It was an inauspicious beginning. I had a date
with a group of citizens in Fort Frances to talk about economic
development. For all the time I have spent roaming about this great
North Country, Fort Frances is one of the places I had never set
foot in. I was looking forward to my visit.
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| name="valign" top > MICHAEL ATKINS |
The travel plans were not exotic: Get on a
Bearskin Airlines flight to Thunder Bay. With luck, I was told, the
plane would go all the way to Fort Frances, increasing the
probability of it depositing both my luggage and myself at the same
location at the same time.
I was to speak at 8 am, so I booked the 6 pm
flight out of Sudbury the night before.
It was foggy and raining in Sudbury. Knowing
Bearskin as I do, I stayed at the airport until the bitter end when
the prognostication went from, “we check the weather on the hour
and we’ll make our decision then,” to “not a chance.”
By this time I had turned in my rental car and
the rental car people, realizing no one was coming or going this
night, sensibly decided to go home.
There was one cab. I grabbed it.
I was in for a shock.
By the time I got out of the parking lot I owed
the man four bucks, and I realized I was in for the cost of an
overnight hotel bill by the time I got to my destination.
It was 50 bucks! That’s what I said. Fifty bucks
from the Sudbury Airport to the Four Corners in Sudbury. These guys
have been drinking the same water as Air Canada, who is pleased to
look you in the eye and charge you $800 to fly from Sudbury to
Toronto and back.
My mood was not improving. I decided as a
precautionary move to wait until I got home to tell my host I
didn’t have $50 in my pocket for a cab or anything else. My wife
always says she needs 20 bucks for cab fare when she goes out, and
I seem to have appropriated that long ago standard. I settled the
matter after some discussion with a credit card.
The next morning, there was no way I was calling
a cab. I drag Norm Tollinsky out of bed (our Sudbury Mining
Solutions Journal editor) and offer to buy him breakfast at the
airport if he can get me there for 8 am. He passes on the breakfast
but kindly agrees to drive me out.
As we approach the airport, we realize we can’t
see it. It has disappeared. We drive by the entrance and take
another shot at it. Norm inquires if it makes much sense to attend
to an airport you can’t find in a drive-by much less a
fly-by.
“Listen, you just don’t know the Bear,” I
confidently tell him.
I settle in to wait for a miracle. An hour and a
half later we are out of miracles.
Just then, the Bearskin lady runs up, grabs me by
the collar and says the fog has lifted. Run! There is a mad dash to
security. We run out on the tarmac. It is a sheet of ice. It is
pouring rain. Some of us hit the ground sliding. Within seconds the
door is closed, the engine is primed and we are on our way. The
only question is whether we can beat the oncoming bank of fog,
which looks minutes away.
We do. Trust the Bear.
We arrive in Thunder Bay. Did I mention there are
no bathrooms in Bear country? I am desperate. They run us into the
airport and point us out another door without stopping for a
breath. I can’t go on. I break for the washroom and pray they won’t
leave me. I come back out and the waiting lounge is
full. I nearly get on the plane to
Atikokan.
A young lady from Fort Frances steps up and says
“This way, Mr. Atkins.”
Turns out she is a councillor from Fort Frances
and says she has seen my old face in the pages of Northern Ontario
Business. As we walk out on
the tarmac with the wind blowing and the snow
flying, I notice she is wearing no socks and a pair of summer
shoes. Am I being kidnapped? Does it make sense a town councillor
from Fort Frances would a) know my name, and b) be walking around
in summer shoes in blizzard conditions? The answer is no.
When we arrive, it is 40 below and the wind is
howling.
The alleged councillor doesn’t even try to start
her car. We get in the cab and head for the Rendezvous Hotel where
I am to speak.
As I walk in someone hands me a bowl of soup and
I sit down in a room with maybe 70 people in it.
I focus on the soup. When I look up the room is
empty. I wonder if it is something I’ve said before it is time to
talk.
A minute later Jim Cumming, the publisher of the
Fort Frances Times and my host, comes into the room and says I’m
up.
I follow Jim into the next room, and sure enough
there are all the people who left me alone minutes ago. I speak to
them. I notice the councillor in the audience. She must be legit.
Eventually, someone brings me a scotch.
Don’t you love the north?
Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian
Media. This column is reprinted from the February issue of Northern
Ontario Business. He can be
reached at[email protected]
.
