This Road Already Exists - It Just Doesn’t Exist on Paper

One of the strangest parts of this whole experience has been realizing that a road can be real in every practical sense… and still somehow not count.

The access route to our land isn’t a line we drew on a map. It’s a long-established county road allowance that’s been in place since the area was annexed decades ago in 1977. You can see it on the ground. You can drive it. You can follow the tracks where generations of rural use have worn a path into the prairie.

It has multiple approaches.
It connects to other working land.
And it’s been used by more than just us.

Over the years, this corridor has served farmers, agricultural operations, and pipeline companies accessing their right-of-way. Temporary permits have been issued for over 18 years. Equipment has gone in and out. When sections got rough, users brought in gravel or did basic improvements to keep things passable. It’s never been pristine, but it’s been functional.

In rural terms, that’s what makes something a road.

No one treated it like a private driveway. It’s always operated more like a shared access corridor, the kind that quietly supports working land without much paperwork or attention.

Until someone needs a development permit.

That’s when everything changes.
Suddenly, decades of real-world use don’t carry much weight if the road was never built to modern engineered standards or formally upgraded on paper.

It’s a bit like a well-worn gravel trail that everyone’s used for years, farmers, hunters, riders, neighbours, and then one day someone needs an official permit to cross it, and now the trail has to become a highway. and industrial users will continue to get temporary permits to this day.

We’re not asking for a subdivision road.
We’re not trying to open up dozens of new lots.

We’re asking a bigger, quieter question:
How are shared agricultural access corridors supposed to work in today’s rules, when they were never built for yesterday’s ones?

Because out here, roads didn’t start as engineering projects.
They started as necessity. And many of them still function that way today.

You’re reading Part 2 of “Field Notes on a Rural Road.”

Tomorrow: Why River Valley Farmland Is Different
How geography, slopes, and water shape access in ways maps don’t always show.