BarryB wrote:

I imagine that when enough problems are caused by uneducated or disruptive canoe users, the pressure to do so will probably increase. My questions are ... Are we approaching that point already? And would doing so enable the province to totally abandon educational efforts and simply concentrate on enforcement efforts?

Makes sense, eliminate a 60 thousand dollar a year educational  job and replace it with a 250 thousand dollar a year enforcement job.

This reminds me of the folks that want to license bicycles for some misguided reason.

Meanwhile, my registration number on my canoe is 'Nova Craft Canoe'.

 

I'm not in favour of registration #s for canoes or other small watercraft. That introduces paperwork that doesn't have any obvious connection to the user behaviour. 

For reference, Transport Canada has introduced a requirement this year to start renewing registrations for the boats that already have registration #'s. Until now, boat registrations have been permanent. One likely reason to introduce renewals is because changing the registered ownership probably wasn't happening very much, particularly in cases like aluminum cottage boats that last forever and  had been in the family and no one would even think of updating the ownership when the 'paper' owner died. I expect that updating ownerships can be done online now, but last time we had to do one it was a real pain to even figure out how to get a transfer form and where to mail it. 

Bottom line, registering canoes and other small boats wouldn't do anything to impact the user behaviour. 

Considering every provincial government body is desperately trying to cut costs, I can't see any momentum to do this.  If they are shutting down permit offices, it's not likely they will add any other enforcement and it's been pretty rare to see wardens in the backcountry. Without enforcement, all we'd have is a tip line for people to complain to without any reasonable means of actually doing anything about it.

I get the intent and the need. Since covid, the new camper long weekend types have gotten worse but without some kind of way of punishing bad behaviour, all we're really left with is planning trips even further from the beaten path.


p.s.  I keep having fantasies of doing a navy seal swim and 'relocating' the paddles of obnoxious groups as they sleep.
 

Last edited by keg (4/09/2026 4:17 pm)

Boat registry is federal, not provincial. I don't know for sure that provinces couldn't implement another layer of boat registry but it doesn't exist today. 

I'd also compare tracking boat "id's" to photo radar - it only identifies the vehicle, it doesn't hold an individual responsible. . 

Thinking from a park/wildlife/habitat management perspective, I think there would be a far greater impact if the park was to shut down sites periodically for recovery and if they permanently closed the many sites that don't have proper space for either the campsite or the thunderbox. Some that stick out for me are the sites squeezed between the old rail bed and the lake on Cauchon.