Norwood group holding out hope stolen canoe will be returned

It’s been three days since a red canoe was stolen from behind Nordale School on Birchdale Avenue.

The canoe is part of a new accessible nature playground currently under construction. It was stolen sometime overnight Saturday into Sunday morning.

Trina McFadyen is one of the co-chairs of the Nordale Accessible Nature Playground project and said she was disheartened to learn it was snatched.

“We’ve worked so hard to get to this point. It’s been four years and thousands of volunteer hours, so for someone to come onto the school playground and take a play element from kids it’s incredibly disheartening,” McFadyen said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We've worked so hard to get to this point. It's been four years and thousands of volunteer hours, so for someone to come onto the school playground and take a play element from kids it's incredibly disheartening," McFadyen said.

Once the group realized it was gone, members started to scour buy-and-sell websites, when they came across an ad they believed to be for their canoe.

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McFadyen said the ad wasn’t up for long, but a member was able to take a screenshot of it, before it disappeared.

They forwarded it to Ray Dubois, the president and owner of Ron Paul Garden Centre. Dubois is the project manager for the accessible playground.

Dubois said when he saw the ad, one thing came to mind.

“Let’s find the ad, let’s go and let’s tell them that we want to buy the canoe, and just go and take it back,” Dubois recalled.

He noticed the ad included a postal code and did a little digging.

“We went onto Google and typed in the postal code, and it gave us the odd number block on Eugenie Street, and so then we went there and started looking around,” Dubois said.

“I thought ‘what’s the harm, if I see the canoe at least I’ll know where it is, and I’ll call the cops.'”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I thought 'what's the harm, if I see the canoe at least I'll know where it is, and I'll call the cops.'"

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But Winnipeg Police Service said that’s exactly what you should not do.

“Sometimes people who have committed property crimes are also known to commit violent crimes,” Cst. Rob Carver said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Sometimes people who have committed property crimes are also known to commit violent crimes," Cst. Rob Carver said.

“If you have that information, send it to us, in the way that’s always been sent to us, on the non-emergency number. If it’s something really critical, you could call 9-1-1.”

Carver added there’s a growing trend of people reporting crime through the police’s social media accounts. Carver said that isn’t always effective, because the accounts aren’t monitored 24-hours a day.

Carver stressed to not go after stolen property yourself, always call police.

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Back at the park, construction continues.

McFadyen posted her own ad in hopes of getting the canoe back.

“We have a screen shot of the original ad of the stolen canoe. So we let people know that it was stolen and if the ad reappears to let us know and let police know,” McFadyen said.

“If someone bought the canoe by accident and didn’t realize it was stolen, we’ll hope you’ll do the right thing and contact us and police and return it, no questions asked.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "If someone bought the canoe by accident and didn't realize it was stolen, we'll hope you'll do the right thing and contact us and police and return it, no questions asked."

The accessible park should be open in about a week. Dubois said by then everything will be anchored down.