At the International Plowing Match this year, there were questions about snowmobile trails. This brought back memories from ten years ago when the Liberal Government brought in Bill 100, Supporting Ontario’s Trails Act 2016. Under the “Purposes”, Section 1(4) To protect trails for today’s generation and future generations, Sect 12 of this act is under the heading of “Easements”.
Now, no property owner is likely to grant an easement across his property, the landowner usually gives permission for the use of a snowmobile trail across their property with no benefit for themselves. Our OLA Director of research brought this bill to our attention, along with a 1997 court case, Hill vs Nova Scotia. This court case clarified that a verbal agreement is valid as an easement. SCARY STUFF! At that time in 2016, we entered into consultations with our local branch of Federation of Snowmobile Clubs. This ensued into a memorandum of understanding document to be provided to the property owner before the winter trail season opened. In this MOU were some very crucial items. One of them was a solid start and end date for the use of the trail. This would break the “continual use” that was verbally given previously. Section 9 of this document was for “Additional Conditions”. We feel with this document our property was protected. There has been updates to this MOU since then but the essence is still the same.
At this time, I should point out the Snowmobile association never had any intention of registering an easement, but because of Bill 100, the Trails Bill, we felt we had to protect property owners from potential Government overreach. I am also glad to see our work from ten years ago is still in effect.
If you allow a snowmobile trail across your property, be sure to fill out the MOU to protect you and your property for the future.
Happy sledding.