Visitors Are Important…

I find that it’s necessary to occasionally have guests from off-island visit otherwise we may forget all the great things there are to see and do on Manitoulin. For example we just had a couple visiting us from up in Schumacher and it gave me a good excuse to go exploring once again.

I had actually introduced these two way back in 1973 or 1974 when he was my co-worker at The Bay and she was a teacher. In those days it was common for the HBC boys and the local group of teachers and nurses to get together often and I suppose that this still goes on even though I’ve turned into a recluse myself. Back then I spent many an evening visiting with the other “outsiders” and tipping back more than a few tasty beverages, especially on the weekends. At any rate these two hit it off but we thought all was over when Ken transferred from Mistassini to St. Augustine down on the north shore of Quebec. As fate would have it he became manager of our store in Wemindji a year or so later and guess who was teaching in that community at that time? Yup, game over for both of them and he and Brenda were married shortly afterward.

I occasionally ran into Ken and Brenda who had moved south when I was travelling out from Moosonee serving in various capacities for the Lions Clubs, but hadn’t seen him in the past 4 or 5 years. They finally came down to visit a few days ago and Gloria and I got reacquainted with them and I got reacquainted with Manitoulin Island. We hit most of the highlights on the eastern end of the island (we’ll do the west next year) from High Falls to the Little Current docks and on to Kagawong for the Bridal Veil Falls tour and even managed to hit the Thursday night Dinner Cruise on the Chi-Cheemaun. As I think I’ve mentioned before, if you’ve never taken this cruise then by all means do so. The food is great, the service super and the views heading over and then sailing back into the sunset are beyond compare. If any of you out there reading this have never visited our area and would like more information just let me know. Personally I’m going to make it a point to get out and about much more often and we’ll update you with some other photos later on.

Manitoulin Fish & Chips anyone?