As anyone with children can attest, recent events have contributed to extremely harmful screen addictions that consume all capacity for directed attention and make everything else “boring.” Getting kids outside and engaged with an activity that is stimulating enough to compete with the screens is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle and more important than ever.

To do that we need access to the backcountry for hunting, fishing, mountain biking, swimming, off-road recreation and any other activity that will get kids off screens, never mind the parents.

South Island Recreation Association has developed a good working relationship with the corporate owners of Ragged Mountain, private property landlocked beyond the YMCA's gate on Glinz Lake road. The owners have permitted our young Caveman Engineers access to explore their valuable mineral tenure and learn about geology and mining. Instead of following our lead, the YMCA has cynically used our youth program to attack the legitimacy of the mineral tenure and forced the owners to spend 10's of thousands of dollars on legal defense because they let us on the property. 

We believe a secular organization like the YMCA that sells paid programming should neither obstruct public access to public lands, nor engage in the un-neighborly act of blocking the only access to their neighbor's property, purely for their own benefit.

If a private property owner is willing to share access to their private property, why is a "non-profit" secular organization like the YMCA unwilling to share access to public property?

Please sign and share and help us convince the YMCA to be a good neighbor.

Terrance Martin

South Island Recreation Association