Better Farming - January 2017

The Business of

Ontario Agriculture

Better Farming

January 2017

TROUBLE

WITH

TRAILS

But Bob Weirmeir, owner of a hobby

farm and small-engines business near

Hanover in Grey County and president

of the Saugeen Regional Landowners

Association, says the legislation is still

very much top of mind among farmers.

He says a Nova Scotia court case in

the 1990s sets

a legal

precedent for establishing third-party

permanent access to a property if it

could be proved consent had been

given and the access was continuous.

(Weirmeir says the case’s successful

argument for access hinged only on a

verbal agreement. Court documents

connected to the case refer to the

presence of both verbal and written

agreements.)

The Ontario trails legislation’s

presence creates an unnecessary

framework, and frameworks are easy to

change with amendments, he says.

“I think if the trail bill was rescinded

we could carry on,” he says.

Walker suggests a different reason

for farmers’ continued reluctance to

allow trails on their property:

trespassers, in particular people

using a trail dedicated to one use for

a different type of use.

“I have yet to have a

farmer say to me ‘I don’t

want snowmobiles on my

property.’ But what I do

get is, it’s the trail; it’s the

fact that it’s the ATVs

(that use the trail),” he says. Along with

being president of his local club, Walker

manages operations for the provincial

snowmobile federation’s District 9, an

area bounded by Lake Huron and

Georgian Bay shorelines in the north

and west, a line in the south that runs

through Goderich, Milverton and

Dundalk, and, in the east, the Beaver

Valley.

And it’s not just riders of ATVs, he

says. “It’s the horseback riders, it’s the

walkers, it’s the mud trucks. It’s every-

thing else that comes with the fact that

there is or there was a trail there.”

Walker says he’s run into risky

situations on land he owns and uses for

hunting. “Last year I’m sitting up in my

tree stand, and here comes these two

horseback riders.” They had seen the

trespassing signs but didn’t think the

signs applied to them. “We were in bow

season.”

Walker says trails and their formal

agreements define places for travel and

types of use. Many of the snowmobile

trails in his district are dedicated to that

single use. The clubs have widened

those that are multi-use to create room

for sharing. “As a district, we’ve probably

spent $200,000 since last October (2015)

Graham Snyder, who farms near Breslau in the Waterloo

Region, says over the past 25 years he’s caught three to

four different groups riding ATVs on the snowmobile

trail on his farm in the spring.

In any given snowmobile season, traffic averages 500

sleds a week along his trail, so the percentage is low.

(Traffic can reach the thousands at the centre of the trail

system during the same time period, he says.)

“Once you explain to them how fortunate we are to

have the trail in the winter time, they soon respect that

… And they apologize and leave,” he says.

But Snyder, a former vice-president of the Ontario

Federation of Snowmobile Clubs, acknowledges that

people who use trails in unintended ways are a signifi-

cant concern for farmers.

BobWeirmeir, president of the Saugeen Regional

Landowners Association, says the concern is not just

about destroyed crops but also the safety of trespassers.

“Actually my biggest concern would be the fellow

who has granted the snowmobile trail through the

winter,” he says. “It’s marked out on a GPS and people

use it as a walking trail. And I can see a family going

through a man’s cornfield in the fall and a little girl or

something say, ‘what’s that noise out there’ and seeing

what it is.

“The picture in my mind is so devastating on what

could happen. Because in the big combines you just

can’t see.”

Patrick Connor, executive director of the Ontario

Trails Council and Canadian Trails Federation board

member, says the key to making trails safer is dedicating

trails to specific uses.

“It makes the trail system safer and puts the trails

where people should be using them according to that

specific use.”

But 92 per cent of Ontario’s 80,000-kilometre trail

system is mixed use, and to ensure the presence of

dedicated and diversified trails, more trails are needed,

he says.

Tom Black, president of the Ontario Landowners

Association, challenges the call for more trails.

“This is like having a pipeline across your property;

you can never use that piece of property again,” he

says.

Dedicated trails prevent trespassers, says trail council head