THUNDER BAY — A local pilot says many of the hundreds of recent daily visitors to the chunks of blue ice that have built up on the Thunder Bay waterfront may not realize it, but they are trespassing.
There's an easily visible No Trespassing sign on the gate at the end of Shipyard Road, however Dan Murray says it's being disregarded, possibly because the paper mill that used to be there has been torn down.
Accessing the picturesque ice requires entering the former Superior Fine Papers property, now owned by the operators of Wilderness North Air.
The company's plans for the site were detailed in a Tbnewswatch story last year.
Since acquiring the property, Wilderness North Air has developed a taxiway and runway for its wheeled aircraft. A video it posted to YouTube shows the runway in relation to the shoreline.
Murray, the company's chief pilot, says the recent media coverage about the blue ice has attracted public attention that has, in turn, created some safety issues.
He's asking local residents to be both respectful and careful.
"The majority of people believe they are using abandoned land, however this is all the property of Wilderness North. The road that leads to the point is not a road, it is a taxiway for our aircraft. The road along the shoreline is not a road, it's our runway," Murray wrote in a social media post this week.
He said the company invested a large sum of money making the upgrades and picking up debris from the former paper mill to avoid damage to aircraft.
"I saw a family walking and the child was throwing debris onto our taxiway. A single aircraft tire is a $1,500 cost," Murray noted.
He also wrote "We've had to barricade our parking lot as people disregard No Trespassing signs and drive wherever they want. We even had one try and destroy property by driving over a wooden stop gate."
Safety concerns will mount in the coming weeks as the runway comes into use for the new season.
Murray said the company hopes to avoid calling the police, but it may come to that.
"The last thing we need is people wandering around oblivous to where they are and an airplane showing up right beside them with a spinning propeller," Murray warned.
He said all the coming and going has already created ruts in the runway
"People don't realize this is our workspace."
Some photographers who've dropped by to take pictures of the ice have checked in to ask permission first.
Murray said "We don't want to be out there telling everybody we're going to call the cops," he said. "Just be aware this is our property."
He also cautioned that it's important to know where the land ends and the water begins.
"When you're on the road, like our runway, when you go down it looks like flat, snow-covered ground, but you're on ice-covered water. The blue ice is about 60 feet away from shore. A lot of people don't realize that. They're thinking they're walking over a beach."
The Thunder Bay Fire Service has already cautioned the public that no one should venture onto the ice or attempt to climb onto the ice chunks.
