KENNETCOOK, N.S. — Hants County ATV enthusiasts are shaking their heads in disbelief at what appears to be a senseless act of vandalism to a popular trail in Kennetcook.
Greg Grant, the vice president of Fundy ATVenturers ATV Club, said a 10-metre trail bridge, located between Kennetcook and the Rhines Road, was damaged after an RV fire that occurred sometime between Aug. 24 and suppertime Aug. 25. The bridge is now closed until the club can assess the damage.
“Probably everybody that uses the trail is put out and is insulted that someone would do something that stupid to impede on someone else's enjoyment,” Grant said in a phone interview.
“We've got a die-hard group of people that do a whack of work, just out of their free time and the goodness of their heart. We have some local companies that support us big time with free equipment whenever they can. It's very disheartening to those people,” he said.
Grant said a group of ATV riders drove over the bridge around 10 p.m. Aug. 24. When they returned the next day, they spotted the RV wreckage “with one of the tires still smoking.”
They alerted the Kennetcook Fire Department of the charred remains, and police were notified.
“I have suspicions that it's probably either legitimately stolen or it was someone trying to pull an insurance scam to get rid of an RV. No one would take an RV back that road; they would know long beforehand, if it was something that they cared about, that they weren't where they should be,” Grant said.
“The only other option would be just some idiot got an RV cheap, beat it around and took it in there and thought it'd be funny to burn it.”
Grant said the community is lucky the fire was contained to the RV and bridge.
“It was a huge risk for a forest fire... it would have burned the woods right from Nine Mile River to Shubie to Maitland; probably including my own house,” he said, noting he lives about three miles away.
Grant said the club hasn’t had the chance to assess the structural integrity of the bridge to determine if it could be salvaged. In the meantime, they’re trying to secure another route.
“We've got it blocked and we're signing around to an alternate route once we get permissions from the landowners,” he said, adding they’re telling riders not to drive through the brook.
“We don't want that to happen. We try and do everything as right as we can,” he said.
“Our club has a small, very active group that works very hard to keep the trails up so they're in great shape for everybody to use. That particular trail is not just used by bikes and snowmobiles,” he said, adding there are cyclists, horseback riders and hikers that all assess it regularly.
The bridge was part of a $100,000 trail project that was completed several years ago. Grant said the bridge component cost about $25,000, and could cost as much as $50,000 to replace this time around. He hopes once an engineer is able to assess the bridge, it will be safe enough to reopen.
“The shape and position of it has definitely changed from there being an immense amount of heat there. There was tires and I'm assuming gas or diesel, whatever powered the motor home (burning on the bridge),” he said.
“My hope is that it's salvageable and we can get away with just having to clean up around it. That'll be expensive enough, but if it's not, the trail will probably be down for some time until we raise and secure some funding and materials to replace it.”
Grant said they have encountered some trail damage in the past but nothing like this.
“You have the odd person that will shoot a sign or tear a sign down or just silly stuff like that, but nothing to this financial level.”
Grant said the club is hopeful someone will come forward with information that could lead to an arrest in the case.
RCMP Cpl. Lisa Croteau said East Hants RCMP responded to a suspicious vehicle fire around 2 p.m. Aug. 25 on an ATV trail near Rhines Road.
She said no one was injured in the fire and confirmed that the investigation is ongoing.
