Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Non-Resident Camping on Crown Land in Ontario

This may be a two part debate ,fishing, and hunting.
A bit of irony in that many lodges, or camps are owened by non-residents. Any ideas as to what percent?

Keith,

Yes, when I said going through an outfitter I meant doing business with them.

Jim

That's non-residents of CANADA, not just "non-residents" of Ontario, in the regs.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

Is Ontario one of the few provinces that allows non-citizens to hunt deer without using an outfitter? If so, then that aspect, combined with the reasonable cost of camping on Crown land, may make for an affordable white-tailed deer hunt in the future.

Another option might be a lower cost motel, or a no frills fishing camp. Those do not tend to have a website. Brown Bay Camp on Dinorwic Lake, and McComb's landing on Rainy Lake are two that come to mind. There must be many more as well.

I have some thoughts on this non-resident camping policy.

This policy has absolutely killed the tourist industry in the Nipigon district of Ontario.

There are a lot of local Pike lakes that used to be full of American Campers--now they are completely empty. That was good directly for the local grocery stores, gas stations and resturants. It was also very good, indirectly, for the tourist operators.

Camping gets old in a hurry for most people, especially if you can afford some services. I used to watch young college age kids come up here and camp out with a coleman stove and a tent--next year they showed up in a tent trailer--then a rented RV. As their income increased they started parking at campgrounds with electrical services or rented a cabin. Thier boats progressed from a borrowed canoe on top of thier toyota corrola to a bass boat with 200hp motors.

Unlike west of here the Nipigon District does not have a lot of walleye lakes, they are few and far between. Many of our tourists from the upper midwest left better walleye fishing at home. We do have some outstanding pike fishing but locsl people consider pike rough fish and they aren't targeted.

We also have some outstanding trout fishing--but trout fishermen make up a rather small percentage of fishermen overall.

I have converted some walleye fishermen into speck fishers but I had to hold them by the hand and show them how to do it or beat them over the head with a stick. Now I can't get them off the couch in my living room after 3 or 4 20hour days on the lake.

Jocko--the only good deer hunting in the Nipigon district is closed to non-residents. West of here many of the districts require a guide and, bear in mind, even if you use the services of an outfitter--that outfitter has to buy a mini-land-use permit from the MNR for your campsite. It gets pricey in a hurry.

I used top take several of my top employees on a deer hunt every November after fire-fighting was done for the year. I found it cheaper over-all to take them to Wisconsin rather than Dryden,Kenora or Rainey River.

Used to camp up there and then our local friends told us about that restriction. We ended up switching to the parks, which aren't bad, but not nearly as nice as some of the Crown land settings. Didn't know it would have affected the local tourism that much, becasue we didn't run into non-residents too much.