-No's

• No high ponytails
• No hats under helmet
• No added stickers on helmet
• No character attachments
• No throwing helmet around
• No using cracked or dented helmets

Tips to help you get your kids to wear their helmets:

1. Start early. Get into the helmet habit with your child's very first set of wheels.
2. Take your child shopping. Let your child pick out the helmet he or she likes.
3. Find the right fit. Try helmets on in the store.
4. Explain. Tell your child how a helmet protects the head and brain.
5. Positive re-enforcement. Praise and reward your child for wearing a helmet.
6. Be firm. Always insist your child wears a helmet when he or she is out on wheels.
7. Be a role model. When you're out on wheels, wear your own helmet.