Driving through Fort Frances on Sunday evening, I was surprised by all the outdoor lights that are illuminating yards in our community. From large blow-up snowmen to white lit deer and moose and dancing lights across the front of homes, the darkness that falls shortly after four in the afternoon […]
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
The Ontario government must believe that we all have better bladders in winter than in the summer. I make this comment having travelled numerous times to Thunder Bay and noticed all the pull-off rest stops are now blocked and marked as closed. The gates are across the entrances and even […]
Everyone needs to get a ’flu shot. I know we can find many reasons to avoid the shot, such as “It takes too much time,” “I don’t like needles,” or “Often it really isn’t effective.” The excuses are easy to come by. However, let’s just debunk some of the excuses. […]
Way back in 1904, H.J. Pettypiece, MPP, addressed the Empire Club at a noon luncheon and his topic of conversation was the taxation of railways. He complained then that Canadian railways were not paying their fair share of taxes to villages, towns, and cities in Ontario. Some 112 years later, […]
In today’s paper, we are telling the story of two men who left the district to join the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. Both returned to Fort Frances, raised families, and seldom ever told the stories of their lives in the Second World War. Stan Ward […]
I searched my computer Monday morning with the term “Clinton” to discover how many items on my hard drive included that word. My computer had 290 e-mails, stories, etc. with the word Clinton included in the copy or title. After it was announced Friday about more than 600,000 e-mails being […]
My wife and I were in Washington, D.C. for the past several days. In the U.S. capital, you might expect the hotbed of politics to be alive with lawn signs and television commercials promoting presidential and congressional candidates. You would be wrong. On Monday afternoon, we visited the “Nuseum” that […]
Last week in Times, we ran a story about a labour shortage across Rainy River District. Then in Monday’s Daily Bulletin, we reprinted an article from 1936 about employment in the bush of the district. More than 800 men had appeared to work in the logging camps. Between 1936 and […]
Around coffee one morning at From the Grind Up, names began being tossed about as nominees for the Fort Frances Sports Hall of Fame. Larry and Jimmy Fontana threw out names that those under the age of 70 might have had only a fleeting memory of. I remembered stories told […]
The lakes were still. The leaves of the trees were silent. The leaves were turning from red to orange to golden yellow. Silhouetted against the greens of the shores, the multi-coloured trees were awesome. The reflected images from the shores were mirrored in the water. Fall may be the most […]
We are all too prepared to accuse the provincial government—centered in Toronto—of not understanding Northwestern Ontario and investing in our communities. Some of those criticisms are warranted. Many are not. The province, for instance, has set an aggressive schedule rebuilding Ontario’s highways. Right across Rainy River District, we are experiencing […]
Back on April 1, 1985, we wrote on the front page of the Rainy River Record that as owners, we intended to keep separate the publications of the Fort Frances Times and Rainy River Record. “We hope to aid in the growth of business, educational, and cultural activities in the […]
