A Review of Kinross Pond

  Things have been changing and happening around Kirkland Lake this year and things are really looking up.
  As a daily ritual, I usually take my regular walk from our house at Comfort St, and King St and end up at Kinross pond, entering the walkway at Poplar Ave so I get to see any changes on the Pond walkway.

 This is the announcement sign to let you know who has been involved in this  project.
                                                                                                                                                                       Someone has a really green thumb and also a good eye for landscaping.                                                                                  

                      

                                                                                     This is the new pavilion where the music is found on Friday afternoons in the good weather.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                        There is also a nice park and playground for the kids and a place for the dogs and cats to enjoy the outdoors.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

There is also a nice water spout/fountain coming up  out of the pond, I imagine that it does help to aerate the water for whatever life is in the water.

First display is a map of the town and area showing the hiking trails, etc.






 First of all, I see the town has installed some exercise machines for our  citizens to use to build up their muscles in various parts of our bodies. I believe that these machines were put in last year as well as a water spout (fountain) near the centre of the pond so this is a beautiful attraction to the pond.
 This year I noticed that the town has poured a series of bases around the walkway and I couldn't figure out what they would be for until about three weeks ago when the workers installed many reader boards (I am not sure of the proper name for these but I am going to call them history lessons).
 I took a walk around the pond one evening this week and snapped pictures of all of them. I am including   pictures of most of them for you to see and a little explanation for you so you can understand what they        are all about. Hope you enjoy them. 
                                                                                                                
                   
 The first picture shows six actors/ actresses from the Kirkland Lake area who have made it big in television.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                     

    This picture is Rosa Brown, who immigrated from Europe and was quite an entrepreneur. She does have a very colourful history.

   Here is a story about Wally Flood. He was a miner from the Kirkland

Lake area who enlisted in the war and was responsible for making
 tunnels underground and was the figure in the movie with Charles
 Bronson called "The Great Escape"





This plaque is about the Canadian Army Tunnelling Company including
about 20 men who were trained and employed in hard rock mining at home. These men did a lot of tunnelling in Europe, Africa, British Isles and other areas.

 This picture is the story of Charlie Chow, who ran a Chines restaurant
and hotel on the main street of Kirkland Lake. He was very smart in finances when he dealt with his mining customers who on occasion didn't have money to pay their bills so he took stocks in trade for payment. One time there was a problem when the mine couldn't get their payroll so Charlie brought out some paper bags full of money, enough to cover the payroll of the mine.

 This is the story of Kirkland Lake as a gold mining community
This story includes many details of gold mining in and around the town as well as the background behind the Mile Of Gold (Main Street).

 
 Mario Bernardi was born in Kirkland Lake and got his education in music in Toronto and performed as a concert pianist and then a well known classical conductor.



                                                                       

                                                              This plaque tells all about Champions from Kirkland Lake and gone elsewhere to make their fortune.
                                          

 

 Jack Kent Cooke came to Kirkland Lake and joined up with Roy
 Thompson and got involved running his radio station in Stratford.
 Mr Cooke and Roy Thompson joined forces in buying more radio
 stations and operating them as well as buying some baseball clubs

Lord Thompson of Fleet was known for selling radios and operating radio stations in Northern Ontario.

William Wright joined with his brother in law Ed Hargreaves in the Wright Hargreaves mine as well as financing the merger of the Globe and
 Mail newspaper.




 
.Harry Oakes was a man who was rather well off and used to be the owner of a few mines around Kirkland Lake area. He also used to be the owner of the house that is now the local museum.

This plaque commemorates the bad forest fire that almost claimed a large part of the Kirkland Lake town and surrounding area in 2012. I personally remember that time and the stress that it caused, not only by the news and radio announcements but the weird skies and smoke coverage in out area plus the smoke smell. One day, the wind changed direction and carried smoke from another fire located in the Timmins area as well as creating an orange sky. Boy was that strange.

This plate lists three of the local women who were involved in politics in our area. I am not familiar with any of them but they must have done a good job or they wouldn't have been elected to the position that they filled.

As you likely know, Kirkland Lake is well famous for the hockey players that came from our area. Many of them, not only played well but came up through the ranks to make themselves famous and was responsible for helping to organize a hockey association.







When you are in the area on a visit or if you live around here, then I invite you to come on over and see what the Town Of Kirkland Lake has been doing.

We lost a dear friend in January

Things have been rather quiet for awhile around here but in January of this year we lost a dear and great friend. Mr Bill Sedgwick of Kirkland Lake has passed away due to illnesses that he has been dealing with for awhile now.
 Even though Bill has been confined to his house for a few years, it hasn't dampened his spirit. He has always been cheerful and a joy to be around when we either go to visit him or do his usual weekly shopping trip for him and ourselves.
 I have known Bill since about 1989 when I first started to work for Supreme TV in Kirkland Lake,Ontario. My family and I had moved from Southern Ontario to a small village called Matachewan, just 40 miles west of Kirkland Lake, out in the bush remote from most civilization. This village is a mining community built up to accomodate men and their families as they worked for a mine in the area. Because of my occupation, I had to work for a tv and appliance sales and service business wherever I could find one that needed a tv technician. When we moved north in 1988, I did work for a business in Englehart but the owner did not do very well so I ended up leaving him in February 1989 and working from home until June of 1989 when I started working for Supreme TV and driving 75 miles round trip back and forth to work. This lasted for six years until 1995 when I had a severe accident on off time and I have not worked for anyone since then.
 Back to the subject of this posting. When I worked for Supremes, I ran their service shop about one block south of their main store. People would bring their sets to me so I could work on them there and, hopefully, send them back home in good working order. I did have a young man working with me part time in between his college course he was taking.
 I had a lot of hours of working in this shop by myself and a lot of time I found it quite boring so I would put on my coat and march down to the main store and to the back so I could sit and chat with Bill for a period of time until I either had to go back to work or figured I should look like I was working.
 Time went on working for Supreme's until 1995 when they suffered from a large fire in the main store and another store attached to the side of the main store. In August of that year I had the accident which took me out of circulation, as far as being employed by anyone so I have been on disability pension since then until I turned 65 and now am on senior's old age pension.
 Bill stayed with Supreme's after the fire until a few years later when he stopped working because of health problems and just stayed at home not working. In later years, Bill had two hip replacements in  Toronto and this did help him to get around but he never did fully get back to normal mobility and well as suffering from Diabetes and heart troubles until this January when he passed away from health related problems. Bill is going to be sorely missed by his many friends and family.
  Life does go on and we have to learn to carry on with or without our loved ones. God Bless you Bill, will look forward to seeing you in the future.
Wilf Blakey

A very pleasant visitor

Today is September 12,2012. We had a surprise email yesterday from a fellow blogger, Ivan, from Sundre, Alberta, Canada.
Ivan has been traveling across Canada from Alberta to Newfoundland with his cat, Hailey.  I have been following Ivan's blog "Roadtrip 2012" as he has gone from Alberta to the East coast and now is heading back home again. We had contact with Ivan earlier when he was passing around Thunder Bay and on through Ontario. We had invited the two of them to stop in on their way east if it was okay with them but that was not to be. I read all of his adventures, including a trip on the ocean with Hailey and some of his friends. I got to see the scenery of the Maritime provinces as he moved around them, also a trip on the ferry over to Newfoundland. I had heard about the ferry ride from some of our friends, who have a bus ministry across Canada and have been to Newfoundland and the Maritimes twice in the last year or two. 
   When I first found out about Ivan, I realized that he does have a cat and by chance his cat looks quite similar to our Morris even to a similarity in color. When we got Morris last December, I emailed Ivan and told him about Morris and we started up a little conversation between Morris and Hailey. We have had many chuckles as we passed comments back and forth about the two cats as though they were long lost cousins. In fact, this week when Ivan emailed us to say that he was headed our way, he said that Hailey was planning on coming our way to "hiss" at Morris and we expected Morris to "hiss" at Hailey as well. The conversation has carried on in this manner as we have enjoyed our nonsense and fun.
    Monday of this week, we noticed that Morris had developed a rather large bare spot on his throat from him either licking himself or scratching himself with his paws to the point that he has a rather bare area below his chin. We decided to remove his harness and flea collar just to be sure that they wouldn't cause more grief. We also took him to the vet for treatment of this situation. When we brought him home, he had a sore rump from an antibiotic injection and also a halo to stop him from licking his bare spot or scratching it and causing more trouble. When Ivan emailed us yesterday, we told him about Morris' problem. When he emailed back he stated that according to Hailey "Morris looks silly with the collar".
 Time passes very fast  these days as we notice that the day starts rather early and before we realize the time has flown by without even seeing it. It was time for the duo to move on and Elizabeth and I had to get ready for a supper engagement at the local restaurant to celebrate two birthdays ( mine and Joe -our oldest daughter's boyfriend).

 As we moved from the house to Ivan's truck camper, we had a chance to view the interior of his camper and compare it to one that we had many years ago but smaller. I asked Ivan if he would show us his miniature remote controlled helicopter that flies and takes pictures with a digital camera. It is a very nice machine and definitely not just a toy.














Of course no visit is complete without showing off our own new camper, which we purchased in June of this year.I had been chatting with Ivan about our new motorhome so I just had to show if off and show off we did.

I received another email from Ivan saying that he was heading towards Timmins and was staying at a Provincial Park in that area.
  Ivan has travelled into the United States for part of the winter to escape the cold winter weather. He has been as far south as Arizona, New Mexico and other states in that area. This is a man who has travelled around and has the time and opportunity to do so. Ivan worked for Parks Canada and is now retired from the work force.
  Thank you Ivan and Hailey for visiting us today and will gladly enjoy any visit that might happen again in the future. Safe travels and have a joyous future.
Wilf, Elizabeth, and Morris Blakey

Time for something new

Habits get developed, sometimes without even realizing it. Since 1987, we have been trading vehicles every ten years and this year is no exception but not the way we had expected.
We purchased our first motorhome in 2002. We bought a 1971 Ford class C motorhome made by Triple E in Winkler, Manitoba. It was quite an experience for us to own a motorhome, a motorized self contained camper with all of the necessary equipment to live in for a period of time

 We did considerable work on this unit as we replaced the engine with a new engine,rebuilt the transmission, rebuilt the radiator, rebuilt the passenger side wall on the coach as well as many other things and updates that I did on it.

  My  wife and I travelled to Southern Ontario for holidays in 2006 and also 2011. We stayed at a private campground around Lake Eugenia (near Flesherton). The campground is owned by a couple we have known quite well since about the 1970's. The gentleman ran a service station and serviced our vehicles while we lived in that area until we moved to this location in 1988.
  We have had a standing invitation to stay at their place anytime we were in the area so we have done that three times now. When we stayed there in 2006, they announced that they were planning on upgrading to a newer motorhome and would sell their present one. We have known this motorhome since 2004 when we stayed at their place for the first time. This unit is a 1976 Itasca class A , 26 ft motorhome. Itasca is a sister brand to Winnebago and is a really nice higher class motorhome than the Triple E class C that we have had for the last ten years.

As the pictures indicate, the interior is much nicer than our first unit and is much better constructed that the Triple E which has a wood  frame construction where the Itasca has a metal tubular frame with foam insulation sprayed in the metal frame. This should be a stronger frame as well as a warmer framed camper.
As I mentioned earlier, it was in 2006 that we were first told about this motorhome being up  for sale. We told the owners that we were interested in it and were going home to Kirkland Lake and would sell ours first to get some money to pay for theirs. We went home but didn't sell ours or didn't raise the money to pay for theirs so nothing happened in the mean time. When we went down for a holiday in 2011, their motorhome was still there and it was still for sale but at a lower price. We decided that the present price was a price that we should be able to handle and we went home this time with much more encouragement that we would be able to pay for it this time. We did buy it this time but took the winter to pay it off with delivery in the spring or early summer. We were a little sneaky with this deal as we didn't say a word about this purchase to any of our family or most of our friends in this area. We arranged for the previous owner to drive his motorhome up to Kirkland Lake to our home in mid June. It sure felt weird to see a large, very nice looking motorhome sitting in our yard parked next to a smaller, older not so nice unit. However we do have it now, we are still doing some unexpected repairs as well as some updates that we want to do before we actually put it on the road to go somewhere for a camping trip.
 A couple (friends of ours) blessed us with a color backup camera system as well as a GPS system for the motorhome. I have the camera installed and working well, the gps is a portable unit that just plugs into the cigarette lighter so it really doesn't need installation.
 So much for our new purchase, now you know why we are smiles when we talk about our new camper. It is a real pride and joy, besides being a source of enjoyment, it has more room for Morris to run around in while we are taking a trip.
Looking forward to our first camping trip. In the meantime other things do need our attention. See you later.
Wilf, Elizabeth, and Morris Blakey

Christmas Eve and Santa is coming

Well it is Dec 24,2011 and another year is close to being complete. Tonight Santa Clause is doing his worldy jaunt around the globe. He is stopping at every home with children to drop off his gifts to make millions of girls and boys happy for another year.
 I hope that all of you childred have been good this past year or you just might not get that toy or whatever it is that you asked Santa for. I know that I have been trying to behave myself so that Mrs Blakey could tell Santa  that I have been a good boy and it  is okay to drop off the toys that I asked for this Christmas.
  All of you kids had better get off to bed early so Santa can come into your places with  his surprises. It will be exciting to get up in the morning to check out the tree and your stockings as well.
                    Well we will say good night to you all and wish you all a very
                       Merry , Merry  Christmas

Wilf, Elizabeth Blakey and family