Riparian Rights

A riparian owner is the owner of land bounding upon a river or other watercourse. The traditional presumption of English common law is that a riparian owner owns the bed of a non-navigable river or stream to the centre of the watercourse: ad medium filum aquae. Consequently, a riparian owner who holds land on both sides of a river considered “non-navigable” owns the entire riverbed and has exclusive rights to the river’s use .

The situation is different with respect to navigable waters. If a river is navigable “in fact”, then there exists a public right of navigation in that river (i.e. a right to travel over it). It is, in other words, in the nature of a public highway. Title to the beds of these rivers is vested in the Crown.

The legal definition of what makes a river navigable or not can involve a fair degree of complexity and is based heavily on the facts. For our purposes, suffice to say that, in making this determination, courts will consider whether the river is navigable along its entire length—meaning that it may be deemed navigable even if points along its length (like rapids or falls) are impossible to navigate.¹