Upsala's Cliffside Resort is not the golf mecca that, Hilton Head, South Carolina is.
But Thunder Bay golf crazies hungry for a tee time might be willing to drive 144 kilometres west along the Trans-Canada Highway to the roadside village to check out the newest course.
Thunder Bay area MP Ken Boshcoff and MPP Bill Mauro took advantage of the invite by Jim and Lynn Vibert to play their three-hole course in late July. They placed first and second respectively in the inaugural Cliffside Resort tournament.
For the Vibert's, building a golf course was a way to keep their 25 forestry workers gainfully employed when wood chipping work wasn't available from Thunder Bay's Bowater plant. The course is situated on the site of their 140-acre stone lodge built in 1997.
Upsala Forest Products is one of the woodland sub-contractors for Bowater, cutting spruce and jackpine roundwood for the Thunder Bay sawmill.
Tough times in northwestern Ontario's forestry industry has meant regular work for woodland contractors has dried up.
So, the company has diversified into the golf business.
"Forestry is very flat and you gotta be on the ball," says Lynn Vibert, manager of Cliffside, who officially opened the course to public Aug. 6, for an abbreviated season, which will last until Thanksgiving.
The couple and the workers of Upsala Forest Products carved the three-hole course out of a black spruce swamp.
Far from being a Tom McBroom-designed course, Jim's brother Gary and his son, Gary, mapped out the holes and fairways.
The course begins with a 150-yard, Par 3, followed by a Par 5, 410-yarder; and finishing with a 240-yard, par 4. "If you want to go around nine times, you've got 18," says Lynn.
Based on the honour system, golfers deposit their $20 green fees outside the lodge in a strong box.
More holes will follow as the resort and golf course start to pay for itself.
Lynn says there were no bank loans or government grants for the course construction.
"Let's put it this way, nobody will give money for a golf course in Upsala. Especially, if our secondary industry is bush. Forget it."
With no courses between Thunder Bay and Ignace, the couple have established a special niche for themselves.
They operate the community's only driving range and, ever since the local hotel burned down for the third and last time, they own the only licensed establishment in town.
The restaurant is open Fridays through Sundays. The rest of the week, it's rented out for social functions, and monthly safety meetings by Bowater and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).
Upsala began as railway community for the CPR before TransCanada Pipelines created a regional office in the 1950s.
The area is now a popular hunting, fishing and cottaging region at nearby Lac des Milles Lacs. and its 25 resorts.
Forestry has been a cyclical ride for Upsala Forest Products. In 2005, the company closed its permanent chipping operation and now relies on portable equipment.
In finding ways to use their blocks of former farm properties and the many peat bogs in the Upsala area, the Vibert's teamed with Toronto's Peat Resources and Lakehead University to consider a peat drying facility and use wood waste as hog fuel for co-generation plants.
They acquired a peat exploration licence from the province and began working with Lakehead to research the value of peat for energy production.
But instead, the Toronto company is concentrating on building a peat fuel pilot operation in Stephenville, Newfoundland.
Lynn says some Upsala employees have left for work in Alberta's Oil Patch. But in August, the company was back in the bush, clearing up poplar and birch stands for Bowater.
But, she optimistically says, they're making the best of the hand they've been dealt.
"We kinda live here, so we don't have a choice. We gotta make do with what we've got."
