AUGUST 20, 2003 ARCHIVE

Arsonist sets the night on fire


by Neil Zacharjewicz
SHEGUIANDAH - The arsonist who has been active in the area of
Sheguiandah is believed to be behind three fires in a span of five
hours last Friday night.
This was following another fire believed to have been set by the
culprit earlier in the week.
The Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands Fire Department were
called to respond to a blaze on Indian Mountain Road on Monday,
August 11, at approximately 4:50 pm. Some people at the look out had
spotted a grass fire, and firefighters responded to the scene.
"There was no reason for this to start on its own," indicated Fire
Chief Rick Milne, who noted he believes it may have been the work of
the arsonist. He explained that the fire department has decided that
it will be calling the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) to the scene
of every fire they are called to from this point forward.
"Somewhere along the way, we have got to catch this arsonist," Chief
Milne said.
That point was reinforced when the fire department was called to
respond to four fires on the evening of Friday, August 15, three of
which are believed to have been directly caused by the arsonist.
The first occurred at 7 pm, on Burnett's Side Road. The firefighters
were called to respond to a grass and rail fence fire on property
belonging to Blake Burnett, and the arsonist is believed to have been
cause of the blaze.
The second fire took place at approximately 9:30 pm, on land
belonging to the Sheguiandah First Nation. The incident occurred on
property located along Indian Mountain Road, and the arsonist is also
believed to have been the cause for this incident.
The third call firefighters received took place at approximately
11:30 pm. The firefighters were called to a blaze located along
Highway 6 near 10 Mile Point. This blaze was also believed to be the
work of the arsonist.
The final call of the evening was received at approximately 12:30 am,
on Saturday, August 16. The firefighters received a call from police
officers who had been patrolling the back roads of Sheguiandah, when
they spotted a hay fire on property belonging to Roy Bayer. The blaze
was believed to have been a rekindling of a fire which occurred on
the property in late July. The cause of the original blaze on Mr.
Bayer's property is believed to also have been the work of the
arsonist.
 

Historic blackout shines light on grid shortcomings

by Michael Erskine
NORTH AMERICA---Some 50 million people across the eastern United
States and Ontario suddenly found themselves powerless last Thursday
evening, quite literally, as a cascading power interruption caused
power plants to go into automatic shutdown cutting off power.
The initial problem began, it is now clear, in Ohio, when three power
transmission lines tripped off. As surges and power vacuums began to
occur, each of the interconnected grids began to shut down. The
reason for the three power lines tripping off were unclear, but three
major power management boards in the US had been predicting the
problem for years. A joint white paper was being issued calling on
remedial action to be implemented by March, 2004. Obviously the
time-frame for action was a little off.
The vulnerability of the network of powerlines, transformers,
distribution stations and power plants that provides North America
with the key fuel for its globally unprecedented prosperity was first
highlighted in 1965, when a problem in Northern Ontario led to the
last truly massive power outage. A smaller shorter outage in the
1970s fails to compare in scope and duration.
Thankfully, the August 14, 2003 power outage, occurred at the height
of the summer heat, rather in the depths of the winter's cold, but it
seems clear the huge summer demands for power played a part in the
cascading shutdowns, at least, if not the initial failure as well.
While Ontario once exported power to the US in the summer, and
imported power in the winter, those usage patterns are long in the
past. Now summer usage far surpasses winter draws on the system, as
hungry air conditioners have become ubiquitous in new and retrofitted
older homes across the province.
The huge amounts of power being transmitted across the continent
played a key role in the power failures.
A series of alarms were supposed to warn power operators to shut off
links when a failure condition was detected in other power systems,
but some alarms failed at FirstEnergy Corp., of Ohio, the owner of
the first four lines that failed, and some persons apparently failed
to heed alarms at the Independent Transmission System Operator, which
oversees that portion of the electricity grid.
FirstEnergy has fired back that the grid's problems extend far beyond
its four failed lines, an argument backed up by the scope of the
failure.
In order to restore power to the grid, the process must take place in
carefully planned stages, so as not to have a repeat of the
surge-crash scenario that led to the initial blackout. As devices
such as refrigeration compressors and electric motors start up, their
draw can be many times their operating load, so starting up the
system is doubly tricky.
The age and inadequacy of the American power grid has been a known
quantity for some time, and it is estimated that upgrading the system
will cost in excess of $100 billion. A heavy cost for the market to
bear even for the economic juggernaut that is the United States.
The average American, and Canadian, uses nearly 12,900 kilowatt hours
of electricity a year, compared to the world average of 2,200.
On Monday, August 18, Ontario power usage peaked at 6 pm with 18,140
megawatts being consumed, this compared to 21,040 megawatts at the
same time on Monday, August 11.
With the cost of power being a political hot potato in the US as well
as Ontario, power costs have been kept artificially low for decades,
leading to few new sources of power being brought on-line in either
jurisdiction, while at the same time starving infrastructure budgets,
so badly needed upgrades are delayed or not implemented at all.
Nearly all of Manitoulin Island saw power restored before much of the
rest of the affected continent, as the lights came on around 12:30
am. Parts of Ontario and New York were still without a stable power
supply late Monday, while the province continued to exist in a
declared state of emergency and businesses were being cautioned to
reduce their power usage by at least 50 percent until further notice.
Non-essential workers were being advised to stay home, until further
notice, and the province issued a list of services that would be
curtailed.
No new or replacement health cards would be in the works, but expired
cards would remain valid until the crisis abates. Patients are
advised they may be asked to fill out a health number release form
that hospitals can use when filing OHIP claims.
No driver examinations or new drivers licenses will be issued.
All Ontario Business Connects and Access Ontario offices are to be
closed, and Land Registry offices will only be open in the morning.
Employment Standards services are curtailed, but the Occupational
Health and Safety branch of the Ministry of Labour will respond to
work refusals, critical inquiries and fatalities. Local Ministry of
Labour offices can be contacted for assistance.
In social services, no disability adjudication services or new
employment supports for Ontario Disability Support Program clients
will be processed. No new applications for Ontario Disability Support
Programs or Ontario Works will be accepted. Apparently, the Ontario
Government does not consider these programs to be 'essential.' All
Family Responsibility Offices will also remain closed.
Government book stores and information centres will remain closed, as
will the Publications Ontario telephone and on-line ordering systems.
Archives of Ontario reading rooms, and reference services are closed.
No publication of JobMart or GOJobs on-line postings will be issued.
The services that will remain active include the provincial courts,
so all court appearances dates should be kept.
Meat inspections will continue to be conducted, and the Ministry of
Environment's Emergency Spills Action Centre will remain fully
functional. Water and sewage plant inspections will be continued as
required.
Renewal or replacement drivers licenses and vehicle permits will
continue to be issued through private issuers and government kiosks.
The Ontario Travel and Information Centres will remain open.
Ontario Parks are open, but they may be running with reduced services.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food staff will be available to
provide assistance to Ontario producers.
The Centre for Forensic Sciences and the Office of the Provincial
Coroner will remain open.
As to the Arts, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum,
the McMichael Gallery, the Ontario Science Centre and Science North
will offer summer camps only, as will the Royal Botanical Gardens,
which also will keep its outdoor gardens open.
Birth certificates will be available at the counter in Thunder Bay,
and through mail-in application.
While many Island businesses reported a drop in commercial
transactions, with no Interact or electricity to run their tills, not
everyone was hurt economically by the blackout, as staff at TommyKats
in Little Current, and other small free-standing operations across
the Island that cook primarily with propane found themselves
scrambling to meet the demand of hungry people whose electric ranges
had failed to produce supper.
Ice and bottled water sales were also quite brisk at area businesses.
But consumers dependence on plastic and the Interact system left many
with little 'folding' in hand with which to make purchases.
"I had 50 cents in my pocket after I bought fish and chips for
dinner," said KPMG Consultant Oscar Poloni, who was in Little Current
for a series of waterfront meetings. "Thank goodness I have a full
tank of gas," he laughed. "Or I wouldn't be getting home tonight."
Local governments and many local businesses have been doing their
part in keeping power draws down.
Greg Wright, recreation director at the Town of Northeastern
Manitoulin and the Islands, reported that the Little Current Howland
Recreation Centre, the key assembly point for the Island's emergency
response coordination is being operated on backup diesel generated
power during peak load hours.
In addition, many First Nation offices are operating at reduced
levels to lessen the load on the provincial power grid.
Independent Electricity Market Operator spokesperson Terry Young said
that as of Monday afternoon, "things are looking pretty good."
Although the numbers fall far short of the 50 percent reduction
requested by the Premier Eves, they are well below the peak levels
recorded earlier in the month.
"Thanks to businesses and consumers, we seem to be okay," said Mr.
Young. "But we really need those conservation efforts to continue."
As to the cause of the blackout, Mr. Young cautioned against falling
into any finger pointing.
"We don't really know yet, and quite frankly we haven't spent a lot
of time investigating it yet," he said. "We are concentrating on
getting everything back up and running."
There will be plenty of time to determine cause and effect, once the
current crisis and energy demands have abated.
The blame game has not left the ruling Ontario Tories unscathed,
however, with both the Liberals and the NDP castigating the Premier
for his party's continuing failure to secure Ontario's power supply
and to promote the development of new power sources, leaving the
province at the mercy of the badly outdated American power grid.
"It is an unfortunate experience," said Algoma Manitoulin MPP Mike
Brown, who noted that despite repeated warnings and cautionary
near-misses, the province still does not have a clear energy plan in
place.
"We had one, but the NDP killed it when they got in power," he noted.
Adding to Algoma Manitoulin's woes, the pressures on the price of
natural gas from this summer's massive demands for electricity will
hit many of his constituents hard, noted Mr. Brown.
"My constituents are going to be very unhappy in the fall," he said.
Unless some excess capacity is built into the system, noted Mr.
Brown, there will be no relief from these energy crisis.
Ontario's population has exploded in the past decade, he pointed out,
but capacity has not kept pace.
"Where we had 9 million people in 1990, we now have 12 million,
that's a huge jump," said Mr. Brown. Add to that population jump, the
draw of millions of computers in homes across the province, the
proliferation of air conditioners, and it is little wonder that
without huge new investments in power generation the province's
electricity market is in deep trouble.
"When it comes to preparing for Ontario's electricity needs, Ernie
Eves really dropped the ball," said Mr. Brown. "Governments have to
take the lead, they have to look at things over the long term. You
plan for electricity over 10 or more years. The message was there
staring them in the face, we brought it up daily, but they chose to
bury their heads in the sand and hope for the best."
Mr. Brown said there were a number of possible new sources of
electricity that had been stalled by the NDP and Tory governments.
"We have to get Beck III at Niagara up, and there is the potential of
the Moose River, not to mention wind and solar power incentives," he
said. "Unless we want the economic prosperity of this province going
rapidly into the toilet, real action has to be taken."
Smoke, mirrors and ideological platitudes are no replacement for
careful planning and decisive action, he said.
Ontario's current plan is to call on Ontario consumers and businesses
to cut their power usage in half, and as of late Monday evening, that
plan was working. But the economic cost of the crisis, no matter
where it originated, will doubtless continue to plague the government
long after this latest electricity crisis has faded into memory, and
will very likely follow them into the next election.
 
Joyce Farm feeling strain caused by border closure
by Neil Zacharjewicz
MELDRUM BAY - As the fight to open the American border for Canadian
cattle continues, the impact on Island beef operations continues to
grow.
At the Joyce Farm in Meldrum Bay, the reality of what many Island
farmers will soon be facing has begun to sink in. Two weeks ago, they
sold off a dozen cattle to a feedlot operator. Last year, those
cattle would have fetched at least $1,400. This year, the cattle
averaged $430. With the assistance of the Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy (BSE) Recovery Program, the Joyce Farm will recover an
additional $540, giving them a total of $970 each.
"Basically, we have lost over $400 per animal," explained Jan Joyce.
"The reality hit me when the cheque came. I had figured out what it
would be, but it never really hit me until the cheque arrived."
The Joyce Farm, which has been in the family for three generations,
is a cow-calf operation. Ms. Joyce explained most of the beef farms
on the Island are cow-calf operations, because Manitoulin is ideally
suited for this sort of operation. Generally, cow-calf operations
begin when the calves are born in the spring. The calves spend the
summer with their mothers, then are weaned in September. The calves
are raised until they reach approximately 600 pounds, at which time
they are generally sold off to backgrounders from Southern Ontario.
However, due to the BSE situation, Ms. Joyce said they are having to
look at other options to help them survive.
"We are down to essentials only," she explained. They are trying to
get by with minimal equipment use, and plan to hold cattle a bit
longer than they otherwise would normally. Cows that do not have to
go off to sale will likely spend the winter at the farm, Ms. Joyce
indicated.
She added they are also looking at the possibility of planting a
cereal crop. In the past, they have grown grain, but Ms. Joyce
explained that it was for their own use. Their fields have generally
been used for hay, she pointed out.
Another option the Joyces are considering is retailing locally.
"We could probably do a bit of a freezer trade," Ms. Joyce indicated.
She noted they have already booked an abattoir, found a retailer, and
are hoping that by cutting out "the middle man," they might be able
to make a little more.
Ms. Joyce noted that, as a farmer, she has been really appreciative
of the support she has been seeing from Canadian consumers.
"Without their support, the industry would be done for," she stated.
She added the financial support from both the federal and provincial
governments has been helpful. She said while many farmers were
expecting to see anywhere from a 10 to 15 percent loss as a result of
the BSE situation, government funding has been helpful in a
precarious time for beef operators.
"I'm pretty sure the government will be with us for a while," Ms. Joyce said.
While the Joyce Farm is already starting to feel the impact of the
border closure, Ms. Joyce noted many of the other Island farms
probably will not feel the impact until they begin selling their
cattle at the cattle sale in early September. She noted even if the
border were to fully open immediately, it would not completely affect
the impact the BSE situation will have on Island beef operations.
"It would cushion it for the Island, but there will be a price drop,"
Ms. Joyce said. Still, she said despite the recent progress which saw
the border open for low-risk meat, she said she doubts the border
will re-open completely before the fall cattle sale on the Island.
"I hope I'm wrong," she said. "You plan for the worst and hope for the best."
 

Tobacco Lake

by Jim Moodie
GORE BAY--That Tobacco Lake warrants its own social news column in
the Manitoulin Recorder should tell you something about the character
of this small, diamond-shaped lake near Gore Bay. Although the lake
is small, its population is not, with 80-some cottages shoehorned
along its shoreline.
This is not to say that Tobacco Lake represents a mini-Muskoka. Most
of the cottages are small and unassuming, even lovably ragged and
ramshackle. And the people seem amiable and down to earth.
It seems that people have been congregating at Tobacco Lake for quite
some time. Long before cottages sprung up here, the lake was
apparently a popular place for natives to swap goods with European
settlers.
In his July 25 column, Tobacco Lake social news correspondent Harold
Cumming explained that the name of the lake derives from these early
trading sessions, which occurred between area natives and white
surveyors who would lay up supplies at a camp on the lake.
"Especially enticing (to the natives) was the tobacco, an item that
could not be obtained locally," Mr. Cumming writes. "The lake became,
for them, and then for everyone down the decades, Tobacco Lake."
This explanation seems as likely as any. The lake certainly isn't the
colour of tobacco, nor does the species appear to grow here.
What does sprout up, in abundance, are cottages, or, in keeping with
local parlance, 'camps.' Many date to the early 1920s, and have been
only marginally altered since.
A stroll down the cottage road in the 'old section' of Tobacco Lake
reveals an array of low-roofed, listing, pleasingly rustic abodes.
One cottage, belonging to the Mcintosh family, looks, with its quaint
wooden shutters and weathered cedar shingles and mossy roof, like the
home of a hermit.
This older cottage enclave on the east shore of Tobacco Lake also
once boasted a dance hall. "It was called the Pavilion, and live
dance bands would play there on the weekends in the 1930s," says
Jacqui Gordon, who grew up in Gore Bay and has cottaged on Tobacco
Lake since 1973.
Mrs. Gordon isn't old enough to have danced there herself, but she
remembers the building, which remained standing for quite a few years
after the dances had ceased. For some time afterward it was used as a
cottage, but then it became bat-infested and was finally torn down;
today, the only evidence of the dance hall is a clearing behind the
McRae cottage.
Not far from the Pavilion site is a natural spring, from which
cottagers have drawn their drinking water for decades. They still do,
but only in the early part of the summer; as summer progresses, the
water quality can't be counted upon as it used to.
John MacDonald has been drawing water from this spring for about as
long as he can remember. His grandparents, Jack and Annie MacDonald,
of Gore Bay, began cottaging on the lake in 1941, when he was a
toddler, and he now makes the same cottage his permanent home
(although he and his wife spend the winters in Florida).
He's put new siding on the building, and a small addition, but
otherwise it's the same place his grandparents enjoyed. It was built
for them, he says, by Laurine MacDonald, their daughter and his aunt.
Many people are familiar with the name Laurine MacDonald, because of
her 'Cinderella' marriage to Danny Dodge (of the famous auto-making
family) in 1938 and the subsequent tragedy that occurred during the
couple's honeymoon at the Dodge retreat on Maple Point near Kagawong.
Badly wounded in a bizarre dynamite explosion, Danny Dodge never made
it to the hospital--he fell from his speedboat while Laurine was
attempting to drive him to Little Current, and drowned. She inherited
the Maple Point property, which she kept until 1951.
Mr. MacDonald says that Laurine would spend time at the Tobacco Lake
cottage when he was young, "but mostly we went over there (to Maple
Point)." The Maple Point cottage was considerably more lavish and
sprawling than the Tobacco Lake camp, and made a considerable
impression on Mr. MacDonald when he was a boy.
Laurine made occasional visits in later years to Tobacco Lake, but the last
one was about 10 years ago, her nephew says. "She's in her 80s now,
living in California, and can't travel. Her son, John, who lives in
Indiana, frequently comes up to stay with us, though," he adds.
Mr. MacDonald's father, Laurine's brother, is no longer alive, and
there were no other siblings, so Laurine represents the last of this
generation of MacDonalds.
Mr. MacDonald's children and grandchildren maintain an attachment to
the cottage, however, so the family connection to Tobacco Lake will
certainly continue.
"It's a nice, safe lake for kids to swim and canoe in," notes Mr.
MacDonald, a retired college teacher. Sand beaches scallop the east
shore of the lake, and the water drops off very gradually.
The entire lake is pretty shallow. Slim Field, who now lives
year-round in a cottage he built 23 years ago on a point at the north
end of the lake, says that "the deepest spot I've found is 33 feet,
going down with a rope knotted every 10 feet."
This shallowness means bathtub temperatures, and Mr. Field has taken
his share of baths in the lake over the years. "Most years I've gone
in for a swim every morning at seven o'clock, from the beginning of
June right up until the end of September," he says. He would be doing
so this summer, too, if he weren't recovering from an operation.
Mrs. Gordon has also been soaking in the warm waters of Tobacco Lake
for many years. "Growing up in Gore Bay, we would walk or cycle out
to the lake to swim, because it was so much warmer than the North
Channel," she recalls. "Sometimes we rode horses out, too. And we
took swimming lessons there."
The beach where a generation of Gore Bay residents learned the front
crawl is no longer an official public beach, being sandwiched between
two private residences, but there is a newer public beach and boat
access, located in the northwest corner of the lake. It can be
accessed from the Golf Course Road, off Highway 542.
Three other roads lead to Tobacco Lake. The most provocatively named
one is "Four-O-Two." According to Mrs. Gordon, it was the late Jack
'Beaver' Baines, a longtime cottager, who is responsible for this
ironic variation on the major Four-O (400, 401, 404) arteries of the
south.
"He used to put a sign out saying 402 for friends and family who were
coming to visit, as kind of a joke," she relates. "One year I painted
a sign for him, and had it all decorated and done up, but someone
stole it."
When 911 addressing occurred on the Island and every road was given a
proper sign, 402 became official, but apparently had to be spelled
out.
Mr. Baines' own name, meanwhile, has been attached to one of the two
islands in Tobacco Lake. Well, his nickname, at any rate. People may
logically assume Beaver Island is named for the bucktoothed mammal,
but it's really a tribute to 'Beaver' Baines, who used to own it, and
whose family still does.
The other, larger, island is called Sharon Island, after Sharon
Sloss, who owns the isle along with husband Jim, says Mr. Field.
There is hardly a stretch of Tobacco Lake that isn't spoken for. And
most lots sport cottages (although sections of the west shore are too
steep to build on).
But it wasn't always such a populated, recreational area. Logging
occurred here at one time, and a clearing still exists near the
present public beach where a sawmill used to stand. As well, there
are large rock-filled cribs visible just below the surface on the
west shore of the lake where booms were once attached.
Sawdust could also be found at one time on the east shore of the
lake, though for a different reason. Mr. MacDonald recalls how ice
was once stored for cottagers in an old log building on the Hall
property. "Before everyone had fridges, John Hall, who is gone now,
used to cut ice and put sawdust on it. I remember going in there as a
kid. You'd take a pick to it, and get a big chunk of ice out of the
sawdust."
Ice obviously isn't harvested for refrigeration purposes anymore, but
it still grows thick on Tobacco Lake, forming soon in the season due
to the lake's shallowness.
There are a few 'deep holes' though, says Mrs. Gordon, "because
there's bass and pickerel fishing." As well, there's a whirlpool that
can sometimes be seen at the south end of the lake, where "the water
goes underground and comes up again in Nameless Lake from a little
creek," she says.
The whirlpool couldn't be found on the day the research for this
article was conducted, but that isn't to say it doesn't ever exist.
Maybe Mr. Cumming will explore the subject of the whirlpool for us in
a future installment of the Tobacco Lake social news.