The sun is shining, making it look like a perfect day, but the wind is continuing to blow from the northwest, making it feel like a frigid mid-January day when, in fact, we are nearing the end of February. The talk in the coffee shops now is focusing on when […]
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
Do we elect governments or toss out governments at the federal level? Since the 1930s, governments have fallen on scandals that have included potential bribery, potential collusion with Russian spies, and misappropriations of federal sums. I remember when the Fort Frances Times acquired its first offset press in the mid-1960s. […]
It is surprising how the accumulation of snow is deceiving. Through to Christmas, we had very little snow on the ground. And even through to the last week of January, the depth of the snow was not huge. The deer regularly waltzed through the yard and often bedded down either […]
Sometime after 4 in the morning on Monday, I became aware of a grader rumbling by my house. Sometime later, the sound of the sidewalk plow made an impression on me. When I finally was ready to go out shortly after 6:30 a.m., I was not wrong. Both had been […]
Early Sunday morning, the street light at the corner of our yard had a halo around it. And as the sun was rising in the east, it seemed like a fog had descended across the community as I looked out from a second-floor bedroom window. In reality, it was just […]
My hands are sore today (Monday) as I spent the weekend in my wood shop beginning a new project which is made almost entirely of red oak. Beginning Saturday, on the coldest day of the year, I began planing the four oak boards and two ash boards to thickness. My […]
I will tell you right from the start that I am a Type 2 diabetic who is insulin dependent. It has forced me to pay greater attention to what I eat for almost 25 years. Sometimes I have been more successful than at other times, and exercise certainly plays a […]
Each Wednesday I travel between Fort Frances and Rainy River delivering the Fort Frances Times to our news dealers. Often in travelling the route with my wife, new ideas are floated about the crops that are being grown, fields that are being cleared, and the quality of herds that exist […]
I’ve been using the same software on my computer for almost a decade. It has performed flawlessly and I am very comfortable doing it. However, with the latest update in the OS system, I’m now getting messages that the applications I’ve been using for so long no longer are compatible. […]
It is the week before a New Year arrives and as I look back, it has been an exciting time for Rainy River District. Record cattle sales and expanding grain fields greatly have increased the agricultural economy across the district. Daily truckloads of grain are passing through Fort Frances on […]
It came out of the blue to the people of Fort Frances and Rainy River District that a company was making an offer to buy the idled Resolute mill complex here. It is a dreamed of Christmas present that a deal can be struck and the work will take place […]
We put up our Christmas tree this past Friday and Saturday. When our boys were young, we would go out on a tree-finding afternoon–often at my cousin’s farm on the River Road. We would march through the bush, usually with one of the boys being pulled on a sleigh while […]







