It’s a new year and Manitoulin Island is starting it out in ways that must be seen as positive, even enviable.
In Wikwemikong and M’Chigeeng, the New Year came in with the usual powwows: New Year’s Eve in Wiky and January 1 in M’Chigeeng. Good community events to usher in 2016.
Charles C. McLean Public School in Gore Bay begins the new year with a “school” of new inhabitants: 36 fledgling Chinook salmon and a complex rearing system, all installed at the end of the year (just before Christmas) by the Gore Bay Fish and Game Club in an effort to encourage the spirit of conservation among the student population at that school. (One of the teachers took on the responsibility of ongoing visits to the school during the Christmas break to ensure that the system was in working order and to feed the fish.)
The young people charged with minding the young salmon will watch them grow to the point where they will participate in releasing the salmon into the “big water” in the spring.
In Kagawong, Austin Hunt’s friends joined him at a community party this past Sunday to wish Canada’s longest-serving municipal politician a happy ninetieth birthday. An observation: it is a rare birthday party that has a press table with four scribes busily recording the occasion, but this was the case on Sunday as Kagawong’s Park Centre was packed with wellwishers who saw the venerable Mayor Hunt into his 64th year of public service in his own 91st year in this new year.
In Little Current and Mindemoya, both hospital sites of the Manitoulin Health Centre are stable places of healing and the Family Health Teams in each of these communities go into 2016 with their respective full complements of family physicians after successful recruiting efforts.
In Providence Bay, the young entrepreneur who purchased the former J.F. McDermid and Sons Home Hardware building at the community’s main intersection has committed to begin to repurpose it into a diverse number of interesting retail, entertainment and service centres in 2016.
In 2016, in Little Current, the RONA Building Centre will be moving to much larger premises on Highway 6, just south of town. The new store will be three times as big as the old Tim’s and Co. store that RONA will be vacating in the spring.
In Manitowaning, the Burns Wharf Theatre organization will continue to be relentless in 2016 in its goal of bringing its iconic waterfront theatre up to fire code standards and so be able to “return home.”
This past year saw the Manitoulin ferry M.S. Chi-Cheemaun reverse the trend of the past few years and post eight percent growth in ridership.
The marketing program that had been devised by the Owen Sound Transportation Company and the Ontario government went live, with the message about the Chi-Cheemaun sailing experience and the trip to “magical Manitoulin,” in June of last year.
The new marketing was successful and so this year will see the benefit of a full year’s messaging for the Chi-Cheemaun’s success and for Manitoulin Island, whose branding as a tourist destination will continue to be enhanced by the ferry’s marketing strategy.
We will have two craft breweries, one in Gore Bay and the other in Little Current, both scaling up and producing all-Manitoulin products in 2016.
The Expositor is organizing and hosting a major new event in 2016: a three-week long Salmon Classic with cash prizes adding up to $25,000 for those big fish whether they’re caught in surrounding waters of the North Channel, Lake Huron or Georgian Bay.
Planning will be going ahead in 2016 for the rebuilding and resurfacing of Highway 540 between Gore Bay and Little Current with the work to be carried out in 2017. In keeping with other major highway reconstruction projects that have added metre-wide paved shoulders, suitable for bicycle travel, the successful lobbying effort encouraged by the Manitoulin Cycling Advocates (MICA) will continue this year to encourage the Ontario government to include paved shoulders in this east-west highway’s rebuilding profile.
And, of course, 2016 will be the Year of Refugees on Manitoulin as community-minded groups in Mindemoya, Gore Bay, Little Current and Manitowaning will each be hosting a family from far-off Eritrea. Just now, all is being finalized for the welcoming events in each of these communities for the imminent arrival of these families.
These are only a few highlights of the interesting year that we’re now just beginning.
Happy New Year, everyone!
