You can take the boy out of Northern Ontario,
but you can't take the north out of the boy. Last weekend three
of my friends made their way up to Sudbury from "down
south."
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Scott Hunter Haddow |
Ryan, Tony and Rob arrived early Saturday
morning. They were in town to get fitted for tuxedos for a
future wedding.
Over the years, I have watched, along with
the rest of the rooted people in the Sudbury area, young people
flock to the bigger pastures of southern Ontario.
I have lost count of the number of great
people I know who moved to the bigger cities of the
south.
I can just imagine the true number of great
northerners that have made their way into the concrete,
corporate jungle known as southern Ontario.
Ryan lives in the Kitchener area, while Tony
and Rob live in the Toronto area.
Ryan owns his own woodworking business, Tony
is a mutual fund sales representative, and Rob is a truck sales
representative. They all make decent wages and work hard for
every dollar they earn. But they love the north.
We ended up at another friend's place on
Ramsey Lake. We cracked the top on a few beers, shared stories
and gazed out across the lake.
My friend Ryan said it best, while looking
out across a moonlit bay, "this is the place to be."
The stars were out, there was a gentle warm
breeze drifting through the green leaves, and the water was
like darkened glass.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could move back
here and live here again," Ryan said.
It was a stark reminder to everybody that
Northern Ontario isn't a bad place at all.
Ryan lives in an area where there is only one
lake in a 50-kilometre radius, and it's man-made.
He would come back home in an instant, if
there was a way, so he could have the great outdoors at his
doorstep again. But he knows there isn't a big enough market in
the north for him to prosper.
I smiled and laughed while we jumped in the
lake and splashed around in the surprisingly warm water.
The real funny thing about the boys was I
could tell they have spent too much time in southern Ontario
because they went mad swatting mosquitoes most of the
night.
I didn't notice one bug.
Needless to say, my friends' thoughts don't
drift too far from the beauty of Northern Ontario when they are
back in the vast metropolis.
For those who have jobs here, consider
yourself lucky because the north is where it's at.
Scott Hunter Haddow can be contacted at
[email protected]
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