A new launch will be built starting this fall, after failed talks with property owner
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
Public access to the Sturgeon River became more limited this summer as the Field boat launch is no longer accessible and the municipality of West Nipissing has yet to offer an alternative. Around mid-August, residents noticed that the Field boat launch was blocked off and that “Private Property” signs were put up. Surveys done on the riverfront properties in Field revealed that the boat launch is located on the same property as the Smokey’s River Shack chip stand. According to the owner, Dylan Woodcock, he and the municipality tried to reach an agreement to sell that piece of the property, but they could not agree on terms. The municipality has backed out of the negotiations and instead plans on building a new boat launch on municipal property, with CAO Mike Pilon expecting work to begin this fall.
News of the boat launch closure spread quickly on social media, through a post made on the Field Ontario Facebook group on August 15. The post featured a photo of the boat launch blocked off, and commenters wondering what had happened. Woodcock, who purchased the Smokey’s River Shack chip stand in 2025, addressed the comments in a letter, describing the negotiating process and saying they had to block public access as they would be legally liable for any incident on their property, compromising their insurance.
According to the municipal CAO, after learning that the boat launch was encroaching on Woodcock’s property, the town reached out to negotiate a sale or exchange of land to resolve the encroachment issue that predated municipal amalgamation in 1999. “This is pretty commonplace throughout the history of the amalgamation. There’s a bunch of areas where a bunch of weird things happened with previous townships, and previous councils and mayors, and all that stuff. We continue to work to clear up these issues, and this was our intent,” Pilon explains.