Will it be one, two, or three children? My wife and I have brought up two sons, and I can’t ever think of a time that we might have considered how much it would cost to raise each one. When they were babies, neither my wife nor I gave any […]
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
When I was young, I met many delegates to the Mississippi Parkway through good friends of the family, Kate and Bill Noden, who were my third set of grandparents. For many years, Fort Frances and area promoted crossing the border and proceeding north to Dryden as an extension of the […]
This coming Monday, families across Canada will celebrate Thanksgiving. By the second Monday of October, most crops already are harvested and are stored. The corn, wheat, oats, and barley have been tilled back into the ground. The last of the squash and pumpkins have been taken in, the onions have […]
National Geographic has labelled this area, and south into Iowa, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota, as the centre of the continent. If one examines the crest of Rainy River First Nations, they, too, mark this area as the centre of North America. Archeologists who have dug at and researched […]
I was a fishing guide on Rainy Lake this past weekend when my brother-in-law, Tom, and his two sons, Kyle and Ben, made their annual pilgrimage to our cabin. They hail from Waterloo and Tom also has a cottage on Healy Lake, just south of Parry Sound. There are fish […]
There was no Internet. There was no Sunday afternoon opening weekend NFL football. There was no lazy Sunday morning breakfast. There was no “Sunday Morning” television and CBC was absent from the airwaves. My cellphone became intermittent and our land lines at the lake were silent. We almost were pulled […]
From Wikipedia: “Although there are many forms of friendship, some of which may vary from place to place, certain characteristics are present in many types of friendship. “Such characteristics include affection, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, mutual understanding and compassion, enjoyment of each other’s company, trust, and the ability to be […]
Since the first week of July, I’ve been a sidewalk superintendent. I began learning to be a sidewalk superintendent watching homes being built on Third Street when I was four. There were no sidewalks on that street back then. My wife likes to kid me that I have outgrown “Tonka” […]
Have you ever wondered, when you see the vapour trails left by a jet in the sky, where it is going? Or have heard the distant sound from a jet, without seeing it, and wondered where the sound was coming from and where the jet was headed? Our imaginations allow […]
Newspapers across North America are grappling with a decline in revenue and all major daily newspapers are suffering from a decline in the number of readers they reach. It is a troubling problem in the industry. At the same time, studies are showing that more North American people are following […]
Sometimes you don’t realize how fortunate you are until someone shows you. As I sat by our chimera on Sunday evening and the logs burned to red-hot coals, I had forgotten the pleasure a fire can bring in the waning daylight hours. For those gathered around the fire, our next […]
Our dock at the cabin sits high and water only has flowed over the top once in my lifetime. My father had eyeballed the high water mark to build the dock and reckoned he never would have to worry about putting barrels on it to keep it from floating away […]
