There are a few things that come to mind.
It appears that they were arguing for hunting and fishing access. As an avid hunter and fisher, I can't access many bodies of water or hunting grounds that are owned by logging companies. And these properties change hands pretty regularly. When you see the crap left behind on the accessible areas, you can understand why an owner would want to keep people out. Nothin unusual there.
I also have to question how much "maintenance"of these waters has been performed with public tax dollars. Maybe a lot. Maybe none. We don't even know if the lakes were stocked by public entities.
I don't know Canadian law but in the US, if a property owner owns the land under a body of water - even those considered navigatable - he owns the rights to that body of water if he owns or purchases the water rights. That includes preventing others from using them. If it is a navigatable river, stream, creek, etc..., If a property owner owns the land on both sides of the water, he owns the land underneath it. While he can't stop you from fishing it, he can forbid you from anchoring on that stretch and/or standing on that land, whether you are standing in the water or not.
I have run into this a lot in Oregon and Washington. You are required to keep rowing while you are on private land and you cannot get out of your boat to fish until such spot that you are either on public land or the owner only owns land on one side of the water. Then you are allowed to walk areas of the normal high water mark.
I don't know if Stan is a nice guy or not. But if we catch people on our ranch trying to hunt or fish the small creeks, we will trespass them and have the authorities write them a trespass violation. If they are carrying a gun, that is a felony trespass.
