Canadian Lakes Safety

Safety Director kwilcox@clpoc.org

As we transition from the bright orange and red of fall to the brilliant white landscape of winter, our population experiences a shift as well. With the incoming snow, out go many of our members to warmer climates. This brings about new challenges daily for your safety team, one that we could not meet without the wonderful volunteers of the Mobile Watch program. What you may not know is that the volunteers of the Mobile Watch cover every road in Canadian Lakes every day, a feat that is not possible for the safety team to do alone. Never is this more crucial than in the winter months during our Red-light/Winter watch program. This winter you can rest assured that the vigilant volunteers of the Mobile Watch program are ready and willing to help. Remember you can always call your Safety team at 231-972-8555 should you come across a red light shining in a window at a neighbor’s house or on your travels throughout the community.

Members that find themselves heading toward warmer climates during the winter months, or those that just don’t make it up here often, have the option of enrolling in the Red-light/Winter watch program. You may register for the program by filling out the Registration form found online at Canadianlakes.org under the Member login, Governing, Documents & Forms tabs, or you can stop into the CLPOC office and pick up the form.

Once the form is filled out, return it to the CLPOC office. A list of participants is then compiled from the forms that are turned in each year (A new form MUST be completed each year). Members that choose to participate in the program should purchase a “winter watchman” box. This is a secondary thermostat that activates a switch connected to a lamp with a red-light bulb should the temperature in the home drop below a certain set temperature. The red light should be placed in a window that is easily visible from the road, and the temperature setting on the watchman should be set around 10-15 degrees below your preferred winter setting, while keeping it above 30 degrees. Rest assured that your ever-vigilant Mobile Watch volunteers and your dedicated Safety Team are always on the lookout to keep our community and your home safe.

Common Area. This includes the hills around the Castle, Highland Haus, and Alpine Haus. The “existing trails” were created over the years by riders without permission. This has caused extensive erosion to the hillsides. Within the Canadian Lakes Community, ORVs and Snowmobiles may only be operated on the road edge as far right as possible, or on the frozen lake surface.

Any person aged 12-15 years’ operating an ORV, trail bike, golf cart, etc. on any CLPOC-owned road edge or frozen lake surface, must have an ORV certificate and be under the supervision of a parent or guardian. Anyone under the age of 12 is not permitted to operate any type of motor vehicle on CLPOC-owned property. All ORVs and Snowmobiles are required to be registered with the CLPOC office and are required to visibly display the CLPOC registration sticker.

Please use common sense when it comes to our lakes in the winter. All it takes is one weak spot in the ice for a fun day to take a bad turn and possibly cause loss of life. While our fire department is very well trained in ice rescue your safety team is NOT. What this means is that should you fall through the ice, you are relying on first someone seeing you, and second, that person being able to call 911. Make sure that if you choose to venture out on our lakes this season for ice fishing you have a buddy, and that you also let someone on shore know where you will be fishing and what time you will be done. That way if something happens, the professionals will know where to start looking. Enjoy the season but be safe!

Here are some of your Safety team stats for the past couple of months that I would like to share with you… from May 2022 thru October 2022 we covered 29,234.3 miles in the community, took 1,256 calls from members for various reasons, wrote 444 parking violations, and towed 6 cars as repeat offenders of our parking rules.