Jim Cumming – From the Publisher Emeritus’ Pen

I will admit right off the bat that I am a diabetic. I will also admit that I began controlling my diabetes by watching and controlling what I ate. However, as time went by, I became dependent on oral medicine and then was transferred to insulin and trying to control […]

We are into the Christmas season of giving and being thankful for the blessings of our communities.  Nothing provides a clearer understanding of the benefits of volunteerism than the activities that will take place in Fort Frances and Emo this weekend. Now closing in on thirty years, Emo Holly Daze […]

If you live in a large city like Toronto or Calgary and you are running low on toilet paper, diapers for your newborn or need a case of bottled water you can log onto Amazon and those items will be delivered before the end of the day and you don’t […]

I recently completed the judging of the Manitoba Community Newspaper competition for the best overall community newspaper in the province. The best part of judging the competition was that old friends who are now publishers in the province continued to have the same feel for community journalism that I do. […]

Politics have shone through the Liberal carbon tax plan. Originally the Trudeau tax was to be applied to all carbon fuels in Canada. It had been implemented to meet Canada’s carbon reduction targets. However, inflation, and wars have driven up the cost of heating fuels across Canada. Yet now comes […]

Ann Lamott in Monday’s Washington Post titled her opinion peace “It’s good to remember, we are all living on borrowed time”. I chuckled at the headline as I read her piece and then thought around to this past weekend at a swim meet hosted in Fort Frances by the Cyclones […]

I look about the world and even the industry that I grew up in and marvel at the changes that I have seen in my lifetime. One can look back to the Gutenberg Bible. It was the first book printed using individual letters that were collected to make words and […]

“Truth is the first casualty of war.” The statement has been attributed to many different writers including Senator Samuel Johnson, but the first such statement is attributed to Aeschylus a Greek tragic dramatist who lived between 525 BC and 426 BC. Since then, the world has witnessed the truth of […]

Canada finds itself with a foreign affairs problem. Being rebuked by India for publicly accusing the Indian government of facilitating the execution of a Canadian Sikh person and then blundering by recognizing a WWII Ukrainian Nazi soldier during a parliamentary session attended by Ukrainian Leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy Canada has gained […]

It wasn’t until 1957 that Thanksgiving became a permanent holiday in Canada. Yet Thanksgiving had been celebrated from as early as Sir Simon Frobisher celebration in 1578 after landing on Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island after losing a ship in the search of the Northwest Passage. They gave thanks for their […]

My birch trees are now turning a golden yellow and the rain from the weekend had many of the leaves beginning a mat over my just mowed lawn. We are now in the early stages of the put away season.  We will be closing the cabin for the winter shortly […]

The three federal parties are in a rush to announce new policies to build upwards of 5 million homes by 2030. It is a huge mountain to climb, and all three parties are putting on their mountain climbing gear and making huge announcements claiming they have the solution to solve […]