Oceans of vibrant, fluorescent yellow fields of Canola often fill the landscape of Saskatchewan and Alberta as far as the eye can see. Locally, and through much of southern Manitoba, the fields of Canola are just coming into bloom. This year farmers planted 21.4 million acres in Canola. That is […]
Jim Cumming – From the Publisher Emeritus’ Pen
Jim is the former publisher of the Fort Frances Times Ltd. He writes a weekly column and can be contacted at jcumming@fortfrances.com
Friday gave all Canadians a lesson in telecommunications and its fragility. Our phone book of district listings has shrunk to become just a fraction of the listings it was ten years ago. Instead of one phone listing in our homes, which has disappeared as district residents have moved to cell […]
The community and district witnessed the heroic efforts volunteering makes in times of a pending disaster. From May through mid June volunteers from less than five years of age through to octogenarians hefted shovels, carried sandbags, built dikes along streets and homes and went home after a gruelling day to […]
We will celebrate Canada Day on Friday and it should be a day of great excitement that relates to our freedoms and policies that governments over time have made. The US supreme court decision on Roe-v-Wade on Friday marked a significant difference in how we as Canadians view abortion and […]
My yard has been neglected over the past couple of decades. The plants that my wife received as a wedding gift from my brother-in-law have seen many revisions and changes. The original elm trees that graced the Victoria side of our home died and we replaced the three trees with […]
One does not have to leave Fort Frances to feel the effects of inflation. A trip to the grocery store, or a fill-up at a gas station is all that is needed to feel the effects of inflation. The Bank of Canada posted Canada’s May Inflation rate at 6.8 per […]
You don’t have to be old to be a volunteer. And I learned this week that even the youngest in our community are great volunteers and tireless workers. For five days I have been down at the Shevlin Woodyard joining MNR firefighters, Fort Frances firefighters, and other community volunteers filling, […]
Nineteen children and two adults were killed in Uvalde Texas last week. Just 10 days earlier 10 people were killed in a Buffalo New York supermarket. Across the US, there have been 214 mass shootings this year. All those senseless killings using a military style weapon have made Canadians uncomfortable […]
We all must realize that Mother Nature is always in charge. We might try to mitigate the effects of winter snows and spring snowstorms and rainstorms. But this year is proving across the Rainy Lake water basin, Mother Nature is in charge. We could not anticipate the huge snowfalls that […]
In just over two weeks voters in Ontario will go to the polls to elect a government to govern Ontario for the next four years. We often look at what the current government has accomplished in their mandate and make a decision to either reward them with a second mandate […]
It has warmed and we’ve opened our bedroom windows to let in fresh air. The birds begin singing as dawn begins before the sun rises. As the sun breaks the horizon, the birds songs lesson. The rumble of the trains through the night is now heard. The sounds of the […]
I find numbers fascinating. I enjoy Sudoku — puzzles which use single digits appearing in seemingly random order — until you understand the patterns. Last week, Stats Canada released the latest census numbers for all Canadian communities. At first look, there seemed to be nothing new in the Rainy River […]
