Hello Gateway Reader, it’s been awhile. You might have noticed that after a pretty fast and furious start of publishing articles, the Gateway has become pretty quiet the past few months.
Well, life in a pandemic can be strange, and ultimately I just wasn’t in the right state of mind to produce content that I felt was up to the quality of the blog’s vision. That said, after a few months, I have something new to share with you.
Originally, when I conceived “The Gateway”, it was to be a Podcast where I would describe a current issue in North Bay, link it to the city’s history, and envision the best possible outcome for the future. Ultimately, the complexities of recording, producing, and publishing a podcast seemed intimidating, and I pivoted to the blog.
Well, I’m proud to announce the launch of Gateway Radio, a podcast for the people of North Bay. In season 1, we’ll explore the city’s past, including the city’s name, stories of shipwrecks and caviar, and the city’s first bank robbery.
Now if you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’re already familiar with those stories. But fear not! I’ll be adding content to the podcasts not found in the accompanying article, and speaking with guests who can help us understand the story better.
Episode 1 of Gateway Radio, “What’s in a Name?” covers the naming of the city, and the reason North Bay became the district’s population centre. It’s already up om spotify, in about a week, you’ll be able to find it wherever you listen to podcasts, but if you can’t wait, you can CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO GATEWAY RADIO EPISODE 1. I’m thrilled about the launch of Gateway Radio, and can’t wait to share more stories about North Bay with you!
The year 2020 has been challenging to say the least. But even at the worst of times, there are always things worth celebrating. We love North Bay. What’s not to like about the amazing natural setting nestled between two beautiful lakes. The natural features are truly stunning but there is another side to our city that we don’t recognize and celebrate enough. Our people! We all know who they are. Those people that make an effort to truly make this a wonderful city to live in. These are the people and places that they have created that go above and beyond our expectations. They inspire us with their commitment to building a strong and happy city through their citizen-led improvements.
Thumbs Up North Bay seeks out these individuals and the wonderful places they help create that make our community a place where we want to be. Thumbs Up North Bay recognizes their efforts by painting our Thumbs Up Award at the amazing places they have created (Don’t worry we are using water soluble chalk spray).
At the Gateway, we’ve offered to help by featuring the award winners with a more in depth exploration of the people who make this city what it is. We hope you will share the little gems you have discovered in our community that give us a sense of place so we can recognize them and feature them in the future.
If you enjoy this article, I’d urge you to check out some of our other pieces. A ton of effort has been put into producing meaningful, thoughtful local content and we know you’ll enjoy it!
When we think about “the environment”, we often conjure up images of a global crisis in which the Earth’s climate is changing. Confronting such a large, global scale issue as an individual inevitably leads us to feel small, insignificant, and frankly, helpless. While the solution lies in the collective actions of individuals, the psychology of humans is a large barrier to attaining those mass movements of collective action. The actions of which a movement is made up of feel negligible in isolation, and as a result it is difficult to motivate people to do them.
In other words, your actions in response to a global crises might feel like a drop in the bucket, but ultimately, everyone contributing their drop is how we get through it.
In my role as an educator, I often ask students faced with a big task:
“How would you eat an elephant?”
Of course, after the first few times the response, “One bite at a time” comes with some heavy eye-rolling. I mean, I don’t condone eating elephants, but hey, the analogy rings true.
Well in terms of the health of “the environment”, Melanie Alkins, of the Heritage Gardeners in conjunction with the Nipissing Naturalists, have come up with a great way to take a bite out of large issues on a local scale.
Travelling along the Kate Pace Way on Memorial Dr., you might notice the beautiful gardens planted along the road. Through one such garden, Melanie is working to show locals the way they can become more integrated with our local ecology through the choices they make in the design of their own outdoor spaces.
Garden Bed #1, the Wildflower Garden, includes features that benefit the local wildlife and is the focal point of this award.
Melanie started the garden last spring, when a holding bed for the city’s gardens became overgrown, and was going to be removed. Melanie seized the opportunity to create a green space that specifically aims to meet the needs of local wildlife and the insects that help pollinate our plants and keep our food supply steady.
The issue of maintaining pollinators is a big one, with their drastic impact on plant ecology, which impacts everything from food to green space to microclimates. Estimates say that about half of bee colonies die for no apparent reason, and Federal and Provincial governments in Canada are investing large sums to find out what we can do to reverse the trend.
Garden #1, you can see the smaller bee hotels on the left side of the image, while the critter condo is also visible near the photo’s centre
This garden, with its inclusion of pollinator hotels and critter condos, aims to educate the people of North Bay. It shows us the way that if we all make small changes that will make a big difference with large scale issues like the pollinator crisis and climate change.
Additionally, and almost more importantly, it educates us on a different way of being; one where we accept and embrace our connectedness with nature rather than viewing our world and the natural one as separate.
Melanie in her Garden!
We discussed her vision for the garden, and the inclusion of pollinator hotels and critter condos, and the way our well being as humans are inherently connected to the health of the environment:
R: I’m wondering if you could start by speaking about the pollinator crisis, and how those concerns are leading to human intervention, like the pollinator hotels you’ve installed downtown?
M: It’s an occurrence we’re seeing where insects and pollinator are declining across the board. There’s lots of reasons why it’s happening, climate change, so changes and shifts in the climatic pattern. Critters are used to aligning their life decisions to natural patterns. So insect emergence is an example where with shifting temperatures, or highly variable weather patterns that are less predictable, its causing asycronicity, resulting in birds arriving but the insects for them to eat not emerging when they normally would. So too is flowing times of key food sources for pollinators. If the temperatures are too cold or too hot we get a late frost that kills the flowers. This creates a gap in the food source for the pollinators. There’s also our own human choices, like use of pesticides and insecticides which can result in poor water quality and contamination, which results in poor reproductive success of the insects and pollinator health, which has implications on our food production and native ecosystems that rely on these species for pollination, or for food for themselves
Household cleaners, and other choices we make have vast and crucial impacts on the natural world around us.
What we’ve been trying to do is advocate to rethink about how we use our space. It’s thinking about using alternatives to chemical pesticides, having gardens as an alternative to grass. This helps with addressing habitat fragmentation, which is a huge issue where the insects can’t get from one food source to the next, or their plants they need tolay their eggs on. So we’re advocating for people to try to reduce their use of chemicals, to try to think about the food they eat, what they use to clean their house, and how they use their yard and their space. Using organic soils and solutions to manage perceived pests in your space.
The big message for me is that we can coexist, and that it’s fun to coexist with nature. Sharing your space with nature is a good thing, because it helps people stay connected, grounded, and helps the whole ecosystem when we’re connected and aware of our surroundings.
We have our own native pollinators species that serve a purpose. If we don’t have pollinators our food system collapses. Boom, it’s done.
But it’s not just about us, sure there’s a huge food security issue there, but there’s also so many ecosystems and critters that rely on pollination: our forests, our wetlands, our grasslands. Pollination perpetuates them all. It’s not just about us and food, although we are most motivated by the things that we need and that make our lives comfortable. It’s about those native plants an animals that rely on pollinators to perpetuate themselves and their food sources (i.e the seeds they eat!)
It’s more than just us.
R: So how does your project address these concerns?
The pollinator garden is a nature garden really. The easy and most obvious thing about the garden is about raising awareness about pollinators. So we have in there the pollinator condo (the large one), but really it’s a critter condo. The smaller ones are for solitary bees, they lay their eggs there and they hatch in the spring. We’re always worried about debris-free manicured lawns, but those spaces are important habitat for bees, birds, rodents, etc.
The bigger one now has multiple uses, things can go in there and lay their eggs, get out of the weather, escape predators. If you bring it back to nature that might be a dead tree or a stump that has all different sized cavities, and maybe its not alive but it still has form and function. Those are removed from the landscape because we have an idea of how things should look. This is a fun way to do it isn’t a dead tree that could be a hazard, but it looks cool and has function.
The Critter Condo
R: So who’s responsible for the garden? How was it funded?
M: I’m team lead for this garden for Heritage Gardeners, which I’m on the executive of and am the education coordinator. I’m involved in multiple organizations and I’m always trying to cross promote everyone and give recognition to organizations doing cool things. We received funding through the Heritage Gardeners for an old holding bed that got out of control (holding beds are where plants are stored until they have homes). They were just going to sod it over, but I said don’t, I‘ll take it on! We got funding to make it a wildflower garden, but I wanted to make it a nature garden and Nipissing Naturalists, joined in and played an important role as well, especially Kaye Edmonds who was also instrumental in getting the garden where it is.
R: Is there plans to put in more of the condos or hotels? What would you look for in a location.
M: The garden is a conversation piece to inspire others to do the same – to welcome nature into their space. There are other pollinator condos, one in Laurier Woods for example. But the message is that this garden is to inspire others to do the same on their property. This is just year 2, it will eventually turn into micro habitats, showing what they can look like, why they’re important, and that they’re easy to put into your yard. It doesn’t have to look ugly or gross. You can both make a space attractive and serve these functions. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
[I’m not sure this was a pun, but if it was, gosh it was incredibly well executed]
Bees are the species one considers when worrying about pollinator decline. They’ve become almost a charismatic symbol for the importance of everything in an ecosystem.
R: We’re not talking about one species, we’re talking about pollinators in general, and even beyond that in terms of integrating with the nature around us and not seeing ourselves as separate from it. Can you speak to the projects importance in terms of that context?
M: For me, I’ve grown up in North Bay, in the bush, I’m a biologist, I really value the importance of nature. Richard Louv coined the nature deficit disorder. We really underestimate nature and the value and healing powers that it has. It’s about getting out into nature and grounding yourself, taking time to relax, or exercising, walking, gardening, biking, paddling, whatever you’re doing, being with nature has mental, physical, and emotional benefits. Some of us can’t afford to get out into the wilderness or aren’t as mobile, but you can appreciate nature by bringing it into your space. It’s just about showing people how to do it at small, medium and large scales.
Being in nature has many benefits
R: It’s funny you say that, nature at different doses is a big theme on this blog. I often make the argument we have large and medium scale nature in our city, but there’s a deficit of small scale nature. This project seems to address that void
M: For me it’s just being a catalyst to help people do it, to inspire them to do it.
R: Well Melanie, thank you from Thumbs up North Bay for all that you’ve accomplished with your project. Your effort is making our city a better place.
For the hard work Melanie. Heritage Gardeners, and Nipissing Naturalists have done to set an example of the ways that we can coexist with the natural world, they have been awarded with Thumbs Up North Bay. Head down to the garden, and check out the critter condo and pollinator hotels. They might just inspire you to make your own backyard more friendly to small scale nature. Their aim was to start a conversation and inspire, and we hope that this award helps them to accomplish just that.
Garden Bed #1 for the Heritage Gardeners, specifically Melanie Alkins, have been awarded the second Thumbs Up North Bay award, in recognition of their active effort at improving our urban ecology and inspiring and educating residents of our city on pollinator decline. You can find the chalk spray award along Memorial Dr., check it out before the rain washes it away!
We’re all in the same boat, and while as humans we try to separate ourselves from nature, viewing ourselves as outside it, we’re a part of the web of connectedness, the chain of cause and effect that the world runs on. We can learn to act sustainably, to understand our responsibility to ourselves, our community, and the nature with which we are inextricably linked. Thank you to Melanie, and all those who remind us of how we can make small changes that allow for better connections between us and the nature upon which we rely.
RM
Pass through The Gateway: Check out some of our other articles about making North Bay a better place to live!
“I’ve had people tell me that they’ve walked past on the trail a hundred times, and never stuck their nose in”
Jim Forscythe on Sweetman’s Gardens
The year 2020 has been challenging to say the least. But even at the worst of times, there are always things worth celebrating. We love North Bay. What’s not to like about the amazing natural setting nestled between two beautiful lakes. The natural features are truly stunning but there is another side to our city that we don’t recognize and celebrate enough. Our people! We all know who they are. Those people that make an effort to truly make this a wonderful city to live in. These are the people and places that they have created that go above and beyond our expectations. They inspire us with their commitment to building a strong and happy city through their citizen-led improvements.
Thumbs Up North Bay seeks out these individuals and the wonderful places they help create that make our community a place where we want to be. Thumbs Up North Bay recognizes their efforts by painting our Thumbs Up Award at the amazing places they have created (Don’t worry we are using water soluble chalk spray).
At the Gateway, we’ve offered to help by featuring the award winners with a more in depth exploration of the people who make this city what it is. We hope you will share the little gems you have discovered in our community that give us a sense of place so we can recognize them and feature them in the future.
Our world is always changing, and with it are our cities. Often, cities contain dated infrastructure that provides a window to those past worlds, such as old industrial areas left unkempt, or railways long abandoned cutting across cities. In New York City, one such relic, The Highline, an elevated railway running through the city, stood for years completely neglected after its decommission. In 2009, in a brilliant application of urban design, it was turned into a linear urban park, allowing for residents and tourists to experience a swath of nature to cut right through Manhattan.
A proverbial phoenix of public green space rising from the ashes of abandoned human infrastructure from our past worlds is inspiring and poetic. Believe it or not, North Bay has its own such story.
The Secret Garden
In 1962, Murray Sweetman started a humble garden in his backyard along the CNR line. At the time, CN encouraged property owners along their lines to plant gardens, as it provided a view for the passenger trains. Over the years, that humble garden grew to the length of four properties along the line, now around a city block long. Eventually, the passenger train began stopping so that riders could witness the beauty garden from a stand-still.
Murray was a dedicated high school teacher for 30 years and coached multiple sports, nurturing the growth of North Bay’s youth. With the same care and thought, he cultivated his garden, nurturing flowers and greenery to create a beautiful space in the heart of our city.
Murray Sweetman
When the CNR line ceased operations in 1995, the associated infrastructure quickly deteriorated, with vandalism common on the trestles located throughout town, and generally, the rail was an unsightly remnant of the past. In contrast, Sweetman’s Gardens, located on the corner of Cormack and McIntyre W, not only outlived the CNR line along which it was planted, but became only more beautiful over time. While most of the rail has been completely removed, including the multiple trestles which scattered the Old City neighbourhood, the growth of the garden persists.
The beauty of lupines, gloriosa-daisies, lilies, and other beautiful flowers that capture the imagination of children and adults alike, grow in a potential wasteland from another age.
The CNR Station became run down, and was targeting by vandals after its decommission in 1995. It has since been rehabilitated as a local heritage site.
While other areas of the CNR line were torn down and provided space for new houses and amenities like sports fields, Sweetman’s Gardens remains as Murray intended, a place of beauty rather than utility. Over the years, the garden has been utilized as a backdrop for many a photo-shoot, and has been the setting for generations of family walks, but ultimately it is the pure intent of beauty that brings people in.
Children are particularly fond of the area, affectionately calling it “the secret garden”, a place that captures their imagination and wonder. While the garden isn’t exactly a secret, the name captures the feeling of the place, as the original entrance, an opening in the hedge, gave the impression that you’ve come upon a place hidden from the world.
Historically, prior to its CNR days, the area was a portage route for fur traders and Indigenous peoples, adding even more of a heritage element to the Sweetman’s Gardens site. What was twice a crucial transportation route, a place to travel through, has become a place to just be.
As with all places, change is constant at Sweetman’s Garden.
In 2012, after the passing of Murray Sweetman, a huge void in the city needed to be filled. Who might carry on the garden’s keeping, and Murray’s legacy? Jim Forscythe and Adelaide Saeger, who’s house backs on to the site, undertook the difficult task of filling those rather large shoes.
Murray, who was notoriously picky about tending to his garden, began to trust Adelaide, a fellow gardening enthusiast, as she began her contributions helping Murray with keeping the Garden when the pair moved onto the block. Over time, the pair became good friends, and as she and her husband Jim took on more responsibility for the garden as Sweetman aged, it was only logical that Adelaide and her husband Jim would continue their work on the garden after his passing. To this day, the pair put an absolute ton of work into the site (mowing the lawns alone takes up about 3 hours per week), and are grateful of the volunteers that help them keep the space beautiful.
“It’s a very unique place within the city, it’s a quiet place. People come all the time to read a book, take photographs, and watch some of the birds that stop at the garden, and probably don’t stop anywhere else in our city.”
Jim Forscythe on the garden carrying different meaning for North Bay’s residents.
Prior to his death, Murray and Adelaide encouraged the founding of the Seedlings Storytime program in 2009, which gives children the opportunity to experience the joys of gardening, paired with creative learning avenues for literacy and ecological understandings of their world. The program, run with the North Bay Children’s Public Library, has seen many children help “grow a row” over the years, has fostered an understanding and appreciation of plant life, has introduced a generation to the joys of growing their own food, and has provided youth with the joy of North Bay’s sense of place.
The program is incredibly popular, and lineups and waitlists are a sure thing when it comes time for registration for the May to August program. Apparently, the registrations for the 16 available spots are filled within the first 20 minutes. The children get to participate in crafts like birdhouse making and according to Jim the parents often learn as much, if not more, than the kids!
“When kids take a bean they’ve planted, and eat it, one of the comments we hear most is how it doesn’t taste like the beans from the store”
Jim Forscythe on the Seedlings Storytime Program
For those who live or have lived in our city, Sweetman’s Gardens is one of the places that comes to mind when one hears the word “home”. For Jim and Adelaide, North Bay’s quiet and safe atmosphere, the recreation opportunities, as well as the nature that surrounds it, makes the city home to them. Their work in the garden brings the beauty of the natural world into the heart of our city.
“Find an area that needs it, there are areas of our city without a lot of green space. Start small and build from there”
Jim Forscythe on how to bring the beauty of Sweetman’s to other areas of the city.
Thank You!
To the regular sightseers of the garden, to those who participate in the Seedlings Storytime program, and especially, to Jim and Adelaide for their dedication to the site, thank you for making Sweetman’s Gardens what it is. Murray’s legacy is being carried on in his spirit of care for community, and the garden continues to be a beautiful site in our city.
Since 1962, the garden has changed and evolved, both over the years and with the cycle of the seasons. Despite this change, the garden has remained a constant source of beauty in an ever-changing city.
If you have yet to experience the garden, visit! It will give you a newfound sense of North Bay as a city, just be sure you treat it with the love and respect that it’s been kept with over the years.
There is grace in the small and often little-known, sites in our city that inject beauty into our lives. These places allow us to stop and take a minute to consider our place in our surroundings, in our community, those are the spots that give North Bay a sense of place.
Sweetman’s Gardens is the first site Thumbs Up North Bay is featuring. The garden’s entrance will feature our logo, a testament to the sites importance in our city and a special thank you to those involved.
On behalf of Thumbs Up North Bay, we sincerely thank those that keep the garden. You’re contribution brings our city to life. You are what make North Bay special.
“The amount of people that would either stop me coming in, or literally walk in and say “are you crazy? Opening a Lebanese restaurant in North Bay?” was insane.”
Authentic Lebanese cuisine and the city of North Bay seem like odd bed-fellows, but there is no better spot to get a great meal in North Bay than The Cedar Tree.
Opened in 2009 by Roger and Yasmin Gergi, The Cedar Tree offers a menu of traditional Lebanese favourites like Tabouli, Shawarma, and Kafta, as well as Canadian favourites with a Lebanese twist, such as poutine. The meals are high quality, absolutely delicious, and as a result the Cedar Tree is one of North Bay’s worst kept secrets for great food.
Lebanon’s cedar trees are world renowned. The country is situated on the Mediterranean Sea, and bordered by Syria and Israel. Lebanon has a cedar tree on the national flag, and that tree is an emblem found both inside and outside of the restaurant.
The name The Cedar Tree, comes from the Lebanese Cedar tree species – Cedrus libani – which holds deep cultural and spiritual importance in Lebanon. The flag of the country even includes a Cedar Tree. The Cedars of God, located in Lebannon’s Kadisha Valley, are referenced in ancient history and biblical texts, and were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998.
The Cedar Tree restaurant is located on Main Street W. downtown, and when you walk in for the first time, you can just tell you’re in for something different. You can also just smell that you’re in for something good.
The restaurant is clean, open, and features a middle-eastern atmosphere from the music, to the decor, to the menu. One wouldn’t think they’re in North Bay in the restaurant, it has the quality and atmosphere that would have you convinced you’re downtown Toronto at a new spot that you both want to tell everyone about, and want to keep your own little secret corner of the universe.
Roger and Yasmin are dedicated owners, facing challenges like fires in their decade long run at Cedar Tree. As a regular customer, I have to say, I feel like Roger is there to take and make my order almost every time I go. He makes everyone feel like a regular who has been missed, and honestly while he might not know me by name, the fact he recognizes customers, jokes with them, and makes it incredibly clear that he appreciates your business, is exactly the feeling of community that North Bay is sometimes without.
Roger is extremely dedicated to The Cedar Tree. I have a hard time recalling times I’ve been to his restaurant when he hasn’t been the one to take my order.
In a city where much of the dine-in and take-out food comes courtesy of franchises you could find anywhere, a spot like The Cedar Tree, where one can support local business and expect a consistent quality of food is like an oasis in the desert.
Restaurants like The Cedar Tree are what gives a city a sense of place.
Just prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, I sat down to speak with Roger about their story:
RM: First off, where are you from and how did you wind up here?
RG: I’m from Lebanon, I moved to Canada when I was 8, originally to Ottawa. From there, once my wife and I got married we moved around a lot. Ottawa, Toronto, Brampton, Hamilton, Calgary, and from Calgary we moved to North Bay.
It was supposed to be, we come to North Bay, we’d do one year like we had normally done. We didn’t have kids yet, so there was nothing really tying us down. We planned to come to North Bay, and then move onto our next adventure. But my wife got pregnant with our first born, and we had to think about where we wanted to raise our kids. And this was the place, we thought about all the places we’d been, and where we wanted our kids to grow up, and we just thought “North Bay is definitely where we want to be”.
Roger & Yasmin found North Bay, and knew it was home. Now their restaurant is a part of what makes North Bay home to us.
RM: And at what point did you decide “alright, we’re going to sell Middle-eastern food here in North Bay?
RG: So this was always a plan of mine. I’ve been in the food industry forever, it’s all I’ve really ever done. I went to school for it, Humber College for Hospitality Management. When we moved here I was a district manager at Cara (Swiss Chalet), but I had always planned to open a Lebanese shop.
One day we saw this place [his restaurant], we were driving by and I saw this place was empty. It was up for rent, and when I peaked in the window, it was almost the exact set up that I had always envisioned: open kitchen, small place. So I called the landlord and asked to walk through. There was no hydro so we came in with flashlights. After looking at the place, I went home that night and told my wife “I’m giving my notice at work and were opening a Lebanese shop.” And here we are!
It happened quickly. We had always thought about it, we hadn’t planned on it being in North Bay, but since she was pregnant with Tony at the time and it was there. It was the same, it was what we wanted.
RM: It matched your mind’s eye.
RG: Exactly.
That said, my parents were back home in Lebanon. Again I’m a restaurant guy, I’ve been in the business a long time. But I had never cooked Lebanese food. I had been at Boston Pizza, Swiss Chalet, Canadian food, you know? Big Chains.
So, I know how to eat Lebanese food, I know how it’s supposed to taste. But my mom cooked for us. So I called my mom. We took the lease, and I thought if my mom can’t help me, I’ll open a burger joint or something. So I called my mom and I said, “Mom, I bought a shop and I want to open up a Lebanese place but I have no clue what I’m doing. Are you able to help me?”
So my mom and dad came. My dad helped me with the renovations and getting the place setup. My mom helped me with recipes and how to.
The Cedar Tree’s Mezza: A sampling of hummus, baba ghanouge, kebbeh (vegetarian or meat), falafel, grape leaves and tabbouli.
RM: North Bay is not necessarily known for being overly diverse, were you worried about bringing Lebanese flavour to a Canadian palate?
RG: Extremely. But when I first decided to open I wasn’t worried at all. I’m like, “This thing is going to be amazing, we’re going to kill it and it’s going to be fantastic.”
But in the middle of our renos, we had the windows tapped up and we just had a sign that said “Lebanese restaurant opening soon”. The amount of people that would either stop me coming in, or literally walk in and say, “Are you crazy? Opening a Lebanese restaurant in North Bay?” was insane. No word of a lie, it was insane.
RG: There were two or three people, two of them I remember specifically, literally to my face said “I give you six months”.
So to me, young, cocky, I know what I’m doing. This is business I grew up with, I studied: you know I’m like “see you in six months”.
But it was worrysome. We didn’t borrow money to open this. When we opened, whatever was here we used. Whatever money we had saved up was what we used. We used all our savings to get this place opened. It was do or die.
The Cedar Tree’s Hummas and Pita
But I was confident until the first day we opened. I remember that day like it was yesterday. We opened and did $400. That wasn’t even enough to cover operating. We lost money.
I remember going home that night, I couldn’t even look my wife in the eyes, ’cause in my mind: we’re not going to make it 6 months.
Mind you, we opened with no advertising other that the sign on the window. So $400 dollars, I go home, cry like a baby.
The next day we opened the door at 11 am and thirty people were waiting outside.
RM: What happened?
RG: Word of mouth
RM: The few people who tried it had great things to say?
RG: All word of mouth, being in a small town word travels pretty quick, so once the place opened, they’d try it and tell their friend about the new Lebanese place. By the next day we were jamming in here!
At that point I was like, ok I can breathe. That said, we doing ok, we were staying afloat, but we weren’t where I though we should be. So I thought why aren’t people coming in and trying it. We would have people come in, look around, listen to the music and say, “What kind of food do you make? Lebanese? Ew.” and walk out.
RM: You’ve got to have the first bite.
RG: So I made up this big “Poutine” sign. I still have the sign in my office. I put the sign in the window “Poutine $3.99”. Who doesn’t love poutine?
So people were coming in for poutine, awesome, while we’re making your poutine for you, “try this, try this, try that, try that”, and thankfully, they did.
RM: What a cool story! That’s a really neat story. So, by the end of the first year, you felt A) This is going to work or B) This is going to take a lot more work than I thought?
RG: I knew it was going to take a lot more work than I thought. Again, in my mind it was, “Ok, we’re just going to open and it’s going to go crazy”. Obviously, it doesn’t work that way. It took a lot of hard work to get it where we are. It takes a lot of hard work to keep us where we are.
I thought it would be a lot easier to get people to come in a try the food. Getting people to understand that our food is really not that foreign. You can say, “I’m a meat and potatoes kinda guy” and that’s great. Our food is chicken, beef, meat, lettuce, tomato, onions, garlic sauce. It’s all stuff people have had before, just not necessarily in the way we put it together. Our seasoning is thyme, oregano, garlic, olive oil, it’s stuff people are very used to. Like you say, it’s getting them to have that first bite, and getting them over the mindset that it’s something crazy.
Try it, we tell everyone new who comes in, “Try it, if you hate it, I will not be upset by that. Spit it out and tell me you hate it. Everyone has a different palate, and if you don’t like it, that’s ok. I’m just happy that you tried it.”
Being willing to try something new is key at The Cedar Tree
But it picked up eventually, and we’ve been here 10 years now.
RM: You faced, by my count at least two major challenges from fire here over that 10 years. With a normal job you don’t have to make a call about moving on. As a business owner though, you had to make the decision to keep going. What gave you the strength to get through that?
RG: Luckily, we never had a fire in the restaurant. The first fire was on the roof. There was roofers working on the building and the roof caught fire. We were shut down from the amount of smoke and water damage we had. So it had nothing to do with the restaurant, but that one specifically we were borderline. The floor was starting to cave in and the insurance wouldn’t cover the $60,000 we would need to fix it all.
So we thought , do we spend $60,000 and reopen, or do we walk away because whose got 60 grand lying around, I sure don’t. But we got through it. It took us 6 months to reopen. So we were able to scrounge up enough to get the floor done.
A more recent fire than the one discussed here took place in December of 2019, with an adjacent building burning until all that was left was foundation.
RM: Were you worried people would forget?
RG: Absolutely, but you know what, for me, it was almost needed. Before that I was working 6 days a week open to close. I didn’t get to see my kids.
It really settled in when we were closed, and I’d pick up the kids from school while my wife was at work. Well one day I asked them if they wanted pizza. And they were young, and I didn’t know what they wanted on their pizza. I had to call my wife and ask what they liked. From that point I knew I wasn’t spending enough time at home.
The next day I went to the shop, gave the workers doing the renos the keys and said, “Call me when you’re done”.
RM: It changed your life for the better.
RG: It was needed.
RM: That is so interesting.
Note: This conversation was broken up in two parts, the first on March 13, 2020, and the second on May 17, 2020. This is where the break in the conversation occurred.
RM: When we last spoke, you were deliberating on whether to close in response to the pandemic. Obviously you decided to close for some time, and just recently you’ve reopened for delivery and takeout on weekdays. How did you make use of the time away from the restaurant.
RG: Well, when we decided to shut down, nobody really knew what was going on. So we thought, “Well, we’ll take a week or two off and things will get back to normal and we’ll get back at ‘er”.
Well, it turns out we took two months off, and things definitely aren’t getting back to normal.
But the time that we took off was fantastic, I’m not going to lie. From a financial perspective obviously it sucks when you’re not working, but everything else has been fantastic. We got so much stuff done around the house that needed to get done, that we hadn’t had time for. We spent so much time woodworking with the kids. We have this old, beat up golf cart that doesn’t run, so my son and I took the time to take it all apart and get it working.
RM: As a teacher it’s so interesting hearing all the learning that’s going on outside of the classroom right now. Sure, it doesn’t look the same, but what you’re doing is learning, what a great experience for him!
Were you surprised by the reception when you announced you’d be reopening? And did you miss the restaurant?
RG: The first month or month and a half off, I was totally ok with it because we’ve been so busy. But the last few weeks, now that we’ve gotten done the stuff that needed to be done, that’s when it really kicked in that I need to get back to work. And not just from a financial perspective, from the perspective of, “I need to get back to work and do what I do”. We definitely missed it.
But in both the decision to shut down and to reopen we took into consideration our staff, because it affects them just as much as it does us. So before we closed we checked in to see where everyone’s head was at and if they would be ok with the decision. And throughout the two months we’ve been closed we’ve kept in touch with all of our staff just to make sure they’re ok from the financial perspective, and otherwise. When we decided to reopen, we called in the staff for a meeting to make sure they were ready to get back to work. We didn’t want to put anyone into a situation in which they’d be uncomfortable.
This Facebook post announcing the re-opening of The Cedar Tree received over 250 likes, almost 50 comments, and 70 shares in an outpouring of support for the local favourite
When we reopened the response was overwhelming. Last week was our first week back and it was absolutely insane. I couldn’t believe the amount of support. There were even a couple of days we had to stop taking orders because we just got swamped. The response was absolutely amazing.
We’re blessed man, we’re very blessed, we have a great spot, we have wonderful customers, you couldn’t ask for anything more.
RM: You have great support, but it is what you do with your blessings! You’ve incorporated your employees into the decision marking, and checking in on them, that’s the charm of a small business and it’s touching. I really appreciate hearing that.
RG: We realized when we shut down that some of the staff don’t have the financial means set aside to weather that storm, it’s hurting them just as much if not more.
Our staff has been with us for awhile. Our staff just isn’t our employees. We take care of them because ultimately they take care of us, they take care of my business, it’s a two way street.
RM: Let’s move on to something beyond the ongoing Pandemic. If you had to pick one menu item that was extra meaningful or special to you, which would it be and why?
RG: Wow that is a tough one. Honestly, probably the Veggie Shawarma, and the reason is you can’t go to any other Lebanese restaurant and find a Veggie Shawarma the way we do it. We use tofu. Traditionally speaking, in Lebanese cuisine, you just wouldn’t use tofu. That’s something we came up with on our own to try out because there’s a lot of vegetarians and vegans in North Bay.
The Cedar Tree’s Falafel Appetizer (pictured) and the Falafel wrap are vegetarian options, but Roger wanted to come up with another great vegetarian option, creating a Veggie Shawarma using tofu as the meat alternative
Of course, we have the falafel wrap, which is vegan, but wanted to add another vegan option. So we tried to figure out how we could keep it Lebanese, but to give our vegan and vegetarian customers something different. We started experimenting with types of tofu and marinades and came up with the veggie shawarma. And it’s a huge seller, people love it, especially vegans and vegetarians.
That’s something I created, and it’s not your traditional dish you can get anywhere.
RM: It sounds like you’ve done something new but you’ve done it in the spirit of the traditional cuisine which is very interesting. Yeah that sounds cool I think you’ve sold me, you’ll see that on my next order.
Based on the lessons you’ve learned from your journey, both in family life and as a business owner, what message would you choose to display on a billboard that many people would see?
(Note – The Billboard question is stolen from the Tim Ferriss podcast)
RG: Honestly, a couple of things:
First is, “Stay true to what you do best“. We’ve seen it so many times where restaurants try to do too much. For us it’s stay true to what you do best.
The second lesson is that ,”You can’t please everybody“. We’ve learned to stop trying to please everybody. We do the best we can, the best we know how, and that’s all we can do, right?
When we first opened we were trying to make sure that everyone who came in was pleased, but it got us into trouble, because people have different tastes. Some people like a lot of garlic in their sauce, some people don’t like so much garlic in their sauce. So we can’t please everybody, we do it the way we know how, the best way we know how, and hope that’s enough.
RM: You’ve stated that North Bay is a great place to live, and that it was the obvious choice as a place to raise your family. What do you see for the future of our community? If your children were to raise their kids here, what would you want our city to be like?
RG: I think where we’re at is a great place. There’s always something that could be better. For us, one of the biggest changes we’ve seen when we moved here about 13 years ago, there was no diversity in restaurants. You could get Chinese or you could get Italian . And now you’ve got Indian, Lebanese, Japanese, French place opened up, Mexican place opened up. We’re definitely seeing a lot more diversity. Which is awesome, because for us, that was one of the shortcomings of North Bay: “I feel like Indian, but I can’t get Indian!” you know what I mean? And the culture, our kids are missing out on some of the diverse culture they might get growing up in a bigger city. But aside from that I think North Bay is just such a great, great place.
What I found most interesting about the conversation, believe it or not, is not the pretty outstanding tale of a young couple that found a home, and their dream, in North Bay. Of course, the story is great, but what I was most struck by was how Roger told it.
It was obvious he is very proud of his family’s accomplishments, and proud that they had followed their dream and did it their way. That said, it was also obvious that he is incredibly humble, kind, and genuine.
The Cedar Tree is exactly the kind of local business that brings North Bay forward. It introduces delicious cuisine that many locals might not have endeavoured to try had they not heard of Roger and Yasmin’s restaurant. It shows the strength of diversity, brings a neighbourhood feel to the city, and, stands as a humble local monument to the perseverance of a dream.
Oh, and it’s absolutely delicious.
Thank you for everything you do Roger and Yasmin, you make North Bay a better place.
Sincerely, Donair combo, both sauces, hold the onions, potatoes as the side.
“By his pure boldness, simply walking out and attempting no escape in a vehicle, the very openness of it made it nearly successful”
Judge Valin, 1933 on North Bay’s first bank robber. (Porcupine Advance, January 12, 1933)
The Act
On Saturday, November 26, 1932, North Bay was shocked at the experience of its first bank robbery. The robbery, the getaway and capture is an action packed story that is every bit worthy of the silver screen.
Main St. North Bay in the Mid 1930’s. Original Image Source: A Bit of the Bay Annotations by Author
Shortly before noon, when the bank was scheduled to close, a man walked into North Bay’s Bank of Montreal on Main Street. The man introduced himself as L. Fraser to the teller, and expressed that he wished to open an account in the local branch. Upon being handed a deposit slip, the man claimed that he was unsure about his account number at his original branch, and that he would seek clarification and then return shortly.
“He got the keys of the teller’s cage by threatening the teller with aknife. He got the money out of the cage, keeping us covered at the same time. Then he forced us into the tellers cage. He then backed out of the bank, keeping us covered”
Bank of Montreal Manager D.J McGuire (Porcupine Advance: December 1, 1932)
About 15 minutes after the bank had closed for the day, the man returned to the bank. The Ledger Keeper, Claire McGowan, recognizing the man from earlier, admitted him into the bank as she left for lunch (Porcupine Advance, December 1, 1932). The man asked for the manager, and upon his greeting, brandished two revolvers and was guided to the tellers cage, where he stole his loot.
He locked the remaining staff in the tellers cage, threatening any resistance with his knife, about the size of a butcher’s knife, rather than utilizing his guns. The man casually strutted out of the bank with over $4,800, he walked down the street, behind the Pacific Hotel, and crossed the railway to head West in the direction of Sturgeon Falls.
“I just walked out the door and down the street. I was not in a hurry. I took my time. Then I went down behind the telegraph offices and over behind the old Pacific Hotel (now The Nugget Building). I crossed the tracks and walked on until I got out of the city into the bush.”
Accused on his escape route (Porcupine Advance: December 8, 1932)
If we trace the path of the man out of North Bay (see above) based on an interview when he was incarcerated, we see he travels North on Main St from the bank, until he reaches Klock Ave (the Algonquin we know today). To give a more modern day perspective, the Pacific Hotel which the man mentioned travelling behind, was located in the block which currently houses Mr Pancho’s.
While the Original building that housed the Pacific Hotel is long gone, the building that currently hosts Mr. Panchos sits adjacent to its position on the same block where the hotel stood.
One important part of this story to keep in mind is that $4,800 in 1932 has the value of about $86,000 in today’s dollars (Bank of Canada, 2020). So with that much money stolen, it’s no surprise that the apprehension of the suspect and the recovery of the money was priority #1 for North Bay and Provincial Police in the region.
The Hunt
As the suspect was walking down Main St. and making his escape, the wheels were already in motion for the mission to hunt him down. Police were notified of the robbery immediately. Officers worked the case quickly and diligently, making contact with local hotels and cafes, and cross referencing the witness descriptions of the perpetrator with those of their clientele. Before long, it became clear that the suspect in question was Sam Ayoub, a man well known in Northern municipalities, and with no known criminal record (Porcupine Advance, December 1, 1932).
Fortunately, the public, shocked by the news of the robbery were also on the side of the police, and as a result numerous crucial tips were submitted that lead to Sam Ayoub’s capture. Immediately after the act, M. Laframboise and Joseph Radier gave the police information about his identity (Porcupine Advance, January 19, 1933).
After exiting the town heading west, Ayoub found himself turned around in the bush. He was lost in the woods until about 6:30 PM, a full six hours after the robbery. He was spotted at around 5:40 PM by a North Bay Trucker carrying a load of lumber.
Ayoub’s silhouette being spotted in the headlights of a trucker helped lead to his capture. Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash
While he was loading his truck around Yellek, about 8.5 km West of North Bay, the trucker spotted a figure moving at a quick pace, and when the figure crossed his headlights, his attire, a black jacket and light fedora, was illuminated. The driver, Austin Larivee, connecting the description with what he saw, reported the sighting to the authorities upon his arrival back in North Bay (December 1, 1932).
The figure was indeed the perpetrator of the robbery. Sam had struggled with the forested escape, and was in need of sustenance:
“I didn’t get out until about 6:30 or 7 o’clock. I was right at a Lumber camp so I went in and bought my supper”
Sam Ayoub on being lost in the woods during his escape (Porcupine Advance December 8, 1932)
While after walking for such a distance, Ayoub’s hunger can be understood, his growling stomach betrayed him, as word made its way to the authorities that a man fitting the robber’s description had purchased food from the Miller-Stockdale lumber camp near Yellek. Peter Elder Smith and his wife (yes, this story even has its own Mr. & Mrs. Smith), who ran the camp reported the man’s presence to police.
Stopping for a warm meal at a lumber camp may well have cost Ayoub his escape. Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash
Police converged on the reported location, sending out a posse of seven officers, but by the time they arrived, Ayoub had continued on his way West. The police gathered information at the camp, and broke up.
The members of the team in pursuit of Ayoub included:
Deputy Chief Dennis (NBP)
Sgt. Michaud (NBP)
Constable Belanger (NBP)
Constable Pilgrim(NBP)
Constable Smaill (OPP)
Chief of Police Leclair (OPP)
Constable Campeau (OPP)
While Deputy Chief Dennis, Sgt. Michaud and Constable Smaill covered the Canadian National Railway, the rest of the team covered the highway.
The two men that would eventually locate Ayoub, Constables Pilgrim and Bellanger of North Bay Police, were dropped off about 5 km east of Sturgeon Falls, and were instructed to start walking east along the Canadian National Rail line. The Deputy Chief suspected that a pump house located along the rail around Meadowside, by Jocko Point, might serve as a refuge from the cold for their target.
After about five and a half or so kilometres of travel on foot, the duo encountered a man walking west on the tracks, about 4.8 km West of Meadowside. The man attempted to casually pass the officers, when he was confronted and grabbed by constable Belanger and questioned:
“Just a minute, what is your name?”
Constable Belanger to Sam Ayoub (Porcupine Advance December 8, 1932)
The paths of both involved parties in the shootout can be seen approximated in the map I’ve roughly put together below. Note that I’ve given Sam a straight path, although it is clear by the timing described in the primary sources that he was certainly lost for some time. It tookAyoub over 8 hours to arrive just past Meadowside, a distance that is walkable in around 5 hours according to GoogleMaps. Of course the conditions may account for much of the time difference, but you can assume the path shown below isn’t winding the way Sam Ayoub actually traveled, but does give you an idea of the distance of his escape on foot.
The Shootout
Ayoub wasn’t amibiguous in his response to the police. It was immediately clear they had located their target as Ayoub replied to the question of his identity by firing two shots at Constable Belanger, who’s forearm was grazed and was hit in his side.
Luckily for the officers, that’s when Ayoub’s gun jammed, providing an opportunity for Belanger to wrestle with his attacker. Unfortunately, the two were so entangled in their clinch that Constable Pilgrim was scared to fire at the perpetrator in fear of putting his partner’s life at further risk. The brief moment in which the clinch subsided, and the combatants parted, Pilgrim fired twice, the first grazing his side, with the second piercing Ayoubs hand, and landing in his hip bone. Pilgrim then fired at Ayoub’s head, entering through the back of his neck and coming to rest in his jaw (Porcupine Advance, December 1, 1932)
Constable Joseph Belanger North Bay Police Source: WikiTree
While there is no doubt Ayoub’s injuries were critical, his persistence continued as he tried to flee the scene, until he was tackled by the injured Belanger. Pilgrim rushed to Meadowside and informed the team of the capture, and Constable Campeau picked up the suspect and the arresting officers in his car. He had on him $4,836 as well as three guns, one of which was stolen from the Bank during the robbery.
As he was transported to the station in North Bay, he did not complain of his severe injuries, and refused to provide any information, calling himself L. Fraser. Once he finally identified himself as Ayoub, he refused further cooperation, stating:
“You’ve got me and you’ve got the money. What more do you want?”
Sam Ayoub upon his capture (Porcupine Advance December 8, 1932)
The Aftermath
While initially Sam Ayoub was brought to the police station for questioning, it was recognized that his injuries were severe enough to be life threatening, and he was brought to North Bay Civic Hospital and was treated under police surveillance. By the Monday following the Saturday evening capture, confidence had grown that Ayoub would recover to face trial, despite false reports that he had succumbed to his wounds (Porcupine Advance: December 1, 1932) (Porcupine Advance: December 8, 1932). Ayoub, when sufficiently recovered, was transferred to the North Bay Jail, and was charged with armed robbery and wounding an officer on duty.
The North Bay Police and Ontario Police received a ton of credit for their quick and effective response to the crime, as well as for the teamwork between the two organizations. They certainly made use of their resources, and their understanding of the local geography to execute the capture.
Constable Belanger’s wounds were minor, and were treated quickly, with the officer returning to work mere weeks after the shootout. Belanger was proud of the takedown, stating:
“I’m shot, but I’ve got my man”
Constable Belanger (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932)
While the public praised Constables Bellanger and Pilgrim as heroic in their actions, Sam Ayoub had a different take on the matter, threatening the arresting officers, as well as those who provided the police with tips.
Interestingly, I found those who made the tips to police actually had their names published in the newspaper. I found this to contrast starkly with modern life, where tips are usually given anonymously, and are rarely published with names even when not provided anonymously.
“I’ll get you if I ever get out”
Sam Ayoub to informants and his arresting officers (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932)
The Trial
On December 22, almost a full month after the robbery, it was reported that while Ayoub had recovered and was able to walk and stand in his cell, he was not anywhere near the condition needed to stand trial (Porcupine Advance, December 22, 1932).
Finally, on January 9 of 1933, Sam would have his day in court. The trial was highly anticipated, and the North Bay Courthouse was filled to capacity to watch John McColeman defend a stoic, emotionless Sam Ayoub. Even Judge Valin, who would hear the case, was amused by the large turnout.
McColeman attempted to convince the court that Sam’s sanity was in question. When the Bank Manager testified that he didn’t seem insane, McColeman pointed out that the Manager really didn’t have the qualifications to make such an assessment. Crown Attorney McKee did not weigh in on the matter of sanity, deciding to make no comment. Ultimately, Judge Valin sided with the Crown, stating:
“The prisoner may be partly insane, but not enough that he is not responsible for his acts”
Judge Valin on the issue of Ayoub’s sanity (Porcupine Advance January 12, 1933)
Following this decision, Judge Valin laid out the sentence, which consisted of 15 years for the armed robbery, and 3 years for the wounding of an on-duty officer. Mercifully, the Judge prescribed no lashed to the wounded defendant, and allowed for his sentences to be served concurrently, meaning that Ayoub would really only face 15 years in the Portsmouth penitentiary. At the time of his sentencing, Sam was 26, and was assured that he would still have time and an opportunity for a new life following serving his time, but that further evaluations of his mental state would be necessary (Porcupine Advance, January 12, 1933).
The Man
Why did Sam Ayoub rob the bank that day in 1932?
Prior to the trial, Sam interviewed with a Sudbury reporter who was given some pretty wild responses to his inquiries. The responses give us clues as to his motive, despite his lackadaisical attitude towards his crimes.
Initially, when asked why he did it, Sam replied:
“It must have been the devil that prompted me. I don’t know why I did it”
Sam Ayoub (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932)
Then he explained that he wanted to get money for a girl that he had brought from Kirkland Lake to be with him in Sudbury.
When asked if he had robbed the bank in response to financial problems, Sam stated unequivocally that:
“I wasn’t hard up, I was foolish”
Sam Ayoub (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932)
When asked why he robbed the Bank of Montreal specifically, he said:
“I don’t know. No special reason. I just went in there and thought I’d hold it up”
Sam Ayoub (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932)
It was revealed in the interview that Ayoub was well known around town, and that he was bound to be recognized when he considered his crime in hindsight:
“Everybody knows me, even the chickens in the backyards know me. That’s the trouble.”
Sam Ayoub (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932)
It was also revealed around the time of this interview that Ayoub had been questioned for a robbery of the Sylvester Store in Kirkland Lake, and had been sought for further questioning as he left town. It was also revealed that Ayoub was a frequent customer of bars and pool halls throughout Northern Ontario, used aliases including Secord, Fraser, and Essa, and that he hadn’t worked in a long time (Porcupine Advance, December 8, 1932).
One major point of contention in the trial was whether or not the robbery was premeditated. Had Ayoub planned his actions, or was he acting on impulse?
Crown attorney McKee cited Ayoub’s decision to use the silent threat of his knife rather than firing a noisy gun during the act, as well as Ayoub’s initial visit to the branch as reasons that his crime was premeditated. On the other hand, the defence argued that it would be poor premeditation to plan an escape through treacherous terrain in a densely forested region without provisions (Porcupine Advance, January 12, 1933).
Whether you believe the crime was premeditated, or not, will ultimately provide the foundation for your judgement of who Sam Ayoub was. If he had acted impulsively, as his interview suggests, he was a foolish young man. Whereas if it was premeditated, as suggested by his first visit to the bank, he certainly thought he was smarter than he was, as evidenced by the challenges of his escape after crossing the city limits.
George Mitchell, the King’s Council, made a court statement on behalf of Ayoub’s parents(below) which suggested that he lived a relatively good and stable upbringing from a prominent shop owner in Kirkland Lake, and that they were concerned that drug use had set him on the wrong path.
“The boy is well born and has a splendid record. He has been a hard working boy and his parents are exemplary in their relations to the world and to the community. The accused, has resided in Kirkland Lake, and, as I am told, has been consuming some drugs.”
George Mitchell Court Statement on Behalf of Ayoub’s Parents (Porcupine Advance January 12, 1933)
So, who was Sam Ayoub?
Was he a good kid who had fallen into the trappings of drug abuse, and was looking to support the habit and lifestyle?
Was he a man in love, aiming to give his girl the extravagant life he believed she deserved?
Was he an impulsive man, unable to resist the riches in a bank’s vault, despite the risks?
Was he calculated, but ultimately shortsighted on what would have been necessary to be successful in his plan?
Was Sam a young man with serious mental health issues, which would have been untreated and unacknowledged at that period of medical and criminal history?
Or is it possible, as he himself suggested, that the Devil himself momentarily took hold of him and compelled acts of evil through his bodily existence?
Really, we can only guess. One thing is for sure: Sam Ayoub’s name that is synonymous with an incredibly compelling and infamous black spot on North Bay’s history.
RM
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Sources:
Author Unknown. (December 1, 1932). Kirkland Lake Man Shot After Bank Robbery at North Bay. Porcupine Advance. Timmins, ON.
Author Unknown. (December 8, 1932). Says Robber Bank to Get Money for Girl. Porcupine Advance. Timmins, ON.
Author Unknown. (December 22, 1932). Ayoub Not Yet Able to Appear for Trial. Porcupine Advance. Timmins, ON.
Author Unknown. (January 12, 1933). Fifteen Years for Kirkland Lake Man. Porcupine Advance. Timmins, ON.
Author Unknown. (January 19, 1933).Six Ask Reward for Help in Capturing Sam Ayoub. Porcupine Advance. Timmins, ON.
Author Unknown. (January 19, 1933).Six Ask Reward for Help in Capturing Sam Ayoub. Porcupine Advance. Timmins, ON.
**Note: This is a very long article. I’ve considered splitting it up, but ultimately decided to provide natural section breaks for convenience if you want to read it in pieces. You can use the links below to skip to sections**
If you measure the efficiency at which various species move, the energy burned to move a certain distance, you will find that humans fall about 1/3 of the way down the list. Interestingly, researchers have also found that if you put that human on a bicycle, humankind represents literally the #1 most efficient locomotion of the measured species (Wilson, 1973).
“When one compares the energy consumed in moving a certain distance as a function of body weight for a variety of animals and machines, one finds that an unaided walking man does fairly well … but he is not as efficient as a horse, a salmon or a jet transport.
With the aid of a bicycle, however, the man’s energy consumption for a given distance is reduced to about a fifth”
S.S Wilson, 1973
Biking is an incredibly efficient way to move around, and, as most of us remember from our childhood, it’s an incredibly fun way to get around. Oh, and it’s a really cheap way to get around. Did I mention it’s really good for you, and the environment, too?
So with all its efficiency, fun, and benefits, why is it that in our society the bicycle is seen as a a recreational pursuit? We subconsciously think of those who ride their bike’s for transportation as juvenile, or economically disadvantaged. Maybe we assume that they’re fitness obsessives who just aim to cram as much recreation into their day as they possibly can.
We’ve committed so totally and completely to the automobile that we’ve build our whole city around it. In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an alien comes to earth and confuses the car for our planet’s dominant life form. This is both absurd and, when given some thought, a fair conclusion to reach if observing Earth from afar.
It’s abundantly obvious that cars are given preferential treatment in our city, a notion woven into the culture of western society. So how can we get the leaders and residents of North Bay to consider investing and participating in cycling?
What would that city look like?
The Benefits of Being a Cycle City
Compiled by author
1) Cycling is the fiscally responsible choice for both the city, and the end users.
When compared with automobile ownership, a bike is an incredibly fiscally responsible choice. Of course, like anything, there are various degree of qualities and types, but generally, a bike can cost you a few hundred dollars, will have extremely reasonable maintenance costs, and do not require the recurring costs of insurance and fuel.
Think about the number of people in our community living pay-cheque to pay-cheque. How many of them own a car because our city’s layout made it the obvious choice? What could all the extra money be spent on?
All in, the cost of a bike isn’t even in the same universe as the car. As such an affordable option, it’s a wonder it isn’t catered to. An affordable way to move around the city should be a huge priority, and yet, if we look at North American cities, it’s blatantly obvious it’s an afterthought, if that.
From the perspective of the city, cycling is also very cheap transportation.
When comparing the cost of infrastructure to the public, infrastructure for automobiles costs about 29 ¢ per mile, while cycling costs a mere 0.9 ¢ per mile (Montgomery, 2013). We pour thousands, and thousands of dollars into our roadways, and for a fraction of that we could improve cycling transportation in our city, empowering residents with the freedom to move around town in another way. As a knock on benefit, the reduced traffic as a function of former motorists choosing to cycling increases the efficiency of the roadways, which has indirect economic benefits.
One could make a fair argument that the most efficient transportation route is the one that can move the highest volume of people per relative space. Bicycles take very little space compared to a car, and while cars can seat five to seven people, they often only carry one.
By including bike lanes and other cyclist infrastructure, we increase the efficiency of our transportation system, and take a fiscally conservative approach to improving mobility of residents.
2) Cycling is a great, sustainable transportation choice to reduce environmental harm.
One of the most obvious, well-known and well-regarded qualities of the bicycle is its environmental friendliness. While obviously there are emissions associated with the production and transportation of bikes, they produce no emissions in use. Remember, the emissions from vehicles are an externality. They create costs to everyone in their impact on the climate, ecology, and air quality.
In reality, in terms of changing personal behaviours to have an effect on the global issue of climate change, addressing our automobile dependence is a huge step. The bike, which offers fairly fast travel over medium distances with no emissions is a great tool to this end.
Up to 90% of the emissions from a 11 km car ride occur in the first few kilometres (Trace Planning and Design, 2019). Additionally, most car trips are under 5 km in distance, and thus could easily be replaced with a 10 minute bike ride (Montgomery, 2013). If we put the effort into accommodating bikes, it could really make a difference in solving the man-made climate change problem.
As an added bonus, more cyclists means less motorists, which means less rush-hour congestion on Algonquin, Cassels and other main arteries, and thus even less emissions caused by slow flowing traffic.
Finally, Cyclists move slower than vehicles, meaning that they are more aware of the sights around them (Andersen, 2018). The desire to acccommodate cycle routes with views might lead to more small scale natural features, and thus better urban ecology in our city.
Diagram of the way speed of travel effects ones field of vision. Source: Copenhaggenize
Cycling has obvious environmental benefits, but unless we nudge people to choose their bike over their car, those benefits will remain untapped.
3) Promoting cycling in our city can make a big difference in the effort to improve human health.
Just as cycling is good for the health of the environment, it’s good for the cyclist’s health, both physiologically and psychologically.
People who cycle for transportation have reduced risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and numerous other ailments which reduce life expectancy (Trace Planning and Design, 2019). In other words, active transportation like cycling promotes longevity in our residents, and reduces health care costs to the public.
Biking as transport also has great psychological benefits, as cyclists report far less stress, rage, and other negative emotions on their commutes than the automobile (Montgomery, 2013).
Studies have been done on the ideal commute time, and they might surprise you. You would think that obviously the shorter the commute the better, and to some degree this is obviously true; a hour long commute is far more tedious and psychologically damaging than half an hour. That said, studies have found that at a certain point, people find that their commute is actually too short. This is because commute time offers a useful buffer between work and home lives.
The ideal commute, according to a UC Davis study, is about 16 minutes long. Travelling to and from work allows time for people to snap into work mode, and decompress before arriving at home (Montgomery, 2013). For the 55 % of North Bay residents that drive less than 15 minutes to work, it seems intuitive that for at least a portion of these people, cycling would actually improve their mood at home and at work (StatsCanada, 2016).
Overall, commuters who travel by bicycle report being happier, more energetic, and experience generally better moods when compared to their motorist counterparts (Montgomery, 2013).
4) Cycling fosters community, while our motorist culture erodes it.
Finally, cycling is good for community. When biking, people are able to interact with each other in ways motorists in the comfort bubble of their car simply can’t. Think about the interactions you have with the public in your vehicle: usually it amounts to nothing more than passing frustration at the behaviour of other motorists, but there are also serious incidents of road rage. People seem most on edge in their cars. Studies have shown heart rates of car commuters can be almost double their resting rate, and a surge of cortisol (the stress hormone) suggests and perpetuates the stress (Montgomery, 2013).
For many, the view from behind the wheel illicit feelings of stress and road rage. Photo by Mark Cruz on Unsplash
Isn’t it handy people are seemingly primed to act their worst while they’re in control of the most dangerous mechanical equipment they’ll likely ever handle?
Did I say handy? I meant horrifying.
On the other side of the spectrum, cyclists interact with each other in an incredibly positive light. If more of us cycled, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we might be more in tune with our sense of community.
They’ve experienced the cyclists that take the whole lane and slow them down, or ones that act as a quasi-pedestrians illegally crossing streets, failing to stop at stop signs, etc. These experiences lead them to believe that cyclists are a danger to themselves, and to the flow of and predictability of their driving experience.
Of course, as pedestrians, cyclists can be a bit of a pest too if they decide they are only comfortable riding on the sidewalk. I can totally understand wanting to be separated from bikes as a pedestrian, and the laws agree with this. Unfortunately, our infrastructure either places people in two categories: as wheeled transportation or a pedestrian. While it seems obvious that bikes and cars differ vastly, there is no third category for the far lighter, slower, and more vulnerable bicycle.
If it’s prudent to protect pedestrians from cyclists, surely it’s prudent to protect cyclists from motorists. The potential for harm is that much greater.
So yes, we’ve all experienced those unpredictable cyclists that make us sweat or curse behind the wheel. But let’s keep in mind, our infrastructure, and policy, has made no space for them. “Legitimate behaviour” behind the handlebars is sort of a blurry proposition. If the city made space for cyclists in the form of bike lanes, letting them know they actually belong, it would drastically increase the predictability of cyclists, and allow for proper enforcement of clear cut rules and protocols.
Remember, the job of our transportation infrastructure is to move people, not cars. When we’re behind the wheel it’s very easy to point the finger at the perpetrator of the infractions, rather than consider the context from which the behaviour is borne.
So, next time you see a cyclist “take the lane”, or ride on the sidewalk, consider that without providing a legitimate space for the transportation method, we get unpredictable behaviour.
It’s a pretty loaded term. When we think of the word cyclist we almost certainly witness the image of a spandex clad expert road bike rider who could just talk your head off about the Tour-de-France. When we think about bicycle transportation, we think of a pretty narrow demographic.
But honestly, few of us grew up without learning to ride a bicycle. And man, the joy of the freedom it offered, the pure fun. It’s a quintessential experience of youth.
And yet at a certain age, the joy doesn’t seem to remain kosher. We think of people who own bikes instead of cars as juvenile, as if they’re not quite far enough along their life journey. Once they get there, they’ll buy a car and then surely they’ll leave the childish thing behind.
Realistically, why can’t we recapture that joy? Some of my favourite memories have been casual cycling in various cities with my friends. Even those who don’t cycle regularly or aren’t the most active can still travel 3-4 times their walking speed, and expends about 25% of the energy pedalling at a leisurely pace (Montgomery, 2013).
If people are made to feel safe, to feel like they belong, I believe many, many more people would cycle. I can’t count the number of discussions I’ve had with people who love to ride their bike, but are uncomfortable choosing between risking a ticket on the safety of the sidewalk, or the perceived kamikaze mission of cruising mere feet from two tonnes of fast moving metal under the control of very fallible human beings.
Cycling, like walking, is a big case of the Field of Dreams effect:
It would be absolutely ridiculous to write an article about cycling in North Bay and exclude mention of the fantastic Kinsmen and Kate Pace Way trails. These are paved bi-directional bike paths separated from the roadways (with a few exceptions), and provide a fantastic opportunity to cycle recreationally. The paths also cover quite a bit of ground in North Bay, and even regionally, stretching between Airport Rd, to Memorial Dr, to the southern portion of Lakeshore Dr, all the way into Callander.
While the paths largely serve as linear parks, offering a place for recreational cycling more so than cycling as transportation, they still represent a huge asset to cyclists in our city. There is room for expansion and improvement of flow and access along the routes, but essentially this asset could serve as a sort of cycling highway for some desired journeys, especially travelling between Ferris and the city’s North end.
In addition to the paved pathways provided by the city’s trail network, our natural surroundings provide many more off-road mountain biking experience, such as the campus trails, Laurentian Conservation Area, and other trails throughout town.
North Bay has a fantastic recreational trail system. Source: City of North Bay
These trails are a huge asset for a cycling city. I tell all my friends that when they visit North Bay in the Summer they have to bring their bike. There’s not much quite like flying down the Kate Pace Way, knowing you’re riding on a mere swath of smooth pavement cutting through beautiful forests. It’s just very cool.
But it’s also very easy to point to the trails and say: “we’ve done enough for cyclists”.
We need to get our heads around the idea that bike infrastructure isn’t just throwing a small portion of the population a bone, it’s giving an opportunity for the healthy practice of Active Transportation to grow in our city. It’s improving our entire transportation network by integrating freedom and mobility for as many of us as we can.
2) North Bay already has developed an up-to-date and ambitious Active Transportation Master Plan, and a well researched report that points to quality of life improvements as the best way to create growth in our city.
Fortunately, others more determined than myself have put pressure on the city in the past few years to take active transportation seriously in our city, rather than relegate cycling, and even walking, to a recreational pursuit.
In 2018 the city contracted Trace Planning and Design, and formed an Active Transportation Advisory Board, in order to produce a long term plan for improving the experience of active transportation in our city. After reading the document, the North Bay Active Transportation Master Plan (2019), I feel it does well to balance ambition and realistic objectives and, if followed, should do a great deal to improve the mobility of our city.
The process that was followed for producing the city’s long term plan for active transportation. Source: North Bay Active Transportation Master Plan (2019)
Additionally, the Baylor Report (2016), produced by Baylor University, was a very thorough study of the potential of our city that concluded that in order to achieve growth, improvements in the resident’s lives would bring more people to the city.
The city has been fairly committed to the idea that attracting businesses to our city would bring growth, but the Baylor Report suggests that because businesses actually follow the people, the better strategy is to make North Bay a great place to live so people want to move here.
With this well researched report from such a credible source, we are more than equipped with the evidence that projects like improving the city’s active transportation network is the best way to invest in our city’s growth.
Fortunately, those determined few that I previously mentioned pushed the city to commit to the Active Transportation Master Plan. This commitment is, without question, a huge asset for making North Bay a better cycling city.
3) The natural setting of North Bay provides a scenic setting for cycling.
The faster we travel, the narrower our focus of vision becomes. Travelling 100 km/h on the highway, you see far less detail in your periphery vision than travelling 40 km/h in a school-zone (Andersen, 2018). Given that cyclists travel slower than this (for the most part), it stands to reason that incorporating pleasant views for cyclists and pedestrians is far more impactful than for motorists.
North Bay’s natural setting provides some awesome views for cyclists
Images: GoogleMaps
North Bay’s natural setting, with the escarpment, rock faces courtesy of the Canadian Shield, various lakes and creeks, as well as forests, provides no shortage of fantastic views. These sights encourage and engage cyclists, as it makes the view more pleasant and maximizes the psychological benefit of cycling. People want to enjoy these types of views, and from that perspective the natural setting of North Bay is a real asset.
4) North Bay still has numerous routes that have wide lanes and shoulders that can easily accommodate bike lanes.
Landsdowne, like many of our city’s streets, is easily wide enough to accommodate bike lanes. Photo by Author
North Bay has plenty of pretty efficient routes through town that include lanes wide enough to accommodate and restructure for cycling lanes, including Cassels St, Obrien St, Jane St and others. While we have a serious lack of bike lanes at the present, we haven’t completely cornered ourselves into being a motorist-only city forever. There is potential for development of important routes that can accommodate cyclists safely and efficiently.
Satellite Image from GoogleMaps, Overlay by Author
Imagine if there were bike lanes lining the streets proposed in the map above. The whole neighbourhood, which is full of schools, would be pretty cycle friendly. Honestly, some of these street are already wide enough that all that would be required is paint. From there, lanes could be painted on a few of the other streets, especially those that are relatively flat and see little traffic. All of a sudden you have an incredibly cycle friendly neighbourhood in a fairly population dense area of town. You offer children the opportunity to cycle to school, and offer parents the peace of mind to know they are safe to do so.
Look at High Street in particular. There are three schools accessible on this one road alone, it already includes a bike lane after Chippewa St., and has wide lanes and shoulders that could easily accommodate bike lanes. This above neighbourhood proposal is a prime example of the way that while North Bay is not a great cycle city today, it actually has a ton of potential as a cycling city.
5) North Bay’s Post-Secondary Schools provide a demographic of potential cyclists.
Cyclists and University/College students is a pretty large demographic overlap. With many students living in our city, there are many potential cyclists. Unfortunately, the topography of the Institutions’ locations isn’t exactly ideal, and the academic calendar does not include the most pleasant biking months. That being said, as a student who stayed for summer employment, my bike was my best friend. It got me to work, it got me to the store, it kept me in shape. Plus, the feeling of coming down the Montessori Trail, approaching a view of the lake and city through what felt like a pinhole clearing between the trees. The rush of witnessing this view, and descending the escarpment on two-wheels after a long day of work was sort of magical.
What Stands between Us and Being a cycle city?
1) People’s attitudes and perceptions of the bicycle are the biggest barrier to creating a culture as a cycling city in North Bay.
Easily the largest barrier to North Bay being a quality cycling city is the attitude that it’s just never going to happen. People here, for the most part, grew up here or in other North American cities that also consider the bike an afterthought. The idea that we should make space for cyclists, or even that we should want more cyclists is a foreign idea.
People think of cycling and they think of European cities like Copenhagen, Denmark. They say: “hey, it’s just the way it is there”, as if that means anything at all. Copenhagen was once a car centric city too, they just decided one day that cars are dangerous, and shouldn’t necessarily be the consideration we build a city around. The “stop the child murder” campaign brought attention to the need for safe biking infrastructure, and effort is put into giving the cyclist preferential treatment. In other words, the shift was a deliberate one. It didn’t just happen, and they didn’t wait for some threshold of cyclists to claim they had demand for it.
Ironically, it’s sort of like how Henery Ford said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. People didn’t know they wanted to cycle everywhere, they just wanted freedom of mobility. Copenhagen addressed the roots of the problem, efficient movement of people, rather than the demand of consumers, which was more space for cars.
Stop de Kindermooord translates to “Stop the Child Murder”and was a campaign instrumental in establishing Copenhagen as a cycle friendly city. Source: DutchReach
We can make our city one that’s very friendly to biking. But first people need to question their fundamental assumptions about how cars are used, what roads are for, and what cycling infrastructure accomplishes.
Council can’t look at new cycling infrastructure as throwing a bone to a small group. Cycling needs to be viewed as integral to planning the movement of people in our city. We need officials to advocate for the cyclist’s safety, to create space for them in the form of bike lanes, and to show them that not only do they belong, they are valued.
City Hall changing perception of cycling is key Photo by author
Residents need to change their mind from a few perspectives, both in their assessment of people who bike, and of their assessment of themselves as potential cyclists. People see cyclists as a nuisance: they take up space and they’re unpredictable.
Well yes:
They do take up space, but significantly less than a car.
They’re unpredictable, because the infrastructure does not clearly direct them to behave predictably. At times, cyclists act as vehicles, taking the full lane, while others behave like quasi pedestrians, crossing whenever they please and using sidewalks. Of course this is a problem, but arguing for better cycle infrastructure is a solution to it, it certainly couldn’t make it worse.
We need to respect that cyclist exist. That cycling is a good thing, and respect that while there isn’t really a space for them as it stands, there really should be. Cyclists have just as much right to move around the city safely and efficiently as motorists, and yet that right is simply not respected.
This is one of those issues where we need to work backwards to solve it. We can’t have a cycling culture, and thus have demand so we can produce cycling infrastructure, instead, we must create a place for cyclists, watch demand grow as its perceived safety increases, and examine the way a cycle culture emerges from there.
Diagram by Author
2) People like to bike, but don’t feel safe on the road, and don’t wish to risk a ticket for riding on the sidewalk, and thus, they don’t bike.
The biggest internal barrier preventing motorists and pedestrians alike from becoming cyclists is the perceived safety of that method of transport. People shouldn’t be made to ride exposed, their lightweight bikes a few feet from a moving object that could kill them at the slight mishap. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, and I know many people who simply choose not to cycle because of this single factor.
This rider’s decision to wear a helmet is a smart one, but has unintended consequences in the effect of motorists giving less space when overtaking. Photo by Sandra Tan on Unsplash
Of course, cyclists who equip themselves with safety gear are smart, mitigating the chances that they might endure life altering injuries from collisions. Unfortunately there’s some interesting research that suggests that motorists actually give cyclists who wear helmets less berth when overtaking. It is theorized that motorists assume that cyclists who wear helmets have expertise (a flawed assumption), and thus the safety promise of the helmet is actually reduced when riding side by side with motorized traffic (Walker, 2007).
“Not everyone is as brave or agile as the hero cyclist…if you really want to give people the freedom to move as they wish, you must gobeyond accident statistics to consider how people actually feel about moving through a given space”
Charles Montgomery in Happy City
There’s a large degree of irony that in the West we perceive the bicycle as a toy for children, and yet we totally fail at providing safe spaces where children can bike. One cycling advocate has gone as far as to say that if an area is unsafe for children to cycle in, we’ve got work to do (Montgomery, 2013).
Think about North Bay… boy do we have work to do.
3) North Bay has a serious lack of cycling lanes, and thus provides little to no space for the cyclists in the city’s transportation network.
This is pretty self explanatory. While usually it is simply marked by paint, and light barriers, bike lanes simply provide predictability in both the cyclist and motorist experience. Clear lines are drawn between the two transportation methods, and thus motorists and cyclists both can rejoice.
Source: Bike Monk
Cycle lanes can face backlash from motorists, such as a park in Brooklyn for which the city was unsuccessfully sued to remove bike lanes. Sure, they can reduce the flow of traffic during construction, and in the short term. In the long term however, it actually makes the motorist experience far better.
So yes, sure we have great cycling trails, but how do people access them? If we can’t expect safe travel to and from access points, are we expected to drive to them?
To be an effective cycling city, North Bay needs a bicycling network that includes both cycle lanes so that all destinations can be comfortably reached, as well as logical trail access to capitalize on our strong trail system.
4) With the exceptions of certain areas, North Bay lacks interesting small-scale views that a more appealing cycling environment should provide.
Some of you reading this might think my obsession with views is a little weird. If you have a bike lane, do you really need us to pamper your route with planters and murals too?
Of course these are a more detailed aspect of encouraging cycling, but they really do. Small scale nature and manmade sights encourage cycling, and have the even greater benefit of creating a sense of place in our neighbourhoods. I asked a former roommate, who now lives in Ottawa, why he enjoyed cycling in Ottawa more. While I fully expected him to discuss the cycling infrastructure there, he basically said the environment provides a variety of views that keep it interesting over time.
In this regard, North Bay could have much more to offer in terms of tree lined streets, planters, and community art pieces, which while helpful for cyclists, more importantly help create a sense of place, an identity, for our city.
5) The highway bypass acts as a literal barrier to cycling in North Bay.
The most expedient route through North Bay, the highway bypass is, of course, completely inaccessible to cyclists. There are no simple and purposed parallel routes, and it is a challenge for bikers of many skill levels to cross. We only have one pedestrian/cyclist overpass in town, and in my opinion one linking the McKewon Plaza area to the Pinewood neighbourhood across the bypass would be a huge breath of fresh air for cyclists and pedestrians alike.
Source: GoogleMaps
If people continually damage the fence, it probably suggests demand for an overpass between the Pinewood neighbourhood and the McKeown Plaza
6) North Bay has many roads riddled with potholes, sand, rough pavement and debris that are simply not conducive to cycling.
Once again, this might sound trivial if you don’t cycle regularly, but it matters. At winters end the sand is all swept to the side of the road for a few weeks, where cyclists are of course expected to be. For mountain bikes with wider tires this is hardly a concern at all, but on a road bike these conditions are a recipe for disaster.
A more permanent problem is that the roadway is weak where the curb meets the pavement. There are often storm drains, manholes covers, and curbs, which yield frequent cracked pavement, and potholes. These all create complexity and unpredictability for the cyclists. If I have to swerve closer to traffic to avoid a large pothole, I’ve just created unpredictability for motorists.
Smooth, predictable pavement, like those of cycle lanes, are necessary to help people pick up the habit.
7) The long winter season in North Bay, with heavy snowfall and cold temperatures, is not conducive to cycling, limiting the potential as a cycle city.
It’s hard to justify locking up money in infrastructure that only gets use 6-8 months of the year.
And yet, with the exclusion of storm events and deep freezes, there are actually many days when temperatures aren’t completely unreasonable for cycling during our winter months.
Plus, some of the most famous cycling cities in the world are at even more northern latitudes than our own city, and receive their share of cold and snow. Copenhagen can expect plenty of snow, and yet cyclists are present in winter, how?
Clearing bike lanes is a priority. Residents can expect black pavement on cycle lanes by the time they wake up for their commute. Fostering reasonable cycling conditions for parts of the winter really isn’t unreasonable
If we compare the winter climate of Oslo, Norway’s premier cycling city, with North Bay, we can see that they are fairly similar in both temperature and snowfall. Here, winter cycling seems absurd, but in Norway, through a commitment to the infrastructure (including clearing the snow), and spiked bike tires, they manage accommodating cycling year round.
Source: Weather SparkSource: Weather Spark
Honestly, it’s kind of funny the way that as technology has improved, our standard for comfort has skyrocketed. There has never been better equipment to keep warm and dry in the winter. There has never been better snow removal equipment, and there are specialized bikes and accessories which allow bikes to work great in snow. There are permeable materials that reduce the accumulation of snow on cycling paths. Still, the idea of biking in winter seems as absolutely crazy today as it did generations ago.
Remember, I’m not insisting that everybody go bike during the years worst snow storm, freezing rain, or deep freeze. I’m just saying maybe half of the year isn’t as completely off limits as we perceive it to be.
“Biking in winter is kind of like walking on hot coals: people say you can’t do it. They say it’s impossible!
But then you just go and do it”
Robert Judge- Saskatoon, Canada as quoted in Happy City
Winter is a real barrier to becoming a cycling city, because it is something people can point to for an easy excuse not to try.
8) The steep hills of North Bay create challenges for the average person, and doesn’t encourage cycling.
Airport Rd poses a challenge for casual cyclists. Source: GoogleMaps
North Bay’s topography poses a challenge to cyclists, as biking uphill creates a great deal of resistance, fatiguing the rider quickly, and making some routes all but impossible for the average person on a bike. Airport road might have a shoulder cycle path, but how many people can honestly climb that on a bike without stopping, or descend it without trembling in fear.
“I’m biking uphill and it’s killing my quads, I’m biking downhill and it sounds like a fishing rod”
Frank Ocean – Biking
A bike lane on the hill of Algonquin Rd would be useful, but likely would be used by far less than alternative routes with a more gradual slope. We shouldn’t build the bike network to accommodate people who are already cyclists, or a narrow demographic of human fitness, we instead should ensure accessibility and comfort to as many rider as possible.
When planning cycle routes, it is important to consider the way topography creates resistance for cyclists, and make routes reasonable for the average person to undertake.
9) Bike theft is a serious concern in North Bay.
As far back as the late 1800’s, and as recently as last summer, bicycle thefts have been commonplace in our city. Bikes are mobile, and often vulnerable to theft as even some of the best bike locks are fallible given the right tools. It is important the destinations throughout town include bike racks for locking bikes.
“In 1969, the Department investigated 1,438 cases of theft, deemed much like the cases of stolen bicycles 75 years earlier. “Many citizens are careless with their moveable property and it seems there are more and more people in our community that would rather steal the things they want, than buy them”
Chief Wotherspoon quoted in (Lebelle & McClenaghan, 2009) The Beat Light: North Bay Police History 1882-2007
Additionally, the location of these racks is important. They should be highly visible to avoid suspicious figures having plenty of time to mess with the locks, and signal that the community is committed to being cyclist friendly.
An Action Plan for a Cycle Friendly North Bay
1) Improving Cycling Infrastructurein North Bay
The best way to make North Bay a better cycling city is direct improvements to the transportation network infrastructure. We should absolutely increase the number of bike lanes in the city, on both major arteries and on alternative routes with lower slopes to increase the ease of travel. These routes should be prioriatized in terms of maintenance like street sweeping, snow clearing, and pavement repairs.
We need to increase the access points to the trail network, and extend the trail network where possible, while ensuring that on street biking is far safer, as the trails do not provide ideal transportation to all destinations. The trails can act as a sort of highway, allowing for longer distance travel without the risk of the presence of the cars, but they are not the be all and end all of a cycle friendly city.
One area on the Kinsmen trail includes several stop signs within a very short period, where the cyclist is to yield to car traffic. On some streets, this makes sense, while others are low traffic streets where automobile travel shouldn’t blindly be given priority, especially since it is much easier to start and stop in a car than on a bike, making a disruption of flow more important from the cyclists perspective.
Bikes yield for cars because it is the norm, even in areas where the practice doesn’t make much sense like this low traffic section of Duke St.
Speaking of signs, making sure bike routes are well marked, and that signage is clear on these streets, is crucial to ensuring travel along these routes is intuitive for both experienced riders and beginners, as well as motorists.
Some designated areas in other countries are explicitly giving cyclist preferential treatment over cars, not necessarily excluding access to cars completely, but changing the hierarchy of priority. In these areas, traffic would move slower, and stop more frequently. These areas create awesome places to cycle, and serve the additional benefit of signalling to residents that the city takes active transportation seriously, and is willing to break away from some of our baseline assumptions about automobiles.
North Bay will also need to improve the places people leave their bikes when they arrive at their destination. Feeling that their bike is not secure is a major barrier to cycle travel, and it’s crucial that local businesses and public services include secure, and visible bike racks.
In order to bring cycling into the realm of legitimate transportation, it will also be necessary to enforce cyclists’ infractions of traffic laws. The cycle city thing is a two way street, and the whole point is to make it safer and more predictable, this means cyclists need to follow the rules. Cyclists are not used to enforcement, and there may be some blowback. Infractions like rolling stops might be forgiven because of the nature of bicycling, but unlawful crossing and other infractions should absolutely be curbed. North Bay Police have announced they are bringing back their police cyclist units for the coming summer, which may represent a step in this direction.
Bike racks and strong transit can help ease some of the barriers to cycling. Left Photo by Will H McMahan Right Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
Finally, if you rely on your bike for transportation, you’ll face challenges in the form of days where the method simply isn’t a reasonable choice. We need to ensure that public transportation is easily accessible, reliable, and efficient so that cyclists have a back up plan. Keep in mind, even if you bought a fairly decent new bike, tons of great clothes and outwear to keep comfortable on your ride, maintenance at bike shops a few times a year, and an annual transit pass, you’ve still likely spent way less the $11,000 it costs to own even a compact car over the course of a year (when you include, car payments, insurance, gas, maintenance, depreciation, etc.).
With these improvements to the transportation infrastructure in our city, we can do a ton to nudge more people to be cyclists, and reap the benefits of being a cycle city.
2) Changing hearts and minds
Clearly, the biggest barrier to North Bay’s progress in being bicycle friendly is the mindset of both officials and residents. We need to work hard to paint cycling with a new image, from the top right down. We need officials to recognize that, in the long run, changes like the ones suggested above create a more efficient transportation network for everyone, including motorists.
One way we can encourage residents to utilize cycling more often is to make it more fun for people of all skill levels. New cyclists could feel confident that they weren’t going to be ticketed, or killed, in a safe cycling environment, which might give them an opportunity to hone their skills.
On the other side of the spectrum, integrating mountain biking trails to the Active Transportation network can go a long way in encouraging even more use by riders with expertise.
In that same vein, we can bring novelty and a cool factor to our transportation system that can improve the experience for residents, and even attract tourism.
For example, in Poland, a new cycle path was created that glows blue in the dark, creating a magical, almost Alice in Wonderland, aesthetic effect. This type of feature might cost up front, but the glow is powered by the sun. I can talk about how cool this seems all day, but seriously, just look at it:
Alternatively, in terms of winter cycling, a type of Christmas cycle route might make for a really interesting local event that would draw some tourism, and do a lot to create a sense of place for our city. We’re already a very nice Christmas setting in the movies, why not follow through and incorporate and encourage winter cycling through an event like this? It’s just a thought, and whether it would work or not is another thing, but we should be thinking of ways like the glow path and a Christmas cycle route to add novelty, and a cool-factor, to cycling in our city.
The more fun it is, the more people will participate. It’s not exactly a complicated nudge, but it will work.
Finally, we need to have more top down initiative that get people out and biking. Around the world, cities have use “bike to work days” and one day a year bans on vehicle travel within certain neighbourhoods to give people a taste of what it’s like to be a cycle city.
The thing is though, there would need to be a real commitment among city officials and community leaders, advocacy groups and volunteers in order to sell this idea to residents.
How often do we all get out and do something together as a community? Bike to work days represent a real building of momentum for cycling in a city, and if executed properly can help change perceptions of residents in a more timely manner.
The third and final pillar of the Gateway’s community action plan is a robust, but intuitive cycling education program for our city, includes access to useful documents and courses.
Pamphlets, brochures, maps and other documents can help illustrate the rules of the road, the expectation for behaviour, and safe and expedient routes throughout town. This is especially important in tourism, as if we wish to be cycle friendly for our visitors, we have to make sure they’re informed. Luckily, today we all carry around what amounts to the “supercomputers” of the past, in our pockets.
A well designed app could provide information on the rules, route advice, and other information that could ease the transition to cycling for residents. You can even mount your smartphone on your handlebars, which creates an experience not unlike viewing a GPS monitor in your car. The goal of such an app would be to improve your mobility as cyclist in town.
Smartphones can help cyclists navigate unfamiliar areas, and augment their cycling with data like speed and riding time. That said, it’s important that we aren’t using them to the point of distaction Source: thelakeandstars.com
Finally, an education course for cycling in North Bay, like the ones offered in Halifax would be very useful in ensuring the safety of everyone. Courses should be relatively short, flexible, and simple, outline what cyclists need to know to get around North Bay. They should teach safety skills like using your bell appropriately and hand signalling These programs would be especially useful for our cities youth, and an opportunity to partner with local School Boards could ensure that our children are safe on their bikes, and encourage them to participate.
It Starts with You!
So for the past however many thousand words I’ve been trying to convince you that North Bay really could be one of North America’s great cycling cities (the bar is set low after all). But what can you do as an individual to support this cause?
1) Follow cycle advocates of Nipissing
Local advocacy groups like Cycle Advocates of Nipissing have done much to bring to light the lack of Active Transportation in our city. Join the group on facebook, and engage with the local content. The people who run the page work really hard to ensure its members are informed.
2) Reframe your standards: Would I want my kid biking there?
Instead of seeing a cyclist on the road or sidewalk and thinking they don’t belong and blaming them for it, we really need to consider that cyclists are only doing what they’ve been shown they should. We’re treated like quasi-motorists and quasi-pedestrians, and as a result we really don’t have a clear cut expectation for behaviour. I personally abide by all the rule as much as is possible, but I am far from surprised when others do not. Instead, we should look at our roads and think:
“Would I be comfortable if my child had to bike down this street?”
Seeing our city through the eyes of children might help improve the safety of our active transportation network Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
Of course for just about every street in North Bay, the answer is a clear and obvious “NO!”. That’s not cyclists fault: it’s a city-wide issue that needs to be addressed.
Call city council and let them know that you want bike lanes to be made a priority. Honestly, even if you don’t ever see yourself biking, as a motorist, having more predictable cyclists, and potentially less cars on the road is a win win.
We can’t keep things the way they are, we just can’t.
3) Just Go Bike
Finally, just try biking to work, or the store, once or twice a week.
Yes, recreational use of a bike on trails is fantastic, but really, we need to show the city, and ourselves that cycling can be a utilitarian method of transportation too. Plus, biking is one of those things you have to do, then you realize the barriers aren’t quite as significant as you thought.
The best thing you can do to help North Bay become a cycling city is to get out there and ride!
Recently, our community experienced a devastating a tragedy. Shelby Dickey, a 25 year old promising Nipissing Student Athlete and Graduate Student, was struck by a vehicle as she road her bike on Highway 63 by the Green Store.
This absolutely heart-wrenching story of a promising young life gone far, far too soon, received a massive outpouring of sympathy for those close to Shelby, and the Nipissing community. Honestly, I’m tearing up as I write this and consider what her family and friends have had to endure. Nothing short of an absolute nightmare, beginning with a young woman who just wanted to ride her bike.
We can’t just keep doing the same thing, relegating bicycles to risky roadside travel, and expect different results. These tragedies are preventable.
It’s extremely difficult to experience such a loss, and I think the best way to honour those close to Shelby is to do our best to make sure no family has to feel that pain.
Cyclists are worthy of safe transportation.
So, what would a city that prioritized cyclists look like?
North Bay could easily be a cute summer tourist town where people come because they know they can arrive, rent a bike, and leave their car and the typical North American experience in the parking lot for the weekend or week while they explore the gorgeous natural views of a city cradled by escarpment and lakes.
This seems like a moon-shot if you apply the perception of our city today, sure, but over time, this isn’t even that lofty a goal if we make cycling infrastructure a priority.
Honestly, we’re starting to get a reputation as a big Christmas town because of all of the holiday movies filmed here. Can you imagine the boost to tourism that could be added if it were a Christmas Town where people biked around (with wrapped presents in our handlebar baskets no less) when possible in winter?
Talk about a sense of place.
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With some effort we can have safe travel by bicycle through our beautiful natural cityscape. Our city needs more sense of place, more identity. We’re never going to be Toronto or Ottawa. We have to pick a direction for our city, and with that we should capitalize on our assets.
Focus for too long has been on investing in growth. Well, North Bay is about the same size it was almost 35 years ago (StatsCan, 2016). Sometime, when we have a firm goal in mind, like population growth, we can’t see the forest for the trees.
If the goal is growth, we should be creating a community with a unique sense of place, that people are dying to move to. Breaking away from the North American obsession with making the bicycle a secondary method of transport is a great way to start in this placemaking endeavour.
At this point, I think it’s probably fair to say we’ve given the “invest money to attract businesses to attract people” route a try. Let’s try to invest in ourselves instead.
By really committing to becoming a bicycle city, and taking action as soon as possible, we can increase mobility for our residents, young and old, rich and poor alike. A pride in our city shared by such a large cross section of our population would be a great community builder.
North Bay is a perfect size, and perfect natural setting to be a beautiful cycle city, but we really do need to push hard to change perceptions, and get the wheels in motion.
RM
Sources:
Andersen (2018) Copenhagenize: The Definitive Guide to Global Bicycle Urbanism
Montgomery (2013). Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design
Trace Planning and Development (2019). North Bay Active Transport Master Plan.
University of Baylor (2016). Baylor Report on North Bay.
Walking seems like one of those topics that’s just so obvious it’s not even worth talking about.
George Carlin, the late standup comedian, certainly would have shared that sentiment.
“I know they have a magazine. Walking! WALKING!
There’s actually a ******* magazine called “Walking”! ‘Look, Dan, the new “Walking” is out!’
Here’s a good article: putting one foot in front of the other!”
George Carlin
On the other hand, maybe because walking is so ubiquitous, and yet largely unconsidered, it is exactly the type of topic that might be interesting to really delve into.
We Are All Pedestrians
For some, walking is their transportation, it’s how they get from A to B. For others, those who own a private automobile, walking becomes a recreational activity, sometimes even one that they actually drive to go do.
But even if you drive everywhere you go, when you park, you still take the heel-toe express the rest of the way. Plus, even if you own a car, it shouldn’t mean driving has to be your only method of transportation. The city as a setting should offer us the freedom to move around in different ways, enriching our lives.
Finally, just because you have a vehicle, doesn’t mean everyone has that privilege. Our city should be accessible to all of its residents, and more attention should obviously be paid to accommodating those who aren’t motorists.
A Better Bay
As discussed in the last A Better Bay article, our city follows a spatial layout that is problematic. Designated zones for separated commercial and residential uses, few mixed-use neighbourhoods, and a low density pattern of sprawl, all pinhole residents into one method of transport. These patterns ensure that we are dependant on car ownership to achieve the freedom to move in our city.
Being that I’ve offered some thoughtful steps for combatting this fundamental issue with our city, for the next few weeks I’d like look at the alternatives to car travel: walking, biking, and public transit.
We must ask how we can ensure that in 30 years we live in a city that accommodates and even encourages these sustainable methods of transportation.
Some people ride bikes, some people take transit. But we are all pedestrians, so I thought that walking would be the best place to start.
The Plight of the Pedestrian in a Car Dependent City
Little attention is paid to walking infrastructure. Politicians seem to unanimously support sustainable transportation, and yet when push comes to shove, the attention given to improving the experience of walking in our city is minuscule by comparison to the attention to car travel.
So if we’re all walkers, and pro-walker position is politically correct, why doesn’t walking get its due?
Well for starters, there’s a very real perception that pedestrian issues are those of a disadvantaged, car-less class, and therefore while it’s politically correct, its not actually politically motivating to address the issues. It’s basically assumed that once you have a car you use that and that alone, a fair assumption given the city’s layout, but far from an ideal perspectives to work from.
Consider The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury, a dystopian (very) short story where a man is questioned by authorities, and eventually institutionalized, for walking. While this is a sort of satirical take on the extreme conclusions of our societal attitude towards walking, it makes a poignant argument about the way we look at pedestrianism.
“In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.”
Ray Bradbury (1951) The Pedestrian
The main character is taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies, the implication being that once a level of technology is reached (car), it would be (literally) crazy for one to utilize a “lesser” method, much less use walking to occupy time pleasantly as the protagonist does.
While obviously an exaggeration, the roots of this attitude can very much be seen reflected in our society, even more so today than when Bradbury wrote the story in 1951.
We should embrace that even for those of us with vehicles, walking is a method of transportation we should be excited to have, and should not be relegated to a method of transportation for the less fortunate.
Pretend that investments in pedestrian infrastructure only benefit people without cars (they have far reaching benefits, but for the sake of argument roll with me).
Do we not want to have a city that is equitable, and treats all of its residents like their experience matters?
I can’t speak for you, but I genuinely believe if we hold our city to these lofty standards, North Bay can and should be a city where everyone counts.
Consider also that if pedestrian infrastructure improvements are low priority, the experience of walking in our city gets worse and worse. This creates a feedback cycle, where less people choose to walk because of the crummy conditions and experience, and therefore even less attention is needed for pedestrians because there isn’t demand for it.
The History of the Street
There’s a very significant moment in history of urban planning when the streets become the property of the car.
Prior to the major proliferation of the automobile that shaped our modern world, the streets were actually mixed use, featuring cars, horses, street cars, buggies, bikes, and of course, walkers (Montgomery, 2013).
Check out this video of San Fransisco in 1906 to see what I mean.
We’re used to the idea that the street is there for cars to move. The deep truth of it however is that the reason streets are there is to move people.
So obviously, as the video shows, this was sort of chaos. With the car travelling so much faster than these other methods, and car ownership being so wide spread, mixed use roads is certainly not something I would advocate for.
I just want to be sure it is understood that at some point it was decided that the car would have the right of way. Free-crossing by pedestrians was given a criminal term “Jaywalking” and fatalities would be their own fault. The automobile was anointed the King of the streets, and the automobile became the technology around which we built our cities. The car has reigned ever since.
We need to be aware that pedestrianism has been considered a second class method of transport for a long time, and that bias needs to be acknowledged and understood to ensure pedestrians are served to a high standard in our city.
So with societal biases about pedestrianism in mind, let’s consider what we should know about walking, what the state of pedestrianism is in North Bay, and finally, ways to make the pedestrian experience better and encourage walking in our city.
Benefits of Pedestrian Cities
So what are the benefits of a population that walks more often? Well walking benefits human health, benefits the environment and is very cost efficient.
In terms of human health, walking promotes longevity and helps to combat a variety of ailments. Health Canada data suggests that in our country, about 9/10 kids, and half of adults, do not get the recommended amount of daily physical activity, contributing 5.3 billion dollars to health care expenditures (North Bay, 2019). Walking reduces the risk of obesity, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, dementia, depression, and heart disease (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2014). Studies also state that people who walk over 3 hours per week can expect a 16% reduction in cardiovascular disease (CanadaWalks, 2015).
Basically, walking is a healthy choice, and thus, for the benefit of its residents, North Bay should nudge us towards this choice.
In addition to the benefits to our bodies, walking is also good for our minds. Walking promotes mental wellness, critical and creative thinking, and general happiness. Correlations have been found between step-count and energy/mood, suggesting that people who walk more see personal benefits (Gloady, 2006).
We can also play with the way psychology can help nudge people into walking more frequently. For example pedestrians who are stimulated with interesting sights and sounds on their path walk father, and more often (Ellard, 2015).
Our automobile dependence isn’t just having adverse effects on our health, it also has costly repercussions for the environment. We burn far more greenhouse gasses than need be to get around, a habit that reduces air quality and is a major human driver of climate change.
Studies have found that in a 11 km car ride, 90% of the emissions are used in the first 1.6 km (North Bay, 2019) This means that reducing shorter car trips, and replacing them with a zero or low emissions transportation method (walking) could have huge positive implications for our environment.
Walking is also as cheap as transportation gets. It brings you door to door without any monthly insurance, fuel, or maintenance costs to the user. A pair of shoes is all you need, and all it costs you is time.
From the community perspective, pedestrian infrastructure like sidewalks, medians, etc. are relatively cheap compared to the costs of improving infrastructure for cars. For both the individual and the community, walking is the frugal choice.
Good for us, good for the environment, and the cheapest form of transportation there is.
If the benefits are significant and well known, what are the barriers preventing a resurgence of walking in our society?
Barriers to Pedestrianism
The first and biggest barrier to more people participating in pedestrian travel is the shape of our city itself. Because I already wrote a full article on this, I won’t get too deep into it. To put a nice bow on it, the separated land uses and low density of our city has made the space between destinations too far to be a truly walkable city.
As previously mentioned, walkers issues are perceived by governments, and residents, to be lower class issues. While nobody would come out as overtly anti-walking, there is a lack of political capital to the issue because of this perception. We are all pedestrians and this perception is of course untrue, but it has real consequences as a barrier to better walking in North Bay.
The physical geography of the area, including the topography and weather of North Bay, also act as barriers to walking as transportation in our city. Most people are deterred by hills, and North Bay has many, from the lows of the shores of Lake Nipissing to the heights of the escarpment. These hills make some on foot transportation impractical.
While maintenance of sidewalks could certainly be improved in the winter, the difficulties caused by the long, cold, and snowy season makes it very difficult to nudge people into choosing walking over their nice warm car.
Winter maintenance for sidewalks in our city leaves a great deal to be desired.
North Bay has an aging population, and with that comes issues of accessibility, especially when walking. This population, in order to be able to walk at all, have to be assured of a pedestrian environment that ensures their safety. In my opinion, we could do a lot better in this regard, but we’ll get into that later. Those residents who have physical limitations also face this issue.
Remember, we aren’t creating a city that works for the average resident, we’re creating a city that works for all of its residents.
Finally, there are practical limitations to the types of tasks that can be undertaken with pedestrian transportation. We can only carry so much weight, so the weekly grocery trip on foot is a rough proposal. Even light items, like toilet paper, pose and issue for walkers, and they take up a great deal of space limiting the number of other items that can be carried.
So while walking has obvious and plentiful benefits, it’s clear that there are also significant barriers that limit our capacity as a pedestrian society. So how does North Bay measure up as a walkable city?
The Lay of the Land: Walking in North Bay
In my second year in North Bay I moved into a house on Douglas St.. As a student, I made many trips to the Tim’s in the Esso on Landsdowne St. and every time I wondered how a street like that could possibly exist without a sidewalk. The city was either expecting pedestrians to avoid this fairly main connector of the Old Town neighbourhood with Algonquin, or was saying, basically, “too bad deal with it”. This was especially insulting to the physically impaired residents of the neighbourhood that I witnessed brave traffic to journey up the hill.
Of course, the year after I moved out of that house, the city built a sidewalk. I know I sound bitter, but I’m really not. The fact they recognized the sidewalk was needed is great. Unfortunately though, this example speaks to the fact that walkers are of such a low priority to the city that a street like Lansdowne could have existed for so long without one. It’s obvious when the road was built, it was built to move cars, rather than move people.
In general, North Bay definitely lacks sidewalks. While most of the main roads have sidewalks on at least one side of the road, many of the secondary streets lack sidewalks all together. You might think of this to be of little concern in low traffic areas, but because of the city’s topography there are some very dangerous blind spots caused by hills.
Streets without sidewalks, with blind spots caused by slopes like this one, really let the city’s pedestrians down by compromising their safety. GoogleMaps
The combination of no sidewalk and these types of blindspots puts pedestrians in a dangerous position.
Bottom line, sidewalks are a basic feature of a city and there should be a much greater priority in providing adequate sidewalks on as many streets as possible. We should not think of sidewalks as a privilege, they exist for the safety of the city’s residents, and that shouldn’t ever be put on the back burner.
Opportunities to Walk
In addition to the lack of sidewalks, our tendency towards amalgamating services in a centralized location also reduces walking opportunities. For example, as schools amalgamate, and smaller, neighbourhood schools close, less and less of the student population are able to reasonably walk to school. This of course is the case here, where Chippewa and Widdifield are set to amalgamate.
The habits formed in youth have large implications on behaviour in adulthood, even when it comes to walking.
Another example of this phenomenon is the tendency towards building sports complexes over neighbourhood fields. With less maintained sports fields in neighbourhoods in favour of a centralized location, there are less opportunities for walking to these destinations. There’s also theoretically less opportunities for the informal “pick-up” style games that I personally grew up on.
Yes, it’s more efficient for the city to maintain 4 baseball diamonds in the same location than 4 spread out throughout the city, but the cost of that efficiency falls to the end user, who will have to travel farther than in the neighbourhood model.
Sports Complexes like Steve Omischl Sports Field Complex reduce walking by centralizing the city’s facilities GoogleMaps
Overall, as we seek efficiency in the services we offer by putting them in large central locations rather than smaller, scattered ones, we reduce the amount that can be accomplished by pedestrian travel, and erode the pedestrian culture of our city, especially for youth.
Crosswalks
Every summer we visit my girlfriend’s family in Sydney, Cape Breton, N.S. I am always struck by what I’ll call the crosswalk culture of the city.
There are crosswalks everywhere. Seriously, some no more than 120 m apart.
And here’s the kicker: motorists respect the crosswalk.
Whitney Pier, Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, where crosswalks are respected by motorists and heavily utilized by pedestrians GoogleMaps
Any pedestrian in the city can approach the crosswalk and be sure that they will be offered opportunity to cross promptly by motorists who just know to stop. On main roads fairly comparable to our own Algonquin Ave, the crosswalk simply has a traffic light in order to ensure safety and allow for better traffic flow.
The number of legal crossing opportunities, and the provision of right of way to the crosser, makes for a very pleasant pedestrian experience. The pedestrian of Sydney is respected, catered to, and recognized as a legitimate occupant of the city’s transportation system.
I’ve noticed that in some areas of North Bay there are long, long distances between legal crossing opportunities, especially on busy roads like Algonquin and Lakeshore. We have neighbourhood crosswalks on some roads, for example on Cassels St. and Front St. , but they are only respected as providing right of way if the crosswalk attendant is present, which is limited to hours servicing children walking to and from school.
The parking for the medical building on Algonquin Ave.
The best example of the lack of a legal opportunity to cross causing issues is the medical building on Algonquin Ave., which has a parking lot across the street.
Medical Building on Algonquin Ave. GoogleMaps
The driver gets out, and to reach their destination in their limited time as a pedestrian, they must either walk to the Landsdowne / Algonquin intersection, adding 300-ish metres to a 20 metre walk. The other option is up to the highway bypass, adding over half a kilometre to legally cross.
Algonquin Ave. crossing conundrum: Friction of distance makes the legal crossing options far less reasonable than the short, illegal solution of jaywalking. GoogleMaps
Of course, nobody in their right mind would travel all that extra distance, meaning that just about every person who parks in that lot jaywalks.
And I don’t blame them. The city nudged them. The choice to travel 20 metres instead of hundreds of metres was the obvious one.
To make matters worse, given the building houses medical services, it is not uncommon to see people with seemingly limited physical capacity make the daring cross.
Obviously this is a particularly severe example, but think about it: this is an oversight of pedestrian services that actually mostly impacts motorists.
There are literally hundreds of locations in our city that nudge pedestrians into dangerous behaviour.
Parking Lots
I’ve mentioned it before (and you can expect a more in depth analysis of it in the future), but a massive amount of space in our city is occupied by parking lots, and many of them sit empty much of the time.
Parking lots are terribly unpleasant for pedestrians. How many times has your heart stopped passing through a parking lot when a car begins to back out and evidently doesn’t see you walking behind it?
While the Independent parking lot includes medians to service pedestrians, parking lots like this one at the NorthGate Mall represent huge area where pedestrians aren’t given direction or a legitimate “place”
Parking lots are basically large areas where pedestrians are given no direction of where to walk to stay safe. When not given direction or an intuitive path, people often revert to travelling as the crow flies, the shortest path, diagonally across the large lots.
These are areas meant to service the people who park there, all of whom walk the rest of the way, and yet they are largely without any accommodations for this on-foot travel. Parking-lots provide such poor pedestrian travel that people often get back in their car, only to drive to park in a different spot in the same plaza, defeating the convenience of a commercial plaza altogether.
The parking lot in the new section of the plaza on Mckewen St. (seen below) includes medians, albeit few of them, which at least provide some comfort to walkers. By contrast the Staples/Sobeys parking lot does not really offer reasonable paths for pedestrian travel.
When you consider both satellite images, and just how much space we use on parking, this means large distances are covered by pedestrians in a fairly unregulated environment. This should absolutely be addressed by the city and property managers.
The Highway
The most expedient path to access the towns neighbourhoods, the highway, is completely inaccessible to pedestrian travel. The highway also acts as a barrier for many pedestrians, as those with capability limitations may fear crossing the highway. While the convenience to motorists of 11 and 17 passing through town is significant, so is the inconvenience to pedestrians.
Informal Access
Akin to the way Jeff Goldbloom describes life, the thing about pedestrian travel is that if you do not formally provide it, it finds a way.
Independant Grocers and the informal pedestrian access at its rear. GoogleMaps
Take this catwalk behind the Independent for example. The pedestrian, seeking access to the grocery store and the mall, has the choice of almost an additional kilometre walk around to Laurentian St. or a path through the catwalk.
So pedestrians found a way, what’s the issue?
The local Independent Grocers provides one example of how informal access points by pedestrians when the formal access points nudge them to do so. In this case, the distance around provides that nudge. GoogleMaps
The issue is that this is not a formalized access point, it is loose dirt, uneven surface, and narrow. Basically, the logical access point by distance is inaccessible for many people. While informal access serves those who already walk, it does little to encourage a pedestrian culture, and these informal features of the pedestrian environment should be formalized.
Leaving the Pedestrian High and Dry
I might be wrong, but I think the most deplorable pedestrian situation in town is the Food Basics/Beer Store/Shoppers Drug Mart parking lot on Cassels St.. For context the plaza is surrounded by retirement communities, and the street is one of North Bay’s main arteries.
GoogleMaps
As one approaches the plaza, passing New Ontario Brewers, the sidewalk ends at the intersection, and leaves the walker to navigate the parking lot on their own. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen the elderly in our community standing vulnerable in the middle of the entrance of the parking lot.
GoogleMaps
I shouldn’t need to say this, but since it’s stayed this way for years, it may need to be stated:
This is inexcusable.
This puts all pedestrians at risk on a main artery of North Bay, and involves the safety of a vulnerable elderly population living nearby.
It’s an absolute joke that our urban environment was constructed in such a way that would leave pedestrians high and dry. The fact that it has stood as it is for so long just highlights the way pedestrian issues are simply not a main focus.
Fixing this specific sidewalk should be an immediate priority for the city.
Pedestrian Assets
I’ve been ripping our city pretty hard here, so I should clarify: North Bay also has its assets for pedestrians. The whole reason I thought this huge article about walking might even be worth writing was that our city has a ton of potential as a walkable environment.
The Kinsman Trail and Kate Pace Way provide beautiful linear park type areas for people to walk on, and serve almost as a highway for pedestrian and bike travel in our city. These trails offer a great opportunity, and it should be ensured they are extended and connected in ways that encourage their use and their practicality for our residents.
Chippewa Creek, Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake, and the Escarpment that cradles our city all provided beautiful landscape as a setting for pedestrian travel. North Bay’s natural features make for beautiful views, adding fantastic potential for the city as a walkable environment.
What we need is to nudge more people to walk, and accommodate the practice with infrastructure to help get our city the appreciation it deserves as a cool place to explore on foot.
Chippewa Creek makes for lovely scenery while walking.
Pedestrian Transportation
Our city definitely has potential for a wonderful place for pedestrians, but there is a ton of work to do.
In the very layout of our city, we have relegated walking to a recreational endeavour.
We have places that are lovely to walk, but the catering to automobiles of our society means that these places are often segregated from other uses. North Bay’s waterfront for example, makes a lovely place for a walk. Ironically, it’s so nice, many people drive there to participate.
We can walk everywhere, we should make the space between our everyday destinations walkable and beautiful to encourage walking as a pursuit of transportation not just recreation.
It seems to me that the city has focused a ton of attention and funds on growth and attracting businesses to our town in recent years. The effort seems to have been largely without its payoff to this point. I guess the thinking is attracting businesses and new residents grows the tax base, and with that revenue we can start to fix the city. Gotta have money to spend money.
But what if we’re going at it backwards? What if revitalizing our city, making it walkable, modern, and beautiful, is what attracts new residents. Money is spent on the campaigns aimed at growth.
What if we invested that money in creating a city that people are dying to live in, and let the businesses come to us?
Action Plan
So we’ve established that creating walkable environments increases pedestrian travel, which has large scale human health and environmental benefits. We’ve established that while North Bay has its strengths for pedestrians, it also has many barriers to practical pedestrian travel. So what can we do to make walking in North Bay better?
(Note: North Bay did get consultation on an Active Transportation Master Plan in the past few years. After reading the plan, there are certainly some promising methods for improving the pedestrian environment. Some of them are included below, in addition to other expert ideas, and some of my own. I will not deep delve into the Active Transportation Master Plan, as it will be a more central subject for the next A Better Bay article on cycling in our city.)
Employer Nudges
According to the 2016 Census, over half of North Bay residents face a commute of 15 minutes or less each day. While 15 minutes in the car translates to quite a long walk, I believe it safe to say that a least a portion of those representing the “or less” probably live within walking distance of work. Now that’s not to say they should have to commute by foot everyday, but encouraging these people to walk some days, we can have a positive impact on their health and on the environment.
Employers can help encourage walking by offering pedestrian employees a cheque in lieu of a parking space. Additionally, flex start and end times would allow for the experience of the pedestrian commuter to be pleasant and un-rushed, rather than a frantic unpleasant walk that makes them turn back to their cars.
After this COVID-19 crisis subsides, it is possible that many people will work from home some days, since this will likely prove many responsibilities can be completed from home. This means that people won’t have to worry about transportation on as many days.
Companies can provide their employees with incentives and accommodations for pedestrian commuting. Photo by Romain V on Unsplash
It’s possible that the task of finding your way to work for 20 days per month (5 day in person work week) might encourage the purchase of a car more than say, 12 days per month (3 day in person work week).
While these employer side accommodations won’t guarantee community scale pedestrian commuting, it will definitely incentivize some to walk to work, at least some days.
Remember, there’s nothing wrong with incremental progress. Respect the baby step.
If You Build It…
A huge finding of research on urban transportation is the field of dreams effect:
“If you built it, they will come”
If we continue to build our cities around cars, we’ll encourage more and more people to be motorists. Traffic studies that increase a roadways capacity often have the secondary effect of encouraging demand for that roadway. We expand our roads and the traffic stays the same.
On the other hand, if we create pedestrian environments that feel safe and enjoyable, while we foster respect for the walker, more people will be pedestrians.
Sidewalks
The first priority in this regards has to be developing the city’s sidewalk network. Numerous streets are without sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to either share the road with the onus to not get hit, or to walk on peoples lawns, creating, long, ugly patches without growth.
This does two things:
it puts the pedestrian in a precarious position in term of their individual experience
it screams to residents that pedestrians aren’t respected.
Basically, where the city does not accommodate for pedestrians, it’s telling us they don’t belong.
Imagine that. On my own two feet in my own city, and I don’t belong?
Some of the side streets have sidewalks… sort of.
Another thing that would go a long way to making our city walkable is to put the car in its place. It seems that people in our society see roads as a vehicle (pardon the pun) to move people as fast as possible. If we were to put more emphasis on their role as providing safe transportation, we might better integrate methods that make the roadways more pedestrian friendly, including traffic calming, sidewalk buffers, and medians.
Traffic calming includes features like speed-humps, and planters that reduce the width of the lanes which inevitably slows down cars. They are a great way to reduce speeds in residential areas, and add the secondary function of adding small-scale nature to our neighbourhoods.
In some neighbourhoods, traffic calming like the planters shown above can reduce through traffic and provide walkers with a safer, more friendly pedestrian environment. By Mike Faherty, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14449203
As you can see in the photo above, some applications go as far as to limit traffic to one way through the obstacle, reducing the incentive to use residential streets as through ways.
In extreme cases, to prevent neighbourhoods from becoming throughways for fast moving traffic, streets are split in the middle, enabling pedestrian traffic but excluding motorists.
Some of our sidewalks are right up to the road, while others run along a dirt shoulder. In both of these cases, barriers like curbs, poles, planters, trees, and boulders can provide an added element of safety and more scenery along sidewalks.
Street furniture like benches can also serve this barrier type purpose, with the addition benefit of catering to the needs of pedestrian traffic. Tiny parks can be barriers for pedestrians while providing an awesome pop of scenery, nature, and character.
One study found that a pedestrian moving 5 km/h should see something interesting every 5 seconds or so to encourage walking, and its full psychological benefit (Ellard, 2015). Tiny parks and murals can provide this scenery and help boost the psychological benefit of walking (plus offer a place to rest). Installation of street furniture, barriers, and tiny parks can encourage pedestrianism through the nudge of a pleasant setting.
Tiny parks often provide a pop of nature and accommodations for pedestrians like benches. In aggregate, many tiny parks can really change the pedestrian landscape of a city. Photo: Sao Paulo – The Urbanist
Bike lanes, which will be explored in the next A Better Bay article, also provide a buffer between pedestrian and motor traffic, while medians provide an island for those previously mentioned illegal crossings.
In the short term, the idea of crosswalks in North Bay being as effective as those I described in Cape Breton is silly. That said, we really should consider providing more safe opportunities for pedestrians to cross streets, providing additional freedom of movement, peace of mind, and incentive to choose to walk.
This would take time to establish, identifying problem areas for potential crosswalk sites, providing signage and paint, traffic lights if necessary, and enforcement for drivers who do not abide by this. Over time, the painted cross walk could become a symbol of our walkable community, respected by motorists and utilized by pedestrians.
Another safety issue for pedestrians is the vulnerabilities that come with areas that are dark or secluded or both.
One important concept for people to feel safe walking is “eyes on the street” which refers to the number of people that would witness an incident. Our low density settlement pattern doesn’t lend itself to heavy pedestrian traffic (yet?), which makes ensuring our sidewalks are well lit that much more important in ensuring pedestrians feel safe.
Lighting is absolutely crucial for encouraging pedestrians to feel safe moving about their city. Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash
One thing we can start to do right away, is educate about the benefits of addressing our car dependence. Walk to work days, take a walk days, and other initiatives can demonstrate belief that not every trip has to be taken by car. CanadaWalks is one organization that works to educate and bring awareness of the benefits and barriers of walking in our country.
Main St. Pedestrian Party
The most important thing I think that we could start to do (after the COVID-19 crisis is in our rearview) is encourage pedestrian travel by shutting down Main St to motor traffic regularly in the summer to provide walking only, town square type events. The city has done this on a smaller scale in the past, one event, Rocktoberfest, was a great occasion to gather as a community and the novelty of walking down Main was fantastic. This type of event could be combined with live music, the farmers market and other events like midnight madness downtown.
By doing it regularly, say weekly or biweekly on Saturdays in the summer, you accomplish a few things.
You bring some always appreciated foot traffic to the downtown businesses
You allow motorists a chance to be prepared for the change in their route.
Finally, you bring awareness of the pleasant experience of pedestrianism, and normalize the behaviour, developing the culture of walking in our city.
These events would be really cool for residents young and old, and might draw some bonus tourism in the summer. A regular, pedestrian only, block-party type environment would make North Bay’s magical summer season even that much more charming.
Last Call
We have had a low standard for our pedestrian infrastructure in our city for my entire time living here. I suspect it’s a culture that dates back farther than that.
It’s our job to hold our city to a higher standard.
Streets should have sidewalks. That’s not an unreasonable ask.
We should feel empowered to hold our city to a standard that ensures the city provides freedom to all of its residents.
If you have no sidewalk on your street, write or call the city and complain. You’re not being entitled. You might not get it right away, but the city needs to know pedestrian infrastructure is in the public interest.
(Note: during the COVID-19 crisis, I wouldn’t advocate for bombarding the city with these type calls. That said I’ll leave the call to action there, because we will get through this and this stuff will matter again, eventually.)
I’m not going to lie, the layout of our city makes being a walkable city an uphill battle. That said, there are concrete steps we can take to encourage and accommodate walking.
It is absolutely crucial that we remember that over time, our city will become whatever we demand of it.
We just have to take that first step.
RM
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“I will wager no other town was so thoughtlessly named as this …
Now, name has no part, for this live town has made its own identity”
Anson Gard on North Bay, 1909
The name North Bay is pretty transparent. The city is situated on the north bay of Lake Nipissing. It is a bay. It is situated to the north of the population core of the province. Really, it’s all pretty self explanatory. There’s not too much to grasp here.
But have you ever wondered how “North Bay” actually became the official handle of the city?
Was there some sort of naming committee hell-bent on not working very hard?
How North Bay got its Name
It’s not exactly a long story, but I’ll start with some background:
The development of rail travel was absolutely crucial in this region. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) reached the area in 1882 when John McIntyre Ferguson had a intuition that the land previously said to have little potential was a place for a settlement. He purchased 288 acres at a dollar a piece.
Only one of the original boundary markers of Ferguson’s land claim still stands, it can be found at Highland St. and Britton Ave. Photo: The Gateway
This intuition was likely based on information from his tycoon uncle Duncan McIntyre, who’s positions with Canadian Central and Canadian Pacific gave him first hand knowledge of the mapped out plan for the railway (Berton, 1971).
In what must have been a shocking, stroke of good fortune, Ferguson promptly found a customer for a large tract of his newly acquired land in the CPR, who wanted the right of way in the area. This sale lead to the crediting Ferguson with the founding of the town, and set forth his local real estate empire (Noel, 2009).
In the early years North Bay was a railway town through and through. Much of the town’s early infrastructure, including the town’s first church, was made up of train cars (Berton, 1971). Basically, transportation was its raison d’être.
So with that in mind, how did the place officially become “North Bay”?
Ferguson, arriving in 1882, needed nails to construct his home, the area’s first house. Not knowing how to designate his camp to order the nails to, he looked at Lake Nipissing and ordered them to “the north bay” without much thought to naming the community.
His concern was describing the geographic location with enough accuracy that he receive his supplies, and I’m positive those pen strokes weren’t made with the idea that there would be a city here by the name almost a century and a half later.
Ferguson attempted to change the name later, but locally it wasn’t much of a concern as the town was busy, blossoming, and young, and there was much more important things to do.
The name stuck, and the town incorporated under the name North Bay officially in 1891.
While Ferguson may have missed the opportunity to thoughtfully name the settlement, his early role in establishing the town is beyond dispute and numerous streets in town still bear his name today. He was the beneficiary of inside information from his family, and he capitalized on the opportunity and became a powerful local force economically and politically. He was both one of the towns wealthiest men, and a long-serving mayor (four terms) (Berton, 1971).
North Bay is the setting of Giles Blunt’s John Cardinal novels, and the accompanying CTV television series Cardinal. The town is named Algonquin Bay in the fiction, a slightly more creative name. Blunt may have done this as a thin veil for North Bay, but it does raise the question of what the city’s reputation might be like with a different name, for better or worse.
“North” can have different connotations depending on the context in which it’s uttered, and the person who hears it. Some might hear North Bay and think arctic tundra, others might think of the “north” as charming.
Just because North Bay sits on the north bay of Lake Nipissing doesn’t mean our city was destined to be named “North Bay”. The name arose from a particular set of circumstance. In the same manner, the city became the region’s core by circumstance rather than the course of destiny.
North Bay is population centre in the district, surrounded by communities of various sizes including Sturgeon Falls, Mattawa, Corbeil, Callander, and Powassan. These smaller communities act as peripheries to North Bay, and while this is obviously linked to the population sizes and available services, one might wonder how North Bay became the central settlement in the region.
In 1895, Mattawa, Sturgeon Falls, and North Bay, were all vying for the role as the “County Seat” for Nipissing, the governmental centre of the region. At the time, the communities were similar sized, with Mattawa being the oldest, most established, and Sturgeon being smaller in population than the other two (Noel, 2009).
In the initial election on March 14th, North Bay won by a 177 votes, an impressive margin given the population of the competing municipalities were around 2,000 at the time. Mattawa, suspecting that the votes of “dead men and children” may have contributed to the large margin of victory, called for a recount (Noel, 2009) (Gard, 1909).
Sturgeon Falls dropped out prior to the second election, held on July 11th, and all but 24 of its votes went to Mattawa, which put North Bay behind. A local legend states that railway workers who felt at home in North Bay pushed their locomotives to the limits to reach the polls in time to cast a ballot (Noel, 2009). North Bay won the contest by the margin of eight votes (Gard, 1909).
The strategic position of the city as a transportation hub, connecting the south and east to the west, probably explains much of North Bay’s central role in the region. That said, this election was also pretty crucial in securing the early population growth of the region. Becoming the Chair of Nipissing County meant the city would receive a courthouse, a registry office, a jail, judges, as well as government and judicial office space (Noel, 2009).
North Bay became the community that could offer these crucial services in the region, helping to incentivize settlement in North Bay rather than the communities that surround us. They do say “it’s all about being first to market”.
The population of Mattawa and North Bay in their early years. You can see the populations begin to diverge in the period just before the turn of the century, within which North Bay became the County Chair. The following decade the population of North Bay grows fast, while Mattawa stays stagnant.
Source: Noel (2009)
As you can see in the above graph, while the populations of Mattawa and North Bay were neck and neck prior to this election, after it North Bay became the larger settlement. By 1911, North Bay’s population was about 5 times that of Mattawa
So now when you hear “North Bay” you’ll know the ridiculously simple story of how we got our name, and how the city became the population and economic centre of our region.
Sometimes, it’s important to remember that the way things are now were not an inevitability. Our city is called North Bay, and serves as the economic and populous centre of the district because of a specific set of circumstances and the actions of humans.
With this considered, let’s remember that the future is not some inevitable course set forward by the stars, but that in fact, our actions today are producing the circumstance of tomorrow.
RM
Sources:
Berton (1971). The Last Spike: The Great Railway 1881-1885.
Gard (1909). Gateway to Silverland: The Story of a Happy, Prosperous People who are Building the Metropolis of the North.
Noel (2009). Family and Community Life in Northeastern Ontario.
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Combating the Spatial Patterns of a Contentious City
You probably think about it a little. Probably not much, but maybe a little. It crosses your mind on occasion at least.
If you’re fortunate enough have a car, it comes as:
“Thank God I have a car”.
If you are one of those unlucky residents of North Bay without a personal vehicle, its probably more like:
“Getting around this city is a pain in the ass”
North Bay’s pattern of land use creates have and have nots based on who owns a car Photo by Mark Cruz on Unsplash
However subtle, and occasional these feelings are, they’re important. The experience of your life is made up of a million little feelings. Sometimes they’re conscious feelings, and other times they’re a frequency running in the background. The specific feeling in this case, is that you are contending with your city, your setting, specifically when it comes to the freedom to move around.
Sure, if you have a car, you’ve got a tool that helps combat that strain, but the car is expensive to purchase, maintain, and insure, it has major environmental consequences, and its exclusive use can lead to poor health outcomes. So while you’ve got a weapon against the city, it’s still a contentious relationship. One’s relationship with their setting can either be a large strain in life or a blessing, so while the pattern and layout of our city is usually an undercurrent of our thoughts, it’s worth examining.
While the A Better Bay series will move forward to feature all kinds of potential improvements for our city, large and small, I think it’s probably best we get the biggest issue out of the way first: the pattern of land use, low density, and the challenges to the residents and their city that come with it.
Sprawl refers to a pattern of settlement with low density, characterized by many single dwelling units spaced on large lots, far back from the street, and with the pattern of growth outward. These low density settlement patterns come with higher infrastructure costs per kilometre, and the distance created by the spaced out development means extra kilometres of transportation to account for between destinations.
Typically, when we hear sprawl what we think of is the pattern of suburban growth outside of large cities: the antiquated dream of commuting
to the city from their large houses out in the ‘burbs. In this case though, we’re talking about a small city, North Bay, and the pattern of settlement therein.
Sprawl patterns come in many shapes, but include low density sparse settlement, and segregated land use zoning
Source: The Economist June 2016
Sprawl contains multiple land uses, but they are segregated in their zoning, keeping commercial, residential, and industrial uses separate. This homogeneity of use makes for ugly views, and low accessibility for those without a car. In other words, the pattern of uses spread out and low density development promotes the dependence on the private automobile among residents.
Our dependence on automobiles is associated with numerous negative impacts on environmental and human health. Not to mention the dependence on cars becomes a vicious cycle, as because so many residents commute and do their errands through the use of their cars, the need for infrastructure to accommodate all those cars, extra lanes, maintenance, new traffic lights, etc. drains municipal budgets in a way which leaves little room for addressing issues about people, rather than cars.
Keep in mind I’m not saying everyone should give up their cars, I’m saying that our city should be laid out in a way that makes residents feel like they have the choice to own a vehicle, rather than making it a virtual necessity. Even small changes in the amount of people walking can have major impacts on healthcare needs and environmental health of our planet and region, so the freedom to choose makes for a great weapon in combating these issues.
That said, people prefer to walk in interesting settings, and kilometres of houses occupying space between places we can shop or work isn’t exactly all that interesting.
Density is desirable because it means that the area reaches a capacity where it is economically feasible to provide services like grocers, restaurants, boutiques, and improved public transit options. Dense areas, when planned thoughtfully and maintained well, provide an interesting setting for people to live, work, and seek entertainment. They are also cheaper in terms of providing amenities, as the number of people served in the same amount of space is smaller, creating cost efficiency in things like public works.
In short, dense, mixed use areas provide residents with a sense of place. Their neighbourhood no longer represents the space between commercial areas, the neighbourhood can become an enriched place to live with its own identity. They have capacity for better transit services, better social lives, healthier habits, and are better for the environment.
Enjoyable, walkable mixed use neighbourhoods bring life to small cities. Photo by Darya Tryfanava on Unsplash
It makes a lot of sense how we wound up with this pattern in many cities throughout North America when you give it some thought. Industrial use produces odour and air pollution, so it makes perfect sense to segregate that use from residential ones. This desire for nice clean, coarse land use planning developed from there, and took on a life of its own, which is how we got to the situation we face of automobile dependence and boring neighbourhoods.
Additionally, as individuals, we have a huge incentive to want a large lot, a house nice and spaced out from our neighbour, and no downstairs tenant. People adore privacy, and the luxuries this pattern offers to the individual resident in terms of housing is a powerful factor in the layout of cities as they now stand. It makes sense that the aggregate of this desire created the sparse settlement pattern we now have.
We arrived here, with segregated land use and large low density residential neighbourhoods, because we didn’t quite think it through. It will certainly take a very deliberate effort to fix what’s been broken.
The Lay of the Land in North Bay
North Bay certainly qualifies as a low density city, albeit a small city. The 2016 census had our population density at 771 residents per square kilometre. Of the 24,244 dwellings, almost half are single dwelling units. Some of the older patterns of use, such as lots taking up space on two streets, with the detached garage backing onto the second street, reduce the density of our neighbourhoods.
Patterns of settlement like the one above, where the lot includes a detached yard and has street front space on two parallel streets limits density, but it also presents future options for adding density GoogleMaps
The city reaches outwards from the downtown core along Main West, Lakeshore Dr, Cassels St/Trout Lake Rd, as well as a main artery off of Algonquin and the connected Airport Rd artery.
The city is made for automobiles, with the highway as an expedient route right through town. The city’s history, as the amalgamation of North Bay with Widdifield and Ferris Townships promoted that the pattern of settlement in three core areas, one large and two smaller, rather than only one, further explaining this sparse pattern.
North Bay Partial Zoning Map
Ferris Zoning
Land Use Zoning
Red – Commercial
Blue- Industrial
Yellow- Residential
Green- Park/Open Space
Purple- Institutional
White- Rural
The above maps illustrate the pattern of segregated land use in North Bay. Note the vast areas of residential space free from commercial applications with small exceptions. Because of this pattern we have very few mixed use “all-in-one” neighbourhoods where people can go about most of their day without having to jump in the car. That luxury, and the freedom of choice in this case is definitely a luxury, is pretty much reserved for those living in the downtown core or on the boundaries of commercial zone.
Overall, while a considerable amount of green-space has been maintained throughout town, further growth in North Bay should be focused in town, increasing density and services provided within the city’s neighbourhoods. This filling in of neighbourhoods with more residences and commercial options helps break the pattern of segregated land use in favour of mixed land use that provides neighbourhoods with the prospect of being able to run their errands without having to start their car.
Commuting and Getting Around North Bay
The consequences of this pattern can be seen in the data. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 75% of people in North Bay drive their car to work, while only 8% are passengers in a car. Think about how many cars that is, taking up all that extra space, all the extra gas. The fact that 55% of all commuting takes place between 7 and 9 A.M means all those cars are all in transit around the same time. It also means that we need space for parking for all those cars to sit around all day at the same time. In the morning I often drive southbound out of town on 11, and the congestion I see coming into town is more akin to Toronto than it is to small town Ontario.
Small changes in the proportions of commuting method can have some pretty significant impacts on the environment, and our own health, so it would definitely be wise to aim to reduce this obvious dependency on the automobile.
Climate change might be a global problem, but it needs to be addressed locally. Human health issues emerge in individuals, but can be addressed at local and societal scales. Our city layout has power to help us address both of these issues.
Confession: I drive. I love my car and the freedom it offers me. But it shouldn’t be the only way to get around. Choice is a weapon, and the layout of our city has disarmed us.
Of course in the colder months, people would likely choose to use their cars for comfort, which is ok of course, as long as we keep in mind plenty of people don’t have personal vehicles, an all-in-one neighbourhoods would go a long way for promotion of equity in our city.
The above data is only about work, it doesn’t include the fact that most people in North Bay don’t live within a reasonable walking distance from their grocery store, or other services that compose their errands. All of these car trips create traffic, emissions, and missed opportunity for a healthier choice.
The pattern of settlement in North Bay creates a contentious relationship with its residents, we have large distances to cover to visit friends, to work, to run errands, to do seemingly anything. It stamps an effort tax on everything we do, and it pinholes us into one method of transportation, the car. Either you have one, and you use it all the time, or you’re S.O.L.
Our city spalls out over a large footprint for so few residents. While low density has its advantages, it also comes with costs
Vision
I think it would be nice to live in a city where walking, biking, and transit are not thought of as the alternatives for the disadvantaged, but make up the mosaic of choices that residents have each time they leave the house.
I think it would be great to have mixed use, all-in-one neighbourhoods where people can live, shop, exercise, play, and enjoy communal space all without having to start their car.
And honestly, I think North Bay, thoughtfully developed, could be an incredibly wonderful little city, balancing access to nature with smart human settlement, creating a setting that enhances the experience of everything we do. A setting with a sense of place like this encourages repeat tourism, and makes the lives of residents better, which is ultimately what a city should do.
It will take time, and deliberate effort to begin to repair the pattern of sprawl in our city. Here is some of the ways North Bay, over time, can be remodelled in a way that continues to promote density.
Action Plan
The issue of increasing density in a city can be addressed directly and indirectly in a variety of ways, including through the city planning policy, land use zoning, transportation and housing decisions, and through the decisions made by individuals.
The latest North Bay City Plan (2013) identifies the need to increase density and promoting mixed use planning:
2.1.2 Residential developments surrounding commercial nodes shall have a higher density to support increased pedestrian activity and mixed use development.
North Bay City Plan (2013)
2.1.12.3 High density developments will be encouraged to locate in suitable areas including the Central Business District and its immediate vicinity, or b) in close proximity to major shopping areas, community facilities, open space and recreational facilities, or c) in peripheral locations around residential neighbourhoods with access to major collector or arterial roads
North Bay City Plan (2013)
These goals are an important part of the city plan and it’s great that it acknowledges that higher density and mixed use is is the right direction for our city, but I’d like to delve into more specifics.
The following policy, contrary to the ethos established above, seems to illustrate that there are limits to the desire to increase density:
“2.1.13.6 Secondary dwelling units are permitted in detached, semi- detached and townhouses or in the accessory structures related to these uses, but not in both”
North Bay City Plan (2013)
This is probably a method to prevent overcrowding, but honestly in many cases, people would certainly have space to have a basement apartment, and utilize their detached garage “accessory structure” as another apartment if it was built up to code. Given the pattern I mentioned earlier where detached garages extend the lot to occupy space on two streets, it makes sense to further utilize these types of solutions to increase density rather than limit them.
One company, LaneFab, even works to create residential housing out of detached garages that sit on laneways, a render of which can be seen below. While we have laneways in our city still, I could not be sure how many would be fit for this type of solution without a survey.
Before: Houses with detached garages which sit on a lanewa, Low Density. Image by LaneFab.com
After, a new street of small houses sitting on a lanewa, High Density. Image by LaneFab.com
Commercial and 2nd
The old health unit building off zCassels St. could be converted into an apartment complex (much like the old Marshal Park School was), with its parking lot being developed as a type of neighbourhood square. Depending on the decisions made in renovating, there might even be room for a business or two in the building, promoting mixed use along the Cassels St artery, which is ripe for a revitalization.
This unoccupied old building/lot represents prime space right next to a school and just off a main artery of Cassels St/ Trout Lake rd. A future mixed use lot would represent a more all in one neighbourhood style, and help reinvigorate Cassels st, which basically amounts to untapped potential as it stands. Google Maps
Downtown
The downtown core represents a great pattern of settlement, but is in need of a revitalization in the form of a cleanup. Many residents shy away from spending time at our cities core, and that is not a relationship we want for our city. Once again, it is a relationship of contention. We want to have standards and love the setting of our lives.
The old Sands Motel, while in obvious need of demolition, might serve as a great lot for another apartment, potentially with commercial space on the ground floor to stimulate the development of mixed use outward from the downtown core, and helping to revitalize an area that could use a clean up in general.
The vacant site of the old hospital, visible off of Algonquin Ave, also represents a large area within the city that might be developed in a way that promotes density and mixed use. Given its location with numerous schools, both elementary and secondary, this could really help revitalize the neighbourhood.
Google Maps
Oceans of Parking
You might have noticed that there’s a lot of “parking lot oceans” in North Bay. Both malls literally don’t ever reach capacity parking with the exception of the Christmas shopping season, and even then, I’m not sure that they do. As more people turn to Amazon and other online retail options, we will see more and more perpetually empty parking spots moving forward. In my opinion this represents a ton of wasted space. Why are we keeping that space so that it can have a few cars sit on it a few weekends a year.
While this particular example probably goes too far in eliminating parking, it illustrates the way that the space can be better used in a way that creates interesting neighbourhoods with services in walking distance from homes. Source: Sprawl Repair Manuel
These areas, such as the Northgate and North Bay Malls, represent more opportunity for some residential space worked into the commercial area, creating mixed use neighbourhoods without expanding outward. The above diagrams from the Sprawl Repair Manual suggest how rich space can be carved out of these parking lots, which will inevitably become more empty as the Amazon era of commerce moves forward.
The scope of wasted space on empty parking in the North Bay Mall and surrounding Plaza is staggering. GoogleMaps
There is also a vacant lot in the Sobey’s parking lot where the MacEwan gas station used to stand that would make a nice place for some sort of apartment with main floor business space. While you might think it’s a little weird having an apartment there, keep in mind the Leons, a hop skip and jump away from this site, already has residences in the building, and that the Starbucks and other businesses in the area would greatly benefit from such a localized source of customers.
The location of the old MacKewon gas station on Algonquin st, which has now been demolished would make a good site for some residential space which makes better use of prime space than a parking lot that will sit empty almost all the time. The addition of Starbucks and other businesses across the Champlain (not pictured) only adds appeal to the location. GoogleMaps
As a bonus, it sits right up to the sidewalk, which enhances the pedestrian experience. The image below illustrates that the business’ orientation with regards to the sidewalk shapes the whole aesthetic and experience for pedestrians.
From Sprawl Repair Manual
From Sprawl Repair Manual
While increasing density is important in reducing the costs that come with growth, the mixed use integration I’m suggesting in the examples I’ve given is key. Patterns with residential buildings built into commercial zones, and where commercial space occupies the main floors of living space, create a synergistic relationship between the residents of a space and businesses, as out of convenience, the residents are the customers, stimulating the neighbourhood’s activity.
Being able to walk to get some chores done, to feel like you can at least choose to walk, is a major change in experience and in freedom that I believe is worth promoting.
Now, granted, not all of these ideas would work, or are even great ideas. North Bay, according to the 2016 Federal census, is not experiencing growth. If we’re building new business and residential space in the interest of promoting density and mixed use neighbourhoods, we’re going to need to attract some population growth. But remember, this exploration isn’t about how we can change things so it’s better tomorrow, it’s about realistic, longer timelines.
We will get what we demand
Before any bulldozers break ground or any U-hauls are reserved for a move to ‘the Bay’, the first step of this uphill battle to reshape the patterns of our city is to become conscious of the way our the pattern of our setting shapes our experience, and the way the city changes over time. With this in mind, we can shape the city in a way that makes our lives better.
We can have a spread out, boring city built for cars with little identity aside from what it is not: the nature that surrounds it. Rows and rows of houses with the occasional Circle K isn’t exactly a lively neighbourhood pattern. This pattern is riddled with environmental, economic, sociological and psychological consequences, in addition to creating a have/have not dichotomy in our small society based around the ownership of an automobile.
Alternatively, with public consciousness and deliberate planning, the city can become a place that we embrace, a wonderful setting for our existence rather than a set of obstacles to compete with each day. Our setting shouldn’t add friction to our lives, it should allow for flow, and nudge us to make better decisions about how we move around in our space, promoting exercise and reducing carbon emissions through the freedom of choice
With regards to our the stage of our day to day lives, we’ve gotten very complacent. We pay far more attention to Federal and Provincial politics than we do about Municipal; we care more about American politics than we do about the planning of our own city.
Ultimately, we need to decide as a public to be a force in the city’s planning direction. While we’re conscious that somebody plans and directs the change we see around us, they are, at most, voices faintly heard from another room. It’s time we interject, and create demand for a pattern of living that builds a loving relationship with the stage of our lives, rather than a contentious one.
RM
TLDR
The pattern which our city takes in the distribution of residential, commercial, and industrial uses, and the density of residential areas has a profound impact on our life experience,
North Bay’s pattern of sprawl, a pattern with low density and segregated land use, promotes the dependency on personal vehicles which has consequences on human health and the environment, and creates a have/have not dichotomy among the city’s residents in terms of the freedom to move around.
We can increase density through targeted policy and the promotion of mixed use developments, such as apartments with main floor shopping.
Each neighbourhood should take the all-in-one approach, and offer space for its residents to go about their daily life without the need for a car.
Cassels st, Algonquin st, the “parking lot oceans” of the city’s malls, and other areas represent potential space for increased density and the promotion of mixed used neighbourhoods and a walkable environment.
Ultimately, the residents of the city demand the shape the city takes, and we need to understand that just because things are the way they are, doesn’t mean they always have to be.
Special thanks to Garrett Campbell (@signartman) for permission to use his work.
Coming A Better Bay Articles:
Pedestrianism in North Bay
Biking in North Bay
Transit in North Bay
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Every year on November 10th, I listen to Gordon Lightfoot.
Now as the son of a self declared parrot-head (a Jimmy Buffett fan), Lightfoot has always been a staple, heavy in the rotation. But every year on November 10, I take six minutes or so out of my day to listen to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The song, intuitively, is the story of the S.S Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter which sank carrying a load of iron ore on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Its final resting place, Lake Superior, is the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area of 82,100 km squared, and the 37th deepest lake in the world at a maximum depth of over 400 m. The shipwreck tragically killed all those aboard.
The song is sad, beautifully written and preformed, and more than a little haunting, describing the final day on earth for the 29 aboard.
Lake Superior at Agawa Bay, Ontario
Now, I’ve been to Lake Superior, a truly beautiful experience, but aside from that I don’t have any personal connection to the tragedy. And yet I have this tradition of listening to Lightfoot tell the tale on the anniversary of the sinking, why?
So why am I talking about this song and this shipwreck.
While the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald sits beneath 160 metres of cold Lake Superior water, a mere 14 metres below the surface of our own lake, lies the wreck of Lake Nipissing worst tragedy (Mackey, 2001).
Lake Nipissing’s Steamboats
While steamboats had been an important part of waterways in British North America, later Canada, for the bulk of the 19th century, the steamships didn’t appear on Lake Nipissing until about 1881, as the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the shores (Canadian Encyclopedia, 2017). With the new connection to the far more populous south, the steamship became an important transportation method for the area’s rich natural resources, which the area’s pioneers were beginning to exploit.
The ships brought crucial supplies and personnel to hunting and logging camps in the area, and hauled timber to local mills and railway junctions on the way to southern markets. The steamship era for the lake was an important part of the areas history, as transportation for loggers and settlers was crucial in the establishment and development of the area given the heavy reliance on the primary industries. The era peaked in the roaring ’20s, and ended as diesel engines replaced steam propelled ones (Canadian Encyclopedia, 2017).
Log lifts, like this Lake Nipissing one, were used to get timber from steamships to the railway.
The John B Fraser
Alexandre Fraser, owner of the Alexandre Fraser Lumber company, built the 100 foot long John B. Fraser in 1888 in Sturgeon Falls for the purpose of aiding the transport of timber and loggers in his operation. The vessel was named after his brother, John Fraser, with whom he profited from harvesting the McGillivray Lake timber limits. After just a few years of service on the lake, Alex sold the ship to Davidson, Hayes and Company in 1892, a lumber company from Toronto operating in the Lake Nipissing watershed (Mackey, 2001).
The Alex Fraser, the sister ship to the John Fraser, was in commission until 1915. Unfortunately, the John Fraser tenure on Lake Nipissing wouldn’t last nearly that long. From Price (1984). History of the Corporation of Westmeath Township.
The following season, in 1893, went according to plan, until the final voyage of the year that is, on November 8, when approximately 6 crew members were to bring the 20 or so lumberjacks and supplies to a hunting camp (Mackey, 2001).
At around the hour and a half mark of the journey, in the centre of the lake, tragedy arrived with a fury.
Lake Nipissing’s GreatestTragedy
In the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Lightfoot sings:
“Does any one know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
A reference to the fact that in Lightfoot’s imagining of the tragedy, the severity of waves and winds made minutes feel like hours for those aboard. The panic of trying to survive the storm, and the tedium of avoiding being swept overboard must have been excruciating. In these situations, time dilates, and slows down. The drawn out process of the shipwreck must have been absolute hell, and the experience probably felt much longer than it was.
In the opposite fashion, it seems with the case of the wreck of the John B. Fraser, the rapidness of the event spelled the tragedy.
The John Fraser Photo: Callander Bay Heritage Museum
By the time the fireman aboard the John Fraser, John Adams, noticed the smoke from the engine room, the room was engulfed in flames. The smoke and extreme heat (temperatures estimated at around 1,100 ˚C) prevented Adams from stopping the fire, or really intervening at all. While the captain ordered for the ships engine to be stopped, the engineer was unable to reach the lever, and Adams believed he never made it out of the furnace room. Thus, the boat continued forward while the passengers and crew abandoned ship (Mackey, 2001).
The ship burned quickly, and men dove overboard into the waters of Lake Nipissing. The scow that the Ship was towing supplies on was adopted as a life boat by a few lucky survivors. Adams was thrown from the ship and with some struggle reached the scow, where four men pulled him aboard. He then used his pocketknife to sever the tie of their craft to the John Fraser (Buffalo Evening News, 1893). Here’s Adams telling his story on the Buffalo Evening News a few days letter:
“I jumped for the stern, but at that moment the boat drifted under the still rapidly revolving wheel and dipped down under the blow, throwing the whole of us into the water. I went down, it seemed almost to the bottom, and as I dropped I got a kick in the face from some one’s boot … When I came up I saw the fellows struggling about in all directions … I was about exhausted but managed to catch a bowline and hauled myself along to a scow in tow of the steamer … As soon as I could pull myself together I got out my knife and cut the towrope and she lay to awhile while we rescued two men. All the other poor fellows had gone under.”
Crew Member John Adams, Buffalo Evening News November 10, 1893
The ship came to rest on the floor of Lake Nipissing, in the middle of the lake adjacent to Goose Islands.
From Doucet & VandenHazel, 1988
Interestingly, the poor record keeping of the time means that the casualty numbers are estimates, and they have varied over time. Initial stories claimed 18 perished (Buffalo Evening News, 1893), then 19 (Buffalo Enquirer, 1893). Later stories claim 13 of the 17 on board died (Toronto Star, 1972), and the local plaque commemorating the tragedy claims somewhere between 12 and 15 men died (City of North Bay, 2020). Regardless, we know that relatively few on board survived, and that the destruction caused by the fire happened quickly, reducing the potential for mitigating response.
Families of the victims did their part to recover the remains. The following year, the Murray family hired a steamboat to help recover their son Tom’s body from the scene of the wreck. They actually recovered his remains and those of two more victims, bringing closure to the families.
Others, like victim Johnny Smalls’ wife to be, did not find such closure. It is said she walked the beaches of Lake Nipissing for days after the accident, hoping to find any trace of her fiancé Johnny (Mackey, 2001).
Unearthing the Wreck
In 1972, the Aqua Jets Diving Club found the wreck. The Club didn’t have the financial means to remove the ship from its resting place, though the story of club’s discovery did make an appearance in the Toronto Star (Toronto Star, August 15, 1972). Later Nipissing University Archaeologist and Outdoor Education Specialist, Bessel VandenHazel examined the wreck as part of the University’s Underwater Archaeology Project, eventually publishing the results of his underwater excavation as The “John Fraser” Story: An Investigation of the Remains of the Side Paddlewheel Steamer “John Fraser”.
The Callander Bay Heritage Museum hosts most of the artifacts recovered from the ship, including the ship’s steam-whistle. They can be seen on the museum’s virtual tour, and they were kind enough to send me some photos on their display for the John Fraser.
A display case of artifacts from the John Fraser at the Callander Bay Heritage MuseumThe John B Fraser’s steam whistle at the Callander Bay Heritage Museum
Some artifacts from the wreck can also be found at the North Bay Museum. Some even claim the artifacts are haunted, or are influenced by the presence of the loggers’ lost spirits, with unexplained occurrences by the exhibit. Staff and patrons have claimed things on adjacent walls have fallen without reason, and have witnessed the model train, that runs around the ceiling of the building, stop dead in its tracks right above the exhibit (Maitland, 2018).
Whether the artifacts are haunted or possessed, the wreck of the John Fraser is the deadliest disaster Lake Nipissing has ever seen, and there is little doubt the memory of the catastrophe haunted the regions residents for years.
Searching for Answers
“As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and a captain well seasoned”
Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
In the Edmund Fitzgerald case, some have theorized complacency may have been a factor in the deadly accident, with an experienced captain who had travelled boldly through many storms in the past. The theory being that this complacency lead to poor reaction time and ill-advised decision making (USCG, 1977).
In the case of the John Fraser, I can’t help but wonder if the deadliness might also have been the result of a type of complacency.
Lake Nipissing is notoriously shallow and I’m sure the notion that the lake would become their final resting place probably seemed incredibly unlikely. The fact the journey was supposed to be the final trip of the season may also point to some complacency, as it’s possible the crew may have let their guard down in terms of safety and procedure given a full season of successful trips.
This relates to the concept of moral hazard where safety precautions, or increased perceptions of safety, lead to more reckless behaviour and decision making. A full season of successful trips would bring a perception of safety, and with that complacency. When you also consider that type 1 (automatic) thinking occurs when tasks are repeated, and complacency can come with that too, this makes even more sense.
The very deadliness of the accident has been sort of a local mystery. The lake is shallow, and most people, hearing that so many perished in the wreck, can’t help but wonder why so few made it out alive.
We can be sure of the fact the wreck was caused by an engine fire, which we know rapidly forced those aboard into the water. This was undoubtedly a factor in the wreck’s deadliness. We can certainly wonder if complacency may have made the situation worse, although we can’t be sure.
We also know that help was slow to reach the wreck. Employees at Smith Lumber on Frank’s Bay, noticing the plumes of smoke over the lake, departed to help the wreck in their sailboat, although the minimal wind meant it took over an hour to reach the victims (Mackey, 2001). By this time, all that could be done was collecting the few men who had made it upon the life boat, the rest, sadly, had drown.
So, next time you walk the beaches of Lake Nipissing, think about the way Johnny Smalls’ fiancé did the same 127 years before you, longing for her lost lover, mourning for her lost lover.
Consider what John Adams must have thought of the lake, watching his peers drowning, only able to save a select few.
Did the way they “one by one, dropped off and went down” haunt him at the very sight of Lake Nipissing’s shallow waters?
Consider the history of the lake, and the ghosts of thousands of voyages and the trees which travelled across it to become the very bones of houses throughout our province.
Finally, next time you look out at Lake Nipissing, consider the fateful day on November 8, 1893, and remember that even the shallowest of lakes can swallow you whole.
RM
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Sources:
Buffalo Enquirer (1893, November 8). Another Lake Horror.
Buffalo Evening News (1893, November 8). Eighteen Perished.
Buffalo Evening News (1893, November 10). Thrilling Story: The Nipissing Disaster As Told By One Of Its Survivors.
Canadian Encyclopedia (2017). Lake Nipissing.
City of North Bay (2020). Commerce on Lake Nipissing. Heritage Plaque.
Doucet & VandenHazel (1988) Simple Technology in the Regulation of a Frontier Industry.
Mackey (2001). Lake Nipissing Steamboat’s Date with Destiny. Past Forward Heritage Perspectives.
Maitland (2018). Is Downtown North Bay Haunted? Northern Ontario Travel.
Toronto Star (1972, August 15). Lake Nipissing Paddlewheeler found by Divers.
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