Cunning and furry thieves are outfoxing campers and cottagers at Great Blue Heron Provincial Park.
Sonnet McGuire, manager of the park located about 50 kilometres north of Prince Albert, says she started getting reports about shoes going missing in early July.
Visitors found single shoes left in bushes, on the side of the road, or even at the boat launch.
The culprits: a group — sometimes known as a skulk — of sly foxes with a taste for footwear.
“We have five foxes that are moving about the campground and they seem to love stealing people’s shoes,” McGuire said.
The behaviour isn’t new, but this year the thieves are more active.
“We knew it was gonna be foxes because we’ve had this before, the odd time, just not to this level,” McGuire said.
At first, the park kept the lost shoes in the back of the campground office, but it quickly had to upgrade to outdoor storage bins to hold them. So many shoes.
McGuire said there were about 70 in the bin on a recent day, but she suspects over 100 have passed through it this summer.
“It’s kind of like a scavenger hunt in the campground because as you’re walking around the campground on the trail or wherever you might be, people are just finding shoes,” she said.
“We had one story where people were walking down the street and they saw one fox sitting on the road and the other one kind of on the edge of the campsite. And it was almost like the one fox was on lookout and the other one went into the campsite, stole a shoe, and then they both took off running.”
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Camper Brenda Andres said she’s also seen the furry criminals at work.
“We just turned onto the first highway and a little fox ran across the road, and sure enough, he had a little shoe in his mouth,” Andres said.
She’ll be keeping her shoes inside during her camping trip.
Cottager Rachelle Kelln doesn’t mind the sneaky visitors.
“It’s kind of a fun game,” she said.
Her cottage is in the Carwin Park subdivision near Emma Lake. It’s also a favourite dumping ground for the shoe-swiping foxes.
“We just started noticing more and more shoes,” Kelln said.
She’s found at least six on her property since July 10, and even more left on the side of the road — all types of shoes, including flip flops, Birkenstocks, even Adidas Sambas.
“Those are expensive shoes and there’s a bit of panic around those ones,” Kelln said.
She’s had a few people stop by to pick up their shoes, and they’ve all been excited to get back on the right foot.
McGuire said visitors to the park are advised to keep their kicks inside, as the foxy thieves will remain at large.
