The bridge at Crazy Creek.

Image Credit: FACEBOOK: Crazy Creek Hot Pools Resort

With one landowner on one side of the bridge and another landowner on the other side of the bridge, a dispute about who gets to walk over the suspension bridge at a popular Shuswap tourist attraction has ended up in the BC Supreme Court.

According to a Sept. 6 Supreme Court of BC decision, Crazy Creek Hot Pools Resort owns the land on one side of the suspension bridge, while Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge own the land on the other bank.

The two parties had an agreement about sharing the profits made from charging tourists to cross the bridge with the resort handing over 70% or 80% of the revenue to Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge which maintains the site's hiking trails and viewing platforms to a waterfall.

Currently, it costs $15 per adult, and a family pass is $45, to cross the bridge and use the trails and viewing platforms.

However, in 2024 the resort indicated it wanted to split ticket sales 50/50. It's not clear what happened but no agreement was made.

In May, Crazy Creek Resort started the legal action.

The court documents go through a lengthy explanation of the site's history.

Nestled on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway, 20 minutes from Sicamous, the Crazy Creek Resort, consists of hot pools, cabins and RV sites.

The 240-foot suspension bridge which crosses Crazy Creek was built in 2004.

While each side of the bridge was legally a different plot of land, the court documents say that Barry Siebenga, the co-founder of BigSteelBox, controlled the companies that owned both plots of land.

Siebenga's son, Jason Siebenga is now the director of Crazy Creek Resort.

Several years later, an easement was drawn up giving who owned the east side of the bridge the right to operate a business and construct buildings on the west side.

In 2011, a ticket booth was set up charging tourists to cross the bridge.

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In 2020, Crazy Creek Resort sold the land where the ticket booth was to Jaff Family Resort Holdings who do business as Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge.

This meant that Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge now owned land on one side of the bridge while Crazy Creek Resort owned the other.

After no agreement was drawn up for 2024, Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge set up a ticket booth on the resort's side of the bridge and began charging tourists. While it doesn't own this side of the bridge it argued the easement that was registered a decade before allowed it to do so.

The move meant the resort wasn't getting any cut of the money made from tourists crossing the bridge from its side. The decision said this equated to about $40,000.

"The accounting evidence indicates that the ticket sales to the suspension bridge constitute a significant majority of the defendant’s annual income. The same cannot be said of the plaintiff," BC Supreme Court Justice Alan Ross said in the decision.

In the court action, Crazy Creek Resort argued for an injunction to block Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge from stopping tourists crossing the bridge.

The resort argued the easement meant it had to allow tourists across the bridge.

However, Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge argued the easement only guaranteed the land owners and its employees the right to cross and not tourists.

It said it had always let the owners and employees cross, just not tourists.

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The decision went into the legalese of how the easement should be interpreted.

Crazy Creek Waterfall and Suspension Bridge reiterated the easement gives it the authority to operate a tourism business and allow the resort owners and staff to cross, but not tourists.

BC Supreme Court Justice Alan Ross didn't rule on the legalities of the easement, saying the issue would have to be resolved at trial.

However, the Justice denied Crazy Creek Resort the injunction for a variety of legal reasons, allowing the suspension bridge to continue charging tourists until the matter is finally settled.

— This story was updated at 4:56 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, to clarify that Barry Siebenga is no longer the owner of Crazy Creek Resort and that Justice Ross didn't make a decision on the easement.

--- This story was updated at 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, to say that Barry Siebenga was never the owner of Crazy Creek Resort.

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