Fish shack owner charged

Ken Johnston

Last Tuesday the ice was not the only thing to go out in Rainy River. An abandoned ice fishing shack went with the ice.
A lone shack, or what was left of it, lay in a pile on the ice at the base of 5th Street in Rainy River. Failure to remove an ice fishing shack can result in fines up to $5,000 for littering.
Ontario Conservation Officer Mark Gadawski of Fort Frances said that the owner of the shack was identified and charges have been laid. While most people are fairly responsible and remove their shacks long before ice out, Gadawski said, “Ice fishing shack policies are under review for Northwestern Ontario.”
Currently shacks are regulated in Southern and Eastern Ontario. Owners are required to have numbers on the shack so that owners of them can be identified in the event there are violations like the one in Rainy River last week. However, “This (incident) is more the exception than the rule in this region,” said Gadawski. He noted that like anyone, MNR does not want to have to impose more regulations on the public, but as the numbers of shacks grow each year there is growing movement towards regulating them.
On the U.S. side of the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods the owners have to have clearly marked shacks identifying owners. They also have to remove them by March 1st of each year.
Gadawski said he does not think there is a fee charged by MNR to register the shacks in the rest of Ontario.