Accessing Crown Land

koesdibyo

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Orillia, Ontario
With the deer season approaching, I wanted to start scouting some crown land areas I found using the atlas and my backroads map. I had a rare day off from school, and figured why not get some scouting and maybe get some grouse. Turned out to be a wonderful day as well... only problem was I never did hit any crown land.

The first parcel I wanted to check out was only accessible by crossing a river (black river), so I continued on to a couple other places I had scoped out online. The majority were surrounded by private property, with no way of access without permission - Near Sadawa.

I did find one that was accessible by a snowmobile trail and this is what I'd like to know mainly about. In my backroads map, it documents it as a snowmobile trail, and I went up the trail a bit and didnt notice any "no trespassing" signs. Are snowmobile trails privately owned, or can they be accessed by public? I do have a small 4x4 that I could fit through the trail and get to the crown land easier/faster than walking in, but thats what I am unsure of if I am allowed to or not?

Aside from asking permission from land owners, is there other ways around getting access to these surrounded crown land areas? Or in the case of the snowmobile trailed one, is that legally accessible for me to be on to get to the land?

Today didnt fully go out the way I had hoped, but it was nice to be out in some more areas of the province I havent been yet.
 
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I will never understand why users of this site do not put their location in their profile, at least the fricken Province.
We live in a big country with different situations dependant on where you are actually getting your boots dirty.
A person’s province should be a mandatory profile input. Rant done :)
 
A lot of snowmobile trails are built on private land and legally you are not supposed to use them unless your buy an OFSC trail pass and are on a snowmobile. So that scratches them out from hunting.

It depends on the individual trail and is impossible for anyone to give you the OK on a trail without naming specifics. If your atlas shows it going through private land chances are its a no go for hunting. If its built on a road allowance, then its likely OK. If the trail is only built on Crown land then you are legally able to use the the trail to access additional crown land to hunt. But ONLY if its on Crown.
 
I'm not sure how Ontario laws are, but suspect they're very similar as here. Public snowmobile trails can and do cross private land here in MB. The provincial snowmobile association(Snoman) has the landowner sign a waiver that they(landowner) are not held liable for accidents, but the snowmobilers are covered through their trail pass and association's insurance. This doesn't give a carte blanche to trespass, it only applies for snowmobile use and nothing else, so no hunting.
We have road allowances here to allow access to crown land via private. Every mile in an east-west direction, every 2 miles in north-south directions, which means you can walk the borderlines of private. However, most all land here is split up into 160 acres, 1/2 mile squared. Perhaps someone can affirm that Ontario's the same?
 
I'm not sure how Ontario laws are, but suspect they're very similar as here. Public snowmobile trails can and do cross private land here in MB. The provincial snowmobile association(Snoman) has the landowner sign a waiver that they(landowner) are not held liable for accidents, but the snowmobilers are covered through their trail pass and association's insurance. This doesn't give a carte blanche to trespass, it only applies for snowmobile use and nothing else, so no hunting.
We have road allowances here to allow access to crown land via private. Every mile in an east-west direction, every 2 miles in north-south directions, which means you can walk the borderlines of private. However, most all land here is split up into 160 acres, 1/2 mile squared. Perhaps someone can affirm that Ontario's the same?

We typically have 100 acre lots in Ontario and they can have road allowances between them. However the road allowances typically arent marked so its not exactly easy to figure out where they are.
 
Well that sucks about the snowmobile trail being a no-go :(

Are there any special requirements to hunt on conservation reserves? Specifically, Severn River Conservation Reserve

I was anticipating getting the OFAH membership and using the Simcoe forests that are available to OFAH members for hunting... but due to me not getting either of my controlled draw dates, and area 76B being a bow-only area, that cancels that out. I was really looking forward to getting out to a bunch of different places in the area to take in all of the different sceneries the area has to offer; one of the big reasons I decided to get into hunting.

Being in school, I dont have the luxory to travel far and take days off (1 year expediated course, so no days off; only stat days and of course today for mid-term examinations being run) and doing any travelling for hunting. I wanted to get out early mornings locally for a couple hours and make it back in time to attend my class (afternoon classes). My next bet was trying some of the crown land in the area, but thats looking to be harder to do than I anticipated.
 
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