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Kamloops  

Kamloops Snowmobile Association's shelter torched along with logging company pickup

Snowmobilers lose shelter

The Kamloops Snowmobilers Association (KSA) is "disappointed to say the least," says president Joe Boyle after one of their shelters was torched this week.

A pair of fires was reported by a hunter headed down Sawmill Lake Forest Service Road early on Wednesday morning (Oct. 28). Boyle says the hunter first passed a logging company's pickup truck that was fully engulfed in flames at the 29-km marker.

A couple of kilometres further, he came up on the KSA's chalet, which has a shelter next to it.

Well, it had a shelter.

"He saw there was a building that had been torched," Boyle tells Castanet. "That was one of our buildings at the KSA chalet."

The day shelter was a 20-foot-by-12-foot wooden building with a metal roof. Inside, there was a table, benches, a wood burning stove and a stock of wood.

"It was something we had built in the last year and brought up there for anyone who was out and about," Boyle explains.

He says B.C. law requires any structure built in the backwoods needs to be left unlocked for anyone needing shelter. The KSA has their chalet at that location, which is a larger, more robust structure, which they keep locked. The day shelter is left unlocked.

Boyle says learning of the fire was "horrible."

"There was probably, between a number of our members... hundreds of hours put into the construction of the building," he says.

"A lot of time and effort spent on this and taken up there," he adds.

After the hunter let police know about the fire, police got in contact with Boyle.

"They do have a fairly good idea of who it was done by, but that’s all we know," he says. "They’re following up on some information they’ve got."

He notes that vandalism is something those who work and recreate in the backwoods face on a regular basis.

"It’s so remote. You’re leaving yourself wide open for vandalism of this sort." 

The snowmobilers association has had fuel stolen multiple times, along with their groomer (which was found damaged), just to name a few instances.

"There’s people out there that have nothing better to do than be destructive," Boyle says. 

However, the KSA isn't discouraged. Boyle tells Castanet there's already discussion about getting a new shelter built as the season for snowmobiling arrives.

"It’s going to be tough," he says. "We think that within a month we can get something up there, but it’s going to be a monumental task."

"But we will rebuild!"



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