GORE BAY—Two generations of Manitoulin Secondary School alumni will quickly recognize Jim Sloss as a first-rate teacher in the school’s business and commerce studies classes.
Jim Sloss was certainly that, but at the same time, on his own time, he was and is a busy volunteer active in contributing to the life of his home town Gore Bay as well as making an impact on Manitoulin Island, particularly in the improvement of fish and wildlife resources.
During the last couple of years, Mr. Sloss has not been as active as he was for most of previous half-century, but the influence of his hard work is everywhere.
Jim Sloss was not quite a charter member of the MSS faculty: he came aboard for the 1970-1971 year, MSS’ second year serving all of Manitoulin, as the then-new ‘composite school.’
committee, second from left, is seen with Ray Corbiere, West Bay recreation
committee member, West Bay Chief Stewart Roy, the Hon. Ken Black, Minister of Tourism, Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Brown, and Bill Caesar, MSS tennis
committee member during an official announcement that funding had been secured to build the tennis courts at MSS in 1990.
Expositor file photo
The 1989-1990 school year marked MSS’ twentieth anniversary and Mr. Sloss was a key figure in an initiative designed to give MSS a substantial 20th birthday gift: a tennis court that would add to the school’s sports and fitness offerings. Mr. Sloss became the “go to” person on this project and, when neighbouring M’Chigeeng First Nation also threw its support behind the initiative, what had begun as a single tennis court dream ended up as four courts. Mr. Sloss was very supportive of working with the M’Chigeeng band (Ray Corbiere was active on his community’s recreation committee) and he approached Bea Heitkamp, then chair of the Manitoulin Board of Education. The board embraced the two-community plan and Mr. Sloss organized Manitoulin’s first “ducky race” down the Kagawong River to the North Channel as an extremely popular (and fun) fundraiser. (Hundreds of toy plastic ducks were borrowed, each one numbered, and people purchased a particular number with the hope that it would be the first one to the Kagawong waterfront.)
Mr. Sloss remembers Mark Sprack as a particular talented ducky salesperson and Karen Noble did a fine job of managing the intricate bookkeeping associated with wagers on the toy ducks!
The tennis court committee raised and accessed over $100,000 for this anniversary project and Jim fondly recalls the support of then-vice principal Roy Eaton towards this large endeavour, which also included accessing funds from the Wintario fund on a 2 to 1 matching basis.
In fact, there was enough money left in a reserve fund to completely resurface the courts 15 to 20 years later on the suggestion of Howard Debassige (who had been part of the expanded two-community committee).
About five years after the successful tennis court project, it became apparent that the gym floor at MSS was in need of resurfacing and Mr. Sloss was approached to organize fundraising for this project as well. The ducky races once again proved successful and he recalls colleagues in the phys-ed department, Margot Bickell and Suzanne Maxwell, were also very helpful in fundraising activities. Manitoulin Transport and the Toronto Raptors also came aboard, and the gym was refurbished with the new floor but also with new nets and the signature Raptor’s timeclock.
Mr. Sloss is known all over Manitoulin for his conservation efforts.
When he had completed university and returned to Manitoulin, he was alarmed by the decrease of sportsfish in area waters and even more concerned with the apparent lack of any clear policy to address this deficit.
He encouraged people in the area to reactivate the Gore Bay and District Fish and Game Club so there would be a group working towards improving the sports fishery.
This initiative paid large dividends for in 1986, the club initiated a private hatchery and obtained permission from the MNRF to take Chinook salmon eggs, raising them in a hatchery and, later in the season, in cages in the bay. The hatchery originally operated year-round (in the building that now houses the Harbour Centre) and successfully raised, on average, 193,000 Chinook salmon annually. Rainbow trout, brown trout and speckled trout were also raised there, and the fish were released into Gore Bay, Providence Bay, Meldrum Bay and other appropriate locations around Manitoulin. Mr. Sloss is quick to mention key volunteers who made this project as effective as it was: Ed Third, Max Graham, Jim Elliott, Rick Fogal, George Callack and many others. He notes that the Town of Gore Bay was also very supportive of the hatchery which has, in fact, now moved slightly further down the road to the town’s former water treatment plant facility which came complete with a dedicated water intake system, which the club improved into a circulating system.
Actually, Jim had a vision for an expansion of this facility, hopefully in partnership with a post-secondary institution, as a model teaching facility that would also help to expand and maintain the hatchery.
“But that’s for younger people to work on,” he adds.
It’s clear that Jim Sloss is a gifted organizer and recognizes the value and importance of group dynamics as the most effective way of influencing an envisioned outcome.
So, it was that when larger and larger flocks of fish-eating cormorants were seen to be dining out on the North Channel’s sportsfish (and, just as importantly, on the bait fish these species relied on for their own sustenance) Jim Sloss had the idea of an umbrella conservation club, comprised of members from the Island’s various fish and game clubs and related organizations. The United Fish and Game Club of Manitoulin was born, and its primary objective was to act as a lobby group in raising awareness on the cormorant issue and urging the MNR and its federal counterpart to action. There was success: the MNRF, while declining to harvest the predators, did undertake various local initiatives including one that employed loud noises at intermittent times designed to frighten females away from their nests (with the objective that they would ultimately abandon their eggs). Another MNRF initiative was the “oiling” of cormorant eggs so they would not hatch.
The United Fish and Game Club also successfully lobbied the MNRF to stock lake trout in the North Channel between Little Current and Gore Bay and Mr. Sloss is pleased to observe that, in the last couple of years, “this has led to an excellent sports fishery in this area.”
The United Fish and Game Club, in cooperation with the MNRF, successfully raised walleye (pickerel) in a pilot cage culture project in Kagawong Lake. This project is ongoing and has been taken over by the Gore Bay and Area Fish and Game Club.
Jim Sloss has also been an active volunteer in Gore Bay. He spent a decade as the secretary of the Gore Bay Curling Club and, in the early 1980s when the old curling club’s agricultural arch-rib roof had been deemed unsatisfactory for large snow load situations by the provincial government, the club debated the comparative merits of new construction versus shoring up the old structure. Mr. Sloss and Mike Brown (eventually the MPP) were the two club members asked to prepare a presentation and meet with Wintario representatives to discuss funding options.
Jim recalls now that, “a lot of effort went into preparing that presentation.”
When Mr. Sloss and Mr. Brown met with then MPP John Lane and Wintario staff, they were asked “if the club would accept two for one funding” if it could be arranged. The club agreed to the proposal and Mr. Sloss says theirs was the only project of this nature to receive this level of funding. The club agreed to the proposal.
The “new” curling club was built on part of the town’s racetrack property, just across Highway 540B from H and R Noble Construction’s main office.
Jim Sloss was also a busy Gore Bay Rotary Club member for several years and he especially recalls the annual landmark Rotary Produce Sale but also worked on many other community projects.
Jim Sloss is one of the fortunate among us who has been able to combine and intertwine his vocation of teaching with his myriad interests, all of the time “giving back” to his community and utilizing his organizational skills to help accomplish the many things he has observed “needed a little help.”
Jim and his wife Sharon live quietly in their home town (hers actually: Jim comes originally from down the road in Spring Bay) and enjoy son Bill’s children in nearby Sault Ste. Marie while their daughter Christy lives closer to home in Little Current where her husband is the community’s fire chief.
