ANGLIN LAKE, Sask. – The District of Lakeland will declare a natural disaster after heavy snowfall downed thousands of trees blocking trails vital for winter tourism.
The area around Anglin Lake and Christopher Lake has been hardest hit causing local businesses to suffer.
“I’ve been here almost 34 years and this is the deepest, heaviest snow I’ve ever seen and more so it’s broken down or bent more trees than ever before,” said Brad Muir, owner of Sundogs Excursions.
Hundreds of kilometres of winter trails are littered with fallen trees making it extremely difficult to run his sled dogs.
“We’re out there two or three hours at a time with a crew of two or three people, chainsaws, handsaws just cutting and flipping the branches into the forest,” said Muir.
“Right now we’re just running our one hour trips, we’ll have to delay our half day trips for a little bit,” he added.
Heavy, wet snow and lots of it impacted the area in early November. The sheer weight caused some trees to bend and fall.
It is not only affecting the dogsledders but everyone that uses the trails from cross country skiers to hunters and snowmobilers.
“All the years that I’ve been out in the bush I’ve never seen that,” said Henri Giroux, trapper and taxidermist.
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At the moment, Giroux is only able to access around nine of the usual 28 kilometres of trails he uses.
“It makes it really, really tough for us to do any trapping, we’re behind, it’s unreal and we’re losing money,” he said.
Lakeland Reeve Al Christensen says many businesses are struggling.
“We have 200 kilometres of snowmobile trails, we’ve hired an operator they’ve completely taken the trees out of about 15 kilometres, that’s cost $5,000 so overall it could cost $50,000,” said Christensen.
He estimates up to 15 per cent of the forest’s trees have fallen.
“Under the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program we will declare a disaster so that there’s possible funding from the provincial government for clearing some of these trees,” said Christensen.
Despite the disastrous start to the season, operators maintain they are open for business. They are just having to work mighty hard to keep their customers happy.
Christensen says they hope to have all trails open by Christmas.
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