A former Fort Frances Times editor, Harry Vandetti, used to say on the first day of March; “March will come in either as a lion or a lamb and then leave either as a lamb or a lion.” He was often right, but when the weather did not follow the […]
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
It began with an announcement that a bank needed to raise $2.5 billion to meet a shortfall. Rumours grew and businesses and depositors rushed to the bank to remove their funds. But the bank by Friday realized that it did not have the cash available to meet the demand for […]
One of the recommendations I received on retirement was to start a new hobby and create new friends. For over forty years, I had not played a single hand of bridge before being encouraged by Walter Horban to again begin learning the game just before Covid struck. I just didn’t […]
Who is taking up the tourism development leadership in Fort Frances and across the district? Over a period of more than eight decades, various groups have organized to attract tourists to our side of Borderland. Reaching back to the late 1930’s the Fort Frances Jaycee began attending sport shows in […]
I grew up on Third Street behind the Sportsplex and the bush began just behind the alleyway. It was my playground. Our neighbour once shot a deer from his back step, but we never saw any deer in the bush as we travelled the area from Third Street to the […]
You are not feeling well and you are suffering from what may be the flu or indigestion, but it has been ongoing. You call the clinic to see a doctor. Only then you discover that no doctor is taking new patients nor are the nurse practitioners. A few days later […]
Just as darkness creeps up on us in November, daylight slowly and imperceptibly extends itself morning and evening. I hated going to work in darkness and leaving work for home in darkness. It came as a surprise that leaving the newspaper after five in the evening daylight remained and then […]
The sky is a refreshing blue. The frost that hung in the air this morning is clinging to the trees. The white against the black branches makes the whole day wonderful. The cloudless skies has the sun adding sparkles to the new fallen snow. It is a beautiful January day […]
Do you remember being upset in January 2020 when you could not motor to the United States, but you could fly from designated airports and return to those airports and then use the ArriveCan app on your phone to return safely to Canada? Do you recall that many of your […]
When politics gets in the way, our military often suffers. One only must be reminded of the cancellation of the Mulroney Government purchase of 50 Cormorant EH-101 helicopters made in 1992 that was cancelled the following year with $470 million in penalties by the Chretien government. It wasn’t until 2010 […]
On Sunday, we woke to a wonderful winter wonderland as the fog of Saturday night painted the branches of trees with a white furry hoarfrost. We often forget about the beauty of our urban forest in winter. But Sunday morning with a brilliant blue clear sunlit sky, the white trees […]
We often forget how dependent we are on weather when travelling. After many trips across the prairies, my wife and I discovered just how fearsome the weather can be. The ugly winter weather of Alberta and Saskatchewan just before Christmas made driving hazardous across those two provinces. Driving rain made […]