Cabin owner near Yellowknife disturbed by act of arson he witnessed

The owner of a cabin outside Yellowknife said he witnessed a dangerous and bizarre act of arson last weekend that involved firearms, a propane tank and a disused snowmobile.

Alex Perrett, who lives with his partner on Walsh Lake, said that on the evening Dec. 30 he spotted a few headlamps near a snowmobile that sat around a half kilometre from his cabin.

Perrett said he knows the owner of the snowmobile and just figured they were picking it up.

"I was in the middle of feeding our son, and I was actually gonna go out and help them after I was done feeding them. And then as I went to go back outside, I noticed that there were flames," he said.

After inspecting closer with a pair of binoculars, Perrett realized the snowmobile was on fire.

He went to check out the scene and what he found was a torched snowmobile, propane tank and bullet casings.

"So it appears as though they had shot this propane tank to accelerate the burn," he said, adding that based on the direction of the casings, it appeared any shots were fired in the direction of his cabin.

"Both my partner and I were pretty angry I guess, and we just thought that it was ridiculous and why would someone do that?"

Perrett's partner posted about the incident on a Yellowknife Facebook group, which then led to a small silver lining as some youth in the area helped clean up the mess.

"I had planned on going to do it, and then the fact that there was these other guys are like, 'yeah, we're gonna do it, we wanna help' — it was really refreshing," Perrett said.

Some youth later helped clean up the mess on Walsh Lake. Perrett said it was refreshing to see the act of kindness. (Submitted by Alex Perrett)

Perrett reported the fire debris to the federal government, as the N.W.T. government was closed for the holidays.

Perrett says the owner of the snowmobile is aware of what happened and said they would be reporting it as well, so that any contaminated material can be removed.

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The N.W.T. spill site does list an incident at Walsh Lake, with the department of Environment and Climate Change (ECC) noted as the lead agency responsible for it.

Mike Westwick, a spokesperson for ECC, said in an email that the snowmobile will be removed and that the environmental concern as a result of the incident is minimal.

"We applaud the Good Samaritans at Walsh Lake who cleaned up the mess. It's an excellent example of northerners coming together to treat the land and water we care for the right way and working together," he wrote.

"We appreciate the report as well — and encourage people to do the same if they come across scenes like this."

Matt Halstead, a spokesperson for the N.W.T. RCMP, said in an email that the incident did not appear to have been reported to police.

Perrett said this is the first time he's witnessed something like this near his cabin and he's hopeful it's the last.

"There's obviously people who leave messes on the lake every year ... but this was blatantly dangerous," he said.