This has been a year of change, especially abroad, and this serves to demonstrate that a relatively self-contained community like Manitoulin Island communally contemplates the notion of major change at a very slow pace.

This in turn allows the people of Manitoulin to embrace traditions that very much connect the pioneer and First Nations ancestors to current generations of Haweaters.

The people of Manitoulin, together with most Canadians, looked on with wonder this spring as a majority of the voters of the United Kingdom chose to support their country leaving the European Economic Community: “Brexit.”

In fact, the plebiscite was won by a majority of those who voted but many supporters of the status quo stayed home, believing their side would carry the day as polls had predicted. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the majority vote was against leaving the EEC and exit polls determined that in England (where most of the British population lives) there was a divide among older and younger voters. Older voters, who came out in larger numbers, voted to leave the EEC while young people, by and large, voted to continue economic cooperation with their European neighbours. The baby boomer generation prevailed.

In the presidential election in the United States, the pollsters were, just as in the example earlier in the year in Great Britain, proven almost exclusively wrong as voters elected the conservative, bumptious and reactionary candidate, Donald Trump, as their chief executive official.

Just as in Great Britain, Mr. Trump’s victory was a minority one: just under half of eligible voters cast their votes and, in the popular vote, Mr. Trump lost to his rival Hilary Clinton by more than a million votes.

So Mr. Trump was elected by less than a quarter of eligible voters due to the American College of Electors system that sees, after the general election process, more Electoral College votes given to the more populous states. (The Democrats have been subject to this quirk of their particular system of democracy twice in recent years as challenger Al Gore also won the most personal votes but lost to George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election.)

These represent major changes in the two nations with which Canada has most in common, whose traditions we also share and with whom we were allies in all major conflicts during the twentieth century.

It is clearly a time of shifting change at the international level as president-elect Trump has this week declared, for example, that he won’t feel bound by the “one China” diplomatic policy that has held sway for more than 40 years and is prepared to befriend and recognize the significance of Taiwan, possibly as “another China.” A leader on the Democratic side of the aisle in the US senate has observed that is this sort of thing that leads to wars and, sadly, he is correct.

On Manitoulin Island, our role with respect to these big changes, as with most of the rest of the world, is as very remote observers.

But as we observe these far away developments, we do important things at home to improve the lot of ourselves and our neighbours.

For several years now, there have been practical and significant demonstration projects relating to the increasingly-important topic of food security: the ready availability of quality food for our families that is, as much as possible, disassociated from supply and demand market forces.

What these modern pioneers are doing is emulating the growing, harvesting and preserving practices that were of necessity commonplace among the grandparent generation of current baby boomers; the great-grandparents of people presently concerned with food security issues.

These projects are scattered around Manitoulin Island: at the homesteads of Chuc and Linda Willson at Ice Lake, at the Tilson homestead at Honora Bay, at De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Creation Centre in Manitowaning and doubtless at other locations as well.

Recent pioneers of the local food security movement are Heather Thoma and Paul Salanki who, when they moved to Manitoulin over a decade ago, began a co-operative vegetable garden project that got many people thinking, once again, about the importance, perhaps the necessity, of providing at least some of their own fruits and vegetables. We are reading that the cost of a food store grocery basket may rise by 10 percent in 2017. That perspective indicates how visionary these independent Island growers have been and will continue to be.

A related food security venture is The Garden’s Gate Restaurant in Tehkummah which has been owned and operated by Rose Diebolt and her husband John for a quarter century. Ms. Diebolt named the restaurant when she began it and it quickly lived up to its name as the front approach is a garden full of a mixture of wild and seasonal flowers that follow the three seasons the restaurant is open each year and all around it are the Diebolt’s vegetable patches that supply the ingredients used in the kitchen to produce the tasty and unique menu choices.

Ms. Diebolt, for nearly 20 years, has also contributed the column Rose’s Recipes to this paper so that readers can enjoy the healthy, tested fare that also mirrors to a large extent Ms. Diebolt’s kitchen garden.

The food security movement, here and elsewhere, is nothing new. It is a wonderful example of the carrying on of the tradition of home fruit and vegetable growing and preserving that, while it may have skipped a generation, is very much a part of virtually every Manitoulin person’s heritage.

Something else that is part of our heritage and tradition is hospitality.

This year, three Manitoulin communities have welcomed and embraced refugees from Eritrea, the relatively small Red Sea nation that borders its much larger neighbour Ethiopia.

The first family to arrive, seven in all, arrived in Little Current on a cold February night after being met at the Sudbury Airport by a welcoming group and then travelling along snowy roads via a school bus. They arrived, literally, with the clothes on their backs. The young people were soon in school (Little Current Public School and Manitoulin Secondary School) and English as a second language classes were underway (all through the kindness of volunteers), there were part-time jobs for the eldest young man in the family, in-home cooking classes and educational shopping outings and now everyone in school is in the next grade and there is a learners driving licence in the household.

This first group of refugees was followed by another smaller family, also hosted in Little Current, by another large family hosted in Manitowaning and a small family hosted in Gore Bay.

The Mindemoya hosting group is still awaiting its family, but eventually that will happen as well.

For the Gore Bay and Manitowaning families, Manitoulin has been an early stage as they strive to become Canadians and these two families moved, this fall, to southern Ontario to an area where there was both more employment opportunities and more people from their culture.

The Little Current families remain on Manitoulin and, from all indications, this is their home.

While the world goes on apace with major changes as noted, on Manitoulin people are inclined to take things slower and employ a highly-developed common sense.

The year ahead, 2017, will mark Canada’s 150th anniversary as a nation and there will be much celebration in most of our communities.

Not quite all of them, though, for in First Nation communities, most of the past 150 years of Canadian history was also the time of the very worst aspects of their colonization as successive policies of the new government of Canada sought to make them immigrants in their own lands and to educate them in the traditions and culture of Mother England. We see the worst manifestation of this in the residential school program which saw children from remote communities taken (or where their parents were convinced to send them) to central, usually church-run but always government supported, schools where they would be purposefully remote from their own cultures and traditions.

Current governments decry this legacy and have apologized but it will be understandable if the Canada 150 celebrations in First Nations communities are less enthusiastic then those in their neighbouring municipalities next year.

Most of the examples of Manitoulin life are not unique here, but because we are an Island, there is a focus on what is actually going on around us on this large Island at the top of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

These are the things that this newspaper is proud to report, both for immediate news consumption the week of publication through printed pages and more immediately on our website and social media, but just as importantly, also for the historical record.

It is an honour to do this work in this common sense place.

We have help, much help, in the process of producing newspapers, of “getting the word out.”

Rose Diebolt, faithful renderer of Rose’s Recipes has already been noted, but we would like to thank her again.

We wrote of traditions. Petra Wall, in her monthly Now and Then profiles of Manitoulin seniors gives readers a tangible link with the past as these interesting folks recall what was important to them in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Thank you, Petra.

This is a traditional country paper and this means we have country correspondents. These include the venerable Pat Hall and her Tehkummah Talk and Times column. Ms. Hall, in spite of serious health issues, has kept her readers up to date with the important events in Tehkummah. Thank you, Pat.

The Providence Bay area is very well represented by the duo of Cheryl Sheppard and Ingrid Blay who have also done an exceptional job of keeping Providence Bay in the news: the town with a big new gallery and a town square, as we have read.

Dorothy Sloss from Spring Bay took on the work as her community’s rural reporter over a year ago and we are pleased that she did as there is a great deal that happens in her community and she represents it well.

Every local athlete, at every level, whether they play team or individual sports will have their accomplishments noted in Andre Leblanc’s stellar sports feature, Ice Chips and Canoe Quips. This is a large commitment for Andre, who is also a teacher and is involved in sports himself and we thank him very much for his diligence. Well done, Andre.

Many years ago, the important agricultural sector on Manitoulin asked this paper for space for weekly news on their industry, directly for their consumption. We of course agreed and for the length of his career on Manitoulin, Agricultural Representative Brian Bell has provided this important news. Thanks, Brian.

Thank you to our librarians for giving readers an idea of what they can find in their local library. News from the Mindemoya Book Mice is authored by Claire Cline and Assiginack Library News is written by Debbie Robinson. Marian Barnett keeps the Northeast Town library in the news. Your extra effort to keep your libraries top-of-mind with your patrons is important to us all.

Sandi Kuntsi writes Kids in the Halls about what is going on at Manitoulin Secondary School, while Yohana Ogbamichael writes the Player Profile and we know from their columns that there is a great deal happening at MSS. They are busy young women in their own right so our thanks for taking these extra tasks.

We always thank our historians: Shelley J. Pearen and Alexander (Sandy) McGillivary at this time because their help, when called for, is both invaluable and offered freely. They are important resources and we thank them for their continued support.

Thank you as well to our post office staffs in the various Island communities and the rural mail contractors for this vital link in getting the papers to the readers.

Thanks as well to the community service officers of our three Island police forces for sharing the news of their colleagues’ work in the communities. It is all part of the picture.

And thank you, our readers and our advertisers. It is for you that our little group toils, now in the 138th year of the publication of this old paper.

Our best wishes to you all for a happy Christmas season and, as we travel into 2017 and Canada’s 150th birthday, we wish you good health, safety and wisdom.

Sincerely,

Rick, Julia and Alicia McCutcheon