By IAN ROSS
The 'location, location' mantra and some full-time hustling have always successfully worked for the owners of Sault Ste. Marie's Trading Post.
For generations, the confectionary and outdoor store has been a popular highway stop for cottagers heading to their Lake Superior camps or American sportsmen -- with boats, snowmobiles and ATVs in tow to pick up those last-minute forgotten items.
Situated in the city’s north end where Great Northern Road becomes the Trans-Canada, the Simms family have been filling gas tanks, coolers and bait buckets since the early 1980s.
But co-owner Ron Simms downplays any notion that his parking lot swarming with RVs and pick-ups means he’s making a mint.
“It’s a place to work,” he says simply. And in the Ma-and-Pa tourism service business, the hard work never stops for the family and their 20 employees.
The place is such a local icon that the 26-year business owners Ron and Carol Simms were recognized in 2006 as the Sault’s Tourism Business of the Year.
It’s the one place where travellers can buy an ice cream cone or mouthwatering chicken wings, shop for Native crafts and western apparel, stock up on bait and bug repellent, or buy a fry pan large enough to cook a 30-pound lake trout for a shore lunch.
Prior to acquiring the business in 1981, Ron worked four years as the manager of Minaki Lodge. The northwestern Ontario resort was once a landmark government resort for Canada’s political and business elite.
When Minaki was sold to Radisson Hotels, the Port Loring native left for the Sault, Carol’s hometown, and bought the place where she once worked.
The small store and gas station they purchased from the Barsanti family was already thriving, but they expanded the fishing tackle department and camping supplies. The showroom where they sell kayaks and accessories was once part of a tiny apartment where the couple raised three daughters.
Over the years, the Trading Post has taken on a kitsch, Wild West theme with a rustic frontier village of retail. Around it, Ron landscaped the area with wood and Styrofoam statues of fish and wildlife as curiousities, including a rifle-toting bull moose hoisting a hunter clad in blaze-orange.
The idea for the village, Ron says retrospectively, was probably a mistake, when he thinks about the financial and sweat equity invested.
“That’s my dad’s creative mind,” laughs daughter and manager Danielle. “He designed the whole thing...but he probably won’t say that.”
What’s now the Totem Pole Native crafts store was once the dining hall from Jim Hilsinger’s Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. Ron bought it and the movers hauled it by float up Great Northern Road.
“That was a struggle in itself because I didn’t have any permits to do it.”
The city police, utility commission and cable company were notified; all except the city building department. By the time they were twigged, “it was half-way up the road. Well, you couldn’t stop it then. Oh, it was awful.”
He picked up some dilapidated school annexes and tacked on a false storefront. He now leases them to retail tenants.
“Again, I shouldn’t have done it, because it cost me more to refurbish it, than if I had just built (new). They were in pretty bad shape.”
Now heading into a second generation of management, Danielle, the youngest of three grown daughters, has taken over the reins as Ron and Carol have semi-retired to their home on Pine Island, east of the Sault.
Though Danielle has her own ideas, particularly in their sea kayak line, it’s a challenge to keep staffed up because of the explosive growth of new retail and the thousands already employed in local call centres.
