Here’s a little story about getting booked by the cops on the way home from our trip across Canada. After leaving Banff Thursday morning, we drove straight through to Ontario with only a few stops for gas, food and bathroom breaks. We stopped at a little diner in Wawa, Ontario, which is not too far from Sault Ste. Marie. It was probably about 8pm on Friday, as it was just getting dark. We were pretty tired from non-stop driving, so we pulled off the road at a little beach area for a rest. We noticed other people on the beach were having fires, so we made a little fire, grabbed a couple beers and relaxed on the beach, enjoying the view.
Down the beach, one of the fires went out and people started walking toward us. We figured they were coming by to say hi, or maybe even offer us some firewood since it looked like they were leaving. I was about to offer them a beer, but then we realized something wasn’t quite right. The two guys looked somewhat official, with their walkie-talkies and flashlights pointed as us. It turns out they were “Conservation Officers” and they had nothing better to do on a Friday night.
The officers weren’t happy about us drinking beers. It was actually only Spencer and I drinking, since Mike doesn’t like beer and he was going to be driving the next shift. Apparently we were breaking a law by “consuming liquor in other than licenced premises, residence or private place”, for which we received $125 fines:
I understand these officers have a job to do, but we weren’t having a party on the beach or anything crazy. Spencer and I just had a beer each, and just wanted to rest for an hour or so until we felt ready to hit the road again. But they gave us the fines, confiscated the whole case of beer and kept us waiting around for almost 45 minutes while they figured out how to write us our tickets. I swear it was their first time writing anyone a ticket, and they even seemed a bit nervous (Mike’s homemade bat, “The Winnipegger“, can be a little intimidating).
After we finished up with the cops, we left and ended up having a nap behind some building a few hours later. There was some consolation in the fact that I won $175 at the Thunder Bay casino earlier in the week. But most of that money went towards paying my ticket…