{"id":506521,"date":"2026-01-10T16:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T16:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/506521\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T16:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T16:24:22","slug":"rothesay-puts-an-end-to-traditional-shacks-in-ice-fishing-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/506521\/","title":{"rendered":"Rothesay puts an end to traditional shacks in ice-fishing village"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Mike Donovan doesn\u2019t have a traditional ice-fishing shack in the makeshift village on the Kennebasis River in Rothesay.<\/p>\n

He prefers to fish from his lawn chair or in a small pop-up tent when it\u2019s windy. It\u2019s a more social experience, he said, if he\u2019s not in an enclosed structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did have a shack for a couple years, but I just can’t socialize so I don’t like that,\u201d said Donovan, who has been fishing there for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI usually sit on the lawn chair and \u2026 people come up and talk. You meet so many people from all over. It’s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he\u2019s disappointed the Town of Rothesay has installed a gate<\/a> to prevent people from taking their trucks and cars onto the river and setting up shacks that have been a fixture in the Renforth Wharf area for decades.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Longtime ice-fishing enthusiast says garbage problem has been getting worse:<\/strong>\"\"<\/p>\n

No more ice fishing shacks? Sick of abandoned debris, N.B. town says pop-up tents only<\/p>\n

Years of abandoned shacks and garbage at the Renforth Wharf in Rothesay have led the town to ban anglers from bringing large structures onto the ice.<\/p>\n

For years now, the town has dealt with dilapidated shacks and junk left behind when ice fishing for smelt and hake ends in the spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really unfortunate that the town had to come to this, but we’ve been trying for years to work with the ice fishers to keep the property clean, the ice clean,\u201d said Deputy Mayor Matt Alexander.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was one fishing shack last year that somebody sort of abandoned at the beginning of the year, and it became the community garbage dump on the ice. It got completely full of garbage. Somebody left a Hide-A-Bed \u2026 so at the end of the season we brought it down.”<\/p>\n

\"AMike Donovan mostly fishes from a lawn chair on the open ice or inside his pop-up tent when it’s windy. (Submitted by Mike Donovan)<\/p>\n

Donovan said the problem has gotten worse off the wharf, where 50 to 100 shacks might appear on the ice during winter.<\/p>\n

He and a group of people who care about being good stewards of the area have been helping the town clean up at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a big exodus of people, and they leave a lot of their stuff behind, and then there’s a group of us that come down, and we just start cleaning up everybody’s mess and take truckloads of stuff to the dump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ARothesay Deputy Mayor Matt Alexander said the town would be open to the return of the shacks if the fishing community formed an association that helped keep the area clean. (Mark Leger\/CBC)<\/p>\n

But Donovan said the town should work with the fishing community and provincial and federal departments to make it work, rather than rid the area of the shacks altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of punishing the many for the acts of a few, just have the proper authorities deal with the violators,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alexander said the town is prepared to change its mind and allow shacks back on the ice, but he said the fishing community needs to be involved, rather than rely on the town and other government departments to make sure the area is taken care of.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely would be willing to work with [them] if there was an association that was established that could work with the town and work with everybody that’s out there,\u201d Alexander said. \u201c[We could] make sure that the ice is kept in pristine fashion and that materials are removed at the end of the year, that people are being safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are companies in the area renting pop-up tents and manufactured shacks.<\/p>\n

Jack Ross, the owner of Kennebecasis Ice Adventures, said he has been inundated with requests for tent rentals since the town erected the gate.<\/p>\n

\"AJack Ross, who owns a company that rents tents at the ice-fishing village in Rothesay, says he’s been inundated with requests this year. (Mark Leger\/CBC)<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s been ice-fishing for a long time himself and hopes the town and the fishing community find a resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere still should be hard shacks,\u201d Ross said. \u201cI guess it does work out for me, but hopefully they end it soon and everybody else can get out with the shacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan is worried people who’ve had shacks at Renforth, about 10 kilometres northeast of Saint John, will fish somewhere else, rather than rent or buy tents, bringing about the decline of the yearly winter village.<\/p>\n

\"AnDonovan says that in the past, the village on the ice has been a popular attraction for tourists. (Mark Leger\/CBC)<\/p>\n

He said the colourful, customized shacks have been a big part of the culture of Renforth\u2019s ice fishing village.<\/p>\n

Locals loved them, but so did tourists from as far away as Africa, Asia and Europe, said Donovan.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>I always let them catch fish with my fishing rod,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s just really nice to see that type of culture and people coming together. They just love the shacks and are always taking lots of pictures … there’s a few people every year that set up on the wharf with their easels and they paint the shacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt almost reminded me of the streets of Newfoundland, with all the brightly coloured houses\u2026it was really unique.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":506522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-506521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115871735213945243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}