Michael Atkins

Three years ago, my daughter (then 14) competed at Mount Baldy in an Ontario Alpine Ski Race. It was a big deal for me. I don’t get to Thunder Bay as much as I used to and I had a story to tell.

As I write, it is the first of August. I am in Nova Scotia. I am on holiday. My top priority is the tide so I can plan my walk. Tomorrow, I will consult Environment Canada to study wind speeds.

Bob Lipic died last month. If you were in the mining business in Canada, you knew him; or if you didn’t, you had heard of him.

I met Darryl Lake around 40 years ago. He was the dean of Health Sciences and Technology at Cambrian College and I was in the early years of publishing Northern Life newspaper in Sudbury.

I made a brief return to the homeland (Nova Scotia) last week for a little business and family. A cousin welcomed me for tea. She apologized for the lack of biscuits and explained her car had been stuck in the driveway since Feb. 28.

I’m lucky. I have a number of friends and colleagues whom I have known for many years.

Politics is always potentially crazy and fraught with intrigue. And why not. It’s about power and power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. The curious thing is trying to figure out what it is that determines success or failure.

I was in Ottawa a while back to celebrate Christmas with our employees at Conceptshare Inc. and found myself face to face with the new and rapidly expanding “sharing economy.

My friend died a few weeks ago battling for life the way he lived it: full throttle. I met Ron in the fall of 1973. I was the editor of the Manitoulin Expositor. I didn’t know anyone in Sudbury and needed an accountant. Someone recommended Ron.

My love affair with Northern Ontario started in a small dingy office in the Port Arthur Post Office next door to Michael Gravelle, our current minister of Northern Development and Mines. It was 1971.