On the Level In times like these, even the fishing’s not easy

It isn’t just mining that’s being driven into the dumps these days in northern Ontario. Signs abound that the whole economy there is slumping sharply. Even fishing.

Recently I spent three days at the fourth annual International Invitational Fish Derby and Geological/Development Seminar hosted by Central Crude’s president, Richard Nemis, at his lodge on Lake Kabenung in the Mishibishu area, 30 miles west of Wawa. Certainly no new records were set — a far cry from previous derbies that saw an 8-lb.-2-oz. speckled trout landed.

Nevertheless, fun and banter abounded. Much of this centered around speculation of a so-called divorce developing between Nemis and his long-time friend and associate John Harvey, who heads both Hemlo Gold and Noranda Exploration — the team that developed Crude’s Eagle River gold mine to the verge of production before putting it on hold until the price of gold firms.

Nemis, who seems absolutely determined to bring it into production at this time “with or without Noranda,” was sporting a brightly colored T-shirt on the back of which was emblazoned in large gold letters: Best Fisherman, Best Moose Hunter, Best Everything. Harvey, who was not able to attend because it coincided with the Hemlo annual meeting, was presented with a similar one in absentia reading: Second Best Fisherman, Second Best Moose Hunter, Second Best Everything.

“Who is going to pay the alimony,” Harvey is understood to have asked Nemis when he first learned about an impending divorce (T.N.M., May 20/91).

Booming just a few years ago, the failure of the Flanagan McAdam operations and Muscocho’s Magino mine have cast a terrible pall over the entire Mishibishu-Wawa area. Mining, drilling and exploration appear at an almost complete standstill. And there are real fears that Algoma’s big iron ore mine at Wawa may soon close permanently. This is the last of eight iron ore producers of which Ontario once boasted.

It’s perhaps hard for Torontonians to realize the depth of the depression that is sweeping much of Ontario’s northland. Lumbering and logging, two of the other mainstay industries, are likewise in a deep slump. The big pulp mill at Kapuskasing could probably be purchased for a $1 bill today. And Abitibi is closing another paper mill at Lakehead.

Lest we forget, it is the exports from these industries that provided the wherewithal that Canadians must have to purchase the goodies that have enabled us to enjoy the good life that we now see fading of our own making. For instance trapping, the original Canadian industry, has now been all but destroyed by a small but vociferous bunch of do-gooders in this country.

Tourism, another of the north’s important industries, is likewise way down. Taxes and high costs are simply scaring them away. Numerous motels along the Trans-Canada Highway were closed right down, it was noted, with the others crying for business. Little wonder, with gasoline at 65 cents a litre, and beer and liquor selling at double the price of the same thing in the U.S. Meals, too, are much more expensive. And then there’s Premier Bob Rae’s controversial No-Sunday-Shopping proclamation, a body blow to tourism.

And there are those powerful Indian and environmental groups who seem opposed to just about everything, including any new hydro development and any kind of uranium mining, and demanding extremely costly requirements on waste disposal from all types of mining, lumbering and pulp mills. New ones would now be so costly as to render them unlikely.

But back to fishing. On the first day I was on a charter out of Michipicoten Harbor trying down-rigging for those famed Lake Superior trout. In a heavy fog, we were virtually lost all day and never got a bite. But we did have some company — a little yellow land-based bird that was obviously lost too. In trouble, it landed and perched on my rod just a couple of feet from my hand.

Our guide and boat-owner, I learned, worked all winter as a helper on an underground diamond drill on the bottom level at Noranda’s big Golden Giant mine at Hemlo. From his home in Michipicoten, he drove back and forth every day — a 160-mile round trip in the dead of winter on that lonely highway. Furthermore, it was a round-the-clock operation, requiring a “graveyard” shift. “I had to work, and was sure glad to get the job,” he said.