After helping pull a truck from the lake Tuesday afternoon, Dave McKillop returned to find someone had stolen about $3,000 of his fishing equipment from the enclosed box of his pick-up truck, parked by the skating rink at the pier.
The theft took place in the middle of the day between noon and 2:30 p.m.
An obviously irate McKillop told the Sylvan Lake News, “I didn’t realize Sylvan was that bad. Somebody’s got to do something about those low life little bastards.”
And if that wasn’t enough, the truck hauled from the lake was parked by the skating rink awaiting a tow truck and the rescuers returned to see somebody rummaging through it intent on stealing whatever they could.
“I’ve had enough problems having to pull the truck out and then this happens. It just puts the icing on the cake,” he said. “It just amazes me this happened in the middle of the afternoon. They just steal you blind.”
McKillop’s truck has a tonneau cover on it and the end gate was closed so no one would have been able to see his fishing equipment. He explained the end gate doesn’t have a look. “They had no business touching anything. It just floors me.”
“It’s a good thing I locked my truck,” he said.
Stolen was a big fishing box with green top and beige bottom. He had about 20 ice fishing rods in a five gallon pail.
“Somebody’s got to have seen something,” McKillop said, adding he contacted the RCMP and gave them a piece of his mind.
The Ford F150 4x4 pickup truck went through the ice near the entrance to Marina Bay about 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Six occupants, ranging in age from 16 to 18 were able to escape the partially submerged vehicle which still had its lights on and radio playing when photographed by the Sylvan Lake News shortly afterwards. One of those in the vehicle was transported to hospital suffering from frostbite.
The operation to remove the truck began about noon on Tuesday and the vehicle was back on solid ice by just after 1 p.m.
Sylvan Lake Fire Department and RCMP are warning lake users to stay off the thin ice near Marina Bay. The location of this incident was within feet of where a Razor off-highway vehicle plunged through last January.
There are various ideas about why the ice is thin in the area. One person watching the rescue operation said the area is aerated year-round to keep the algae down while others have said there are springs in the area.
Marina Bay Homeowners Association has been notified and will remind all residents in the area to stay off the ice, according to a news release from the town’s communications officer Joanne Gaudet. “The creation of homemade skating rinks along the lake is strongly not recommended.”
The release stated the town “ensures the three skating rinks on the lake along Lakeshore Drive are still safe as they fall under the management of staff trained to monitor the depth of the ice for safety. The town also manages an additional six community skating rinks around town for the public to enjoy.