Province charging farmers with blocking Trans Canada Trail

The province of New Brunswick has charged a Sackville-area woman and her son for blocking the Trans Canada Trail.

Mary Fawcett has property bisected by the trailthat used to carry the CN rail line.

Fawcett said her adjacent fences used to be tended by CN, but since the Department of Natural Resources took over the land, now a trail, her fences are falling into disrepair.

"We sent them e-mails, no response through that, we tried calling no response and my animals had to eat so we decided to put up a blockade," Fawcett explained.

Fawcett and her son John were both served with a summons on Sunday.

Three charges laid

They each have three charges against them:Creating a blockade of a provincial park, failure to remove barricades and failure to comply with an order to remove structures on crown lands.

Receiving the court papers caught Fawcett off guard.

"Totally,we figured we'd at least have a little communication," she said.

Fawcett is letting her cows and horses roam on the trail, so they can graze freely on her property, with the fence erected to keep her animals and trail users safe, she said.

Big detour aroundfence

The blockage is a cattle fencechained up across the trail, forcing recreational users to take a 2.5 kilometre detour on nearby roads.

I hope this is solved as painlessly as possible, and ideally get the trail back open.- Corinne Hachey, Sentier NB Trail

"Trails NB just asked usif they could use it to create a walking-biking trail, and they were going to fulfil the obligations that CN had in place and that was done for the first seven years or so, and then they started crying 'no funds' and then refused to do stuff," said Fawcett.

But Corinne Hachey, with Sentier NB Trailsaid her group and Fawcett don't see eye to eye on the agreement.

"My understanding of the situation is that we had fixed the fence in about 2005, 2006 with the understanding that she would take care of it."

"I hope this is solved as painlessly as possible, and ideally get the trail back open and make sure everybody is safe."

Fawcett is due back in court February 26.