Almost five years ago, Dustin Grant bought a cabin in the village of B-Say-Tah, overlooking Echo Lake. He had grown up visiting the lake, and his best friend owned the property across the cabin. But after purchasing the lot, he realized he couldn’t get to the cabin by vehicle.
“Right after I bought it, I noticed something was wrong because the map on ISC and what was really going on out here was completely different. I noticed that things had been taken over, over time,” Grant said.
The two roads to access the cabin are blocked. Several buildings have been erected on one of the roads. The other access road was blocked by rocks, and when Grant moved the rocks, the village put up signs reading, ‘No trespassing. No through road.’
“When I first came out here, I said, ‘There’s no way I’m purchasing it if there’s not a right of way back there,’” Grant said. “I went on ISC. My lawyer looked over it and said, ‘Yeah, this looks good.’”
Grant said he took the issue to the village, but the situation remains unresolved.
“I’ve discussed it with the town. They agree that that’s not right, but they don’t do anything about it. So, I’m basically landlocked and we’re going on five summers now,” Grant said.
“We can’t even bring groceries up, because we have no way to get up here anymore,” said Jake Latimer, one of Grant’s friends. “To tell you the truth, we’ve just being going elsewhere. It sucks because he owns this place and we can’t even make the most of it.”
A land title search appears to show the road leading to Grant’s property is owned by the Village of B-Say-Tah.
CTV News reached out to the Village of B-Say-Tah several times about why the roads are blocked, but it did not respond to our repeated requests for an interview.
As for Grant, he’s still hopeful the tides will change in his favour.
“I’m just going to remain optimistic that the right thing will happen here, and my family will have a proper way to get to our cabin and enjoy it,” Grant said.
