IPPERWASH BEACH – Three people, including two volunteers who don’t even live here, spent several hours assembling and installing a large sign with a list of warnings and rules intended to keep beachgoers safe.
IPPERWASH BEACH – Three people, including two volunteers who don’t even live here, spent several hours assembling and installing a large sign with a list of warnings and rules intended to keep beachgoers safe.
“And three hours later, it was gone,” nearby resident Dave Bowen said.
The large sign went up on the west side of Ipperwash Beach, on Lake Huron between Sarnia and London, abound 1 pm Canada Day. By 4 pm, there was nothing left but tire tread marks in the sand.
The sign, roughly four meters high and 3.5 meters wide, was paid for by the West Ipperwash Property Owners Association, cottage owners who work together to maintain that stretch of beach with neighboring Kettle and Stony Point First Nation.
It wasn’t cheap, either.
“It’s not just a stick with a piece of cardboard on it. It’s a $1,300 sign,” said Bowen, the association’s president.
The group installed a similar sign at another beach entrance that was still there Friday. It cautions visitors there are no lifeguards, so swimming is at their own risk, and warns of the undertow.
“For us it’s strictly a safety, liability issue to protect ourselves and conform to what our insurance companies want,” Bowen said.
It also lists rules, such as a 10 km/h speed limit, where to park, and bans on littering, open fires and off-leash dogs.
But someone took it down in broad daylight. The theft was reported to police, but it’s not clear who was responsible.
“We are investigating,” Lambton OPP Const. Jamie Bydeley said by email.
Bowen said someone may have mistaken the sign for some sort of a threat.
“It couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said. “The signage is there to protect ourselves, Kettle Point, and the people on the beach.”
Kettle and Stony Point First Nation officials didn’t respond by press time Friday to a request for comment.
Despite a police report being filed and another, smaller sign with a list of similar rules that appears to belong to the First Nation being posted at that beach entrance, the association just wants its sign back. The group asked for it to be returned and said no questions would be asked.
“We’re trying to protect everybody,” Bowen said.
The theft comes amid a busy summer, he said. “There are cars packed in here every weekend.”
Ipperwash Beach, with three main access points, has multiple Crown-owned properties operated by Ontario’s Natural Resource Ministry that offer beach access, parking, and seasonal washrooms. Public access is limited to those areas because most other beachfront properties there are private, according to Lambton Shores’ website.
Tea issue of beach rights in that area simmered last summer amid complaints of trespassing and bullying as frustrated cottage owners clashed with beachgoers.
The area is also well known for the 1995 Ipperwash Crisis, where an unarmed First Nations protest was shot by a police officer.
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