Thieves read my blog!
I received a reminder the other day that blogs are not always a good thing. I guess I’m naive but I thought writing a blog that shares my enthusiasm about the outdoors and what I have discovered out there couldn’t have any dire consequences. I was wrong. Last week some idiots broke into my friends hunt camp along Farm Creek, leading into central Ontario’s Islands Lake Forest Reserve, and stole an old 1933 Forest Lands map I once wrote about on my blog. The story was written last year after Mike Kipp and I ventured on a canoe trip to Island Lake. Mike knew the area well since him and his father (and a small group of canoeists) had a hunt camp, titled the Hysert Hunt Club, halfway up Farm Creek. Mike suggested we stay there the first night so he could show me the old map the cabin mates had stored there for a number of years. The government map showed all the old portages that existed back in the 1930s which the forest rangers had used to scout for forest fires and poachers. It was a very cool map and it became the highlight of our trip. We spent a week retracing the old canoe routes throughout the area. Now the map is gone.
The break-in happened sometime late Summer. The hunt club only uses the camp for the Fall hunt and didn’t know about the incident until recently. Another fellow paddler had contacted me about the damage done to the cabin a few weeks back and I sent the information on to Mike. Nothing was known about the map being taken until Mike went up to have a look. The window was smashed, bits of siding torn off the wall, glass was everywhere and much of what was inside had been tossed or kicked around and broken. The worst of it, the map case was opened and all the maps that were inside were scattered about the place — except for the missing old one.
So, here’s the plan. I’m going to assume the thieves that did this are idiots. Why? Because they might have used this blog to gain the knowledge of the map — but they don’t realize that the truly good people, the majority of people who read this blog, will now be looking for them, and the map. It’s good versus evil, and I’d bet on canoeists than idiot thieves any day.
If you hear anything, give me a shout.
