Don’t fear change

Dear editor:
I thank my father-in-law for sending us an annual subscription to the Times. It helps us stay in touch with the community we still love and lived in for years even though we have now been gone for more than a decade.
I couldn’t help but write and comment on the Publisher’s Pen column of Jan. 2 edition because many of his points really were evident in our recent visit to town over Christmas.
The number of stores has declined downtown; and many services shut down over Christmas even though Fort Frances is really the only “full service” community in the district.
I have always encouraged shopping and obtaining services locally if they can be had, even at marginally higher prices because one has to factor in time and travel, as well as give credit due to anyone with the gumption to operate their own business.
Certainly, supporting local businesses, including a farm producer or farmers’ market, leaves less overall impact on the environment and boosts the local economy.
In the 1990s, we (including me) worked hard with town council through successive changes in provincial leadership to re-model the official plan in the Fort with key objectives being that council would have more say over where and how local development could occur, as well as finding ways to streamline the development process.
Better this plan was adopted late than never. Many changes take years, even decades, to implement because of existing legal and non-conforming properties which gradually disappear over time as the plan matures.
In this regard, I am very happy to see entrepreneurs developing the old high school, moving the downtown northward, and development happening in the west end. Many communities have had similar growing pains.
I can think of other communities where we have lived—some very close, such as Dryden, Ont., and some at opposite ends of the country, such as Peace River, Alta.—where town councils similarly debated the virtues of allowing development outside of the downtown core, fearing that if it abandoned it, the community would fall apart.
To say this fear is unfounded is an understatement. Cherishing history doesn’t mean it has to be our ball and chain. The reasons for the core decline are varied and many. There is no quick fix.
Traffic planners in Fort Frances face a significant challenge.
As an outsider now looking in, I found that shopping in front of the unsightly mill in the midst of a nauseous odour distasteful to say the least. Once a symbol of economic prosperity, the smell of success has become a symbol of global warming and environmental neglect.
However, I heartily applaud the ongoing efforts to bring in biomass as a means of creating sustainable local energy. I have no doubt that the Town of Fort Frances, including its paper mill, will be viewed in retrospect many years from now as having had the vision to change with the times.
I hope that we not fear change. The economy of the past is being replaced with another, but it will not disappear. Ingenuity, faith, and creativity will secure our futures above all else.
This I know—I have no doubt. Fort Frances will endure.
(Signed),
Rolf Geissler
Edson, Alta.