THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Police Service has partnered with the RCMP to conduct joint marine patrols on local waterways.
“It’s not something new that we’ve never done before, but it is an enhancement of what we’ve always been doing,” Insp. Gordon Snyder said.
Snyder, with the primary response branch of the city police service, said the partnership reflects new responsibilities for municipal police under the Community Safety and Policing Act.
“We’ve partnered with other provincial agencies in the past, other provincial police services, the (Ministry of Natural Resources), other agencies that we’ve gone out on waterways with,” Snyder said.
He said it’s been a continual process the police service has always been engaged in and this new partnership with the RCMP further enhances that.
He said this alignment was formed in 2025 and continued through the start of this year with the training of several members in the uniformed patrol units.
Two Thunder Bay police officers from each Primary Response Unit – eight officers in total – have been trained with the RCMP on the marine vessel and are now actively engaged in marine patrols, Snyder said.
The areas being patrolled by the marine unit include Pigeon River, the Thunder Bay Marina, Lake Superior outside the breakwall — including Isle Royale, Silver Islet, Pie Island and Thompson Island — and the Kaministiquia River.
Patrols on the RCMP boat began on July 8, Snyder said, and the primary focus is to ensure safe boating practices in and around the waterways as well as along the shorelines.
The boat used is a 29-foot Titan built in Canada, said Corp. Darryl Waruk, detachment commander with the RCMP.
He said it has a “rigid hull and an inflatable tube around it that makes it easier to get up close to other boats when we pull up for an inspection so we’re not going to ram into them and cause any damage.”
Waruk said the boat is safe in water as shallow as three feet, but it can also handle six foot swells past the breakwall.
“It’s mainly designed to be out in coastal waters, so the RCMP mainly uses these on both coasts. We do have them up here in Lake Superior and a few down in southern Ontario but primarily they’re really designed for Lake Superior, which is almost like an ocean. So big waves, big lakes,” he said.
The boat has sonar and radar and is equipped with multiple radio systems, he said.
Waruk said the partnership with the Thunder Bay police is most welcome.
“Having a better partnership with the city going out and working in the waterways is always a positive for us because we have room in the boat, we’re working together with the city and we’re overlapping some of our mandates and helping each other out,” he said.
He said that while the RCMP do have officers in the area, having a better partnership with the city going out and working in the waterways is always a positive.
For example, he said, the two police services can more efficiently coordinate a missing persons search in the riverways through this partnership.
He said there are a lot of different things the local RCMP officers can do to help out.
“The boat has sonar, it has night vision,” Waruk said. “It’s always an offer extended to the city that anytime they call, now that they have members that can come out and jump on (the boat) with us, we just need one of our operators to get on and a few other members, and we can go and quickly respond to a request like that from the city, which is definitely advantageous to them, but it’s also positive for us to work with them on those missions.”
He said that among local boaters, there is a 99 per cent compliance rate.
Most people who boat on Lake Superior, he said, are very respectful of the safety requirements.
