Providence Bay
Alexia Hannigan
Alexia here with your friendly Island time in Canada fly.
This beautiful community has such an ebb and intrinsic fluidity at this time of year. Like the spawning salmon and the migrating butterflies and birds; every person here has cyclical inner clock and inherent knowledge of how-to step-up and stop time while speeding up progress, ingenuity and good old-fashioned grit and determination. We are all homesteaders at heart up here after all, jacks and jill’s of all trades and trivialities. Always there to look in on our neighbours, keep the gardens beautiful, the lawns mowed, the ball fields fenced and cleaned, the beaches tidy and the fires stoked, the land tilled, the trees pruned and the driveways filled. Everyone here is so crucial. We are so connected, so resourceful, so emphatically dedicated and devoted to making sure the tapestries, murals, beadwork, cross stitched quilts, woven quills, carvings, canvases and all moving parts and pieces that make Manitoulin Island so strong, sustainable, sacred, creatively inspired and culturally diverse. You can’t make a good gumbo or stew without the roux- and that’s you! So, thank you, Miigwechwendam Manitoulin Island for all you do. Time to flex a little for our visiting friends and neighbours, it’s time for some good old-fashioned fun in the sun!
Here’s what’s happening:
Providence Bay fairgrounds/arena: Providence Bay “Blue Jeans and Country Dreams” fair committee and crew are going full tilt again, leading up to opening day this August! For updates, quilt raffle tickets and Lone Pine Stage tickets and information check out the Providence Bay Facebook page or visit https://providencebayfair.ca.
Providence Bay Hall: The annual Providence Bay/Spring Bay Lions Club Canada Day yard sale taking place this Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29 from 9 am to 4 pm. Something for everyone, come down and say hello, lots of great stuff for home and garden up for grabs!
Canada Day cake and lemonade on Tuesday, July 1 from 5 to 7 pm at the hall.
Saturday, July 5 “songs of summer music bingo fundraiser” is sold out! Doors open at 7:30 pm, bingo starts at 8 pm, 19+ licenced event with proceeds and raffles in support of the Providence Bay Curling Club and Providence Bay Agricultural Society.
For the full Manitoulin recreational events calendar with class schedules for Providence Bay Hall, Mindemoya Hall and Spring Bay Hall visit: events.centralmanitoulin.ca or contact Alison Sloss at asloss@centralmanitoulin.ca
705-377-5726.
Providence Bay Curling Club: The youth and junior curling club has 50/50 tickets for sale! Check out the Providence Bay Curling Club and the Providence Bay Lions Club Facebook page for information, draw dates and winners!
The Providence Bay/Spring Bay Lions Club is reaching out to the community and local businesses for sponsors or silent auction donations for our upcoming golf tournament.
We cordially invite you to participate in the third annual 2025 Lions Golf Tournament. This fundraising event supports the Providence Bay Curling Club youth and junior curling programs.
The first Western Manitoulin Girl Guides SEGPR. The tournament is scheduled for Saturday, July 12 at Manitoulin Golf. To submit your team’s registration contact Lion Chris Bryan at 705-348-0493 or email chris_bryan84@outlook.com to confirm your attendance, donations and sponsorship.
Providence Bay/Spring Bay Lions Club is still accepting last minute donations of gently used items for the annual Canada Day Yard Sale taking place this Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29 from 9 am to 4 pm at the Providence Bay Centennial Hall Parking Lot. To arrange for pickup or drop-off of donations and items, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Lion John at 705-377-7740.
Providence Bay Beach Boardwalk and Discovery Centre is officially open next Tuesday, July 1 for Canada Day celebrations!
Kids games, face painting, live DJ music on the patio, storytelling, cake and lemonade at the Providence Bay Hall from 5-7 pm followed by Saving Grace live at 7 pm and Canada Day Fireworks at 10:15 pm at the beach. For Discovery Centre details and weekly events and updates check out the Discovery Center webpage or Facebook page. Open seven days/week from 10 am to 6 pm through July and August.
Providence Bay Beach is an amazing 2 km sand beach on Lake Huron coast that is open to the public. Play safe and enjoy the beautiful beaches, boardwalk and views!
Be sure to stop into Huron Island Time to say hello to Lance, grab some delicious snacks, an epic fruit smoothie or Farquhar’s famous ice cream! Walk to the end of the boardwalk and say hello to the folks at the Providence Bay Tent and Trailer Park and get some selfies in front of Maxim’s beautiful art murals!
Check out the Mutchmor Peace Café and Sandalwood Market, delight in local art, crafts, clothes, jewelry and enjoy a cup of coffee or an iced latté and be sure to snap a selfie in front of the South shore community bear mural
Reuse/Recycle: The Providence Bay Reuse Shed is open at the Providence Bay Transfer Station. For more information contact 705-377-5726. Visit the transfer station at 4077 Government Road. Summer hours are Thursday, Saturday or Sunday from 2 to 6 pm until the September long weekend.
The Lions Club bottle drive continues next to the arena. This program is open to the public and we encourage everyone to drop off their used bottles and cans. Your empties help fund great local initiatives.
The Heavens: Summer Solstice was Saturday, marking the official start of summer!
June 27, Bootid Meteor shower.
June 29, Saturn-Neptune conjunction.
July 10, full Buck Moon
Manitoulin Island is a dark sky reserve so find a dark sky spot, bring your telescope and enjoy the wonders of the cosmos.
The Friends: Happy birthday to all of you late bugs who are celebrating! Happy birthday to my sissy Wendy Friesen, cheers! A special shout out to all of the amazing coaches, teachers, mentors, refs, principals, elders and all of the knowledge keepers and wonderful souls who devote so much time and dedication to our community and to our young people so that they too have the courage and wisdom to lead, succeed and teach their children well.
Happy Canada Day, Happy Indigenous History Month, Happy Homecoming Weekend and Happy summer to all. It’s time to switch into glide and change your clocks to Island Time!
Kagawong
Team Fergmeijer
This is a landmark edition of the Team Fergmeijer column – our 500th! We pondered how best to celebrate this significant moment. One possibility was an all pun edition, but really, how would anyone be able to tell the difference? We also pundered doing a single sentence column, but our pun-chent for pun-chlines wouldn’t let us stop at just one. So, here we are, doing what we do best – entertaining ourselves and hoping a few others out there also think we are the pun-nicle of humour. After all, a truly good pun is its own reword.
Hydro One has a brief planned outage for our area on Friday, June 27 in the wee hours of the morning. With luck we won’t even know it’s happening.
Have your say! The township is revamping how we use the landfill, drafting a new waste management bylaw. Council is keen to hear your thoughts and are accepting constructive criticism of the draft bylaw over the month of June. You can access the bylaw and the public at the township office or on the township’s website (www.billingstwp.ca/news). All comments must be submitted in writing via the comment form or via email to bylaw@billingstwp.ca. All comments must have your name and contact information included.
Next on the agenda… Steve Paikin will no longer be on the Agenda! That’s right, our local history and political hero (only partly because we aren’t old enough to remember Lester B. Pearson) is retiring. We are looking forward to seeing more of Mr. Paikin right here in Billings with all his extra free time. Because really, where else would anyone rather be?
Team Aelick’s annual stroll for liver in support of Liver Canada is back! This Saturday, the 5k walk through the village starts at the Park Centre at 11 am. You can join the stroll, support from the sidelines and donate through their team page (bit.ly/teamaelick). Donations over $20 qualify for a tax receipt.
Also on Saturday is the library’s spring puzzle swap! From 10 am to 1 pm, bring your used jigsaw puzzles to trade for new-to-you challenges. No puzzles? No problem! The library has a large surplus of puzzles and the librarian prefers it when you take more puzzles than you bring.
The Kagawong Market season kicked off in fine fashion today (as per usual!). Thanks to Ethel and her merry band of volunteers who keep things running so smoothly. Stop by the Kagawong River Complex every Wednesday to experience the largest summer market on the Island!
When we were very young, we couldn’t decide between being hairdressers or columnists. We ended up flipping a coin to see if it would be heads or tales. Have a great week!
Barrie Island
Enid Runnalls
The sun is shining, the haying has begun and it is a beautiful day here on Barrie Island.
Last Saturday, Enid Runnalls and Lisa Robbins (Gore Bay) and Lisa’s mother, Adeline Oslund (Richmond Hill) ventured out to the Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah to view the Northern Ontario Art Association (NOAA) Exhibition and meet the artists at the opening. It was a wonderful event and has been extended there until June 28. Afterwards the girls met up with Kevin Robbins and Jim and Sandy Miller at the Queen’s Inn in Gore Bay, where they enjoyed appetizers on the verandah. Such a lovely place to gather with friends!
The Manitoulin Swing Band (Paul Best, Doug Smith, Nicki Hinds, Jim and Joanne Smith, Wayne and Heather Bryant and Oliver Runnalls) played some old time favourite hymns at the Lyons Memorial United Church on Father’s Day Sunday in Gore Bay. Father’s around Barrie Island were celebrated in various ways: barbecues, family picnics, etc.
The blue flag iris bloomed around mid-June, as it does every year. Carolyn Lane-Rock shared a childhood memory: every year on their Grandmother Amelia Baker’s birthday she and her siblings (Julia, Gloria, Ted and Grace) would go out to look for blooming iris and that’s how she remembers when they bloom. Enid and Scott spotted some the other day and the next morning Enid got her paints out to capture the scene. You can see some of what she painted on her instagram and Facebook feeds.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sandy Miller and Oliver Runnalls joined Barb Runnalls at the Manitoulin Lodge at a tea for Gloria Hall to recognize her retirement and contributions over years of dedicated service to the residents of the Lodge. Another larger event is planned there on Friday, June 27 from 2 to 4 pm and the community has been invited.
We are moving into the last week of school before summer. Mrs. Wright who teaches at C.C. McLean Public School tells me that the children are very excited about the upcoming break and she has lots of fun learning activites planned for the last few days of school! Barrie Island’s little school girl, Kaylee, will be looking forward to long sunny summer days on the farm, as will the Miller boys (Arie and Isaiah)! Eli and Micah will be excited to play with their cousins who will soon be here to visit.
Please contact me with any news you’d like to share!
Silver Water
Karen Noble
On Friday, June 13, Albert Meijer and I went to Gore Bay to shop for the funeral luncheon on Saturday. There is lots of construction in town for now.
On Friday evening several of us went to Meldrum Bay for euchre and had a great time.
On Saturday morning, a group of ladies got together at the community hall to get the trays ready for the luncheon at the funeral home for Pearl Thompson. Myra Duncanson, Brenda Carter and I took all the trays to Gore Bay and got set up. It was nice to meet some of Erwin’s relatives.
On Sunday, Albert and I went to Meldrum Bay for lunch. I stayed to play in the euchre tournament with Myra Duncanson. Congratulations to Natasha McVey and Steve Gugelyk for winning first place; Mike and Brenda Swank won second prize; third place went to Janice and Gene Cada; there were lots of winners of 50/50 draws and prizes.
On Monday, I worked from home for a while. When the work was done, I got ready to go to Leila McDonald’s funeral at the Silver Water Cemetery. At about 11:20 am, the fire radio announced that there was a fire at the Duncanson Mill. Albert had gone to mow a lawn so I took the car to let him know but he had already left and he ended up getting back home before me. He went to the fire and I went to the funeral. Luckily the fire was contained easily and did not spread. There was a luncheon at the Silver Water Hall afterwards.
Monday evening, I took DonnaKay McDonald, Myra Duncanson, Heather Wilson and Ken Duncanson to euchre at the Burpee/Mills Complex There were 10.5 tables.
On Tuesday there was Kits and Quilts in Meldrum Bay from 10 am to 12 noon. There will be no session on July 1, resuming on July 15.
Heather Wilson, Gladys Duncanson and I had a swim Tuesday afternoon. The water is finally starting to warm up.
Tuesday evening there was fire practice at the fire hall with 14 people attending.
On Wednesday, I went to work in Gore Bay and did some errands before heading home.
Gladys and I had a swim on Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday there was euchre at the Silver Water Community Hall with five and a half tables.
There were many reports this week of fawns. We saw one on the way to Burpee on Monday near Eric and Lila Townsend’s home. Myra Duncanson saw one in the field behind her house. Doug and Brenda Carter had pictures of one on Sunday not far from our driveway.
The vendor markets in our yard will be on Saturday, July 5 and Saturday, July 12. There will be no market on July 19 because that is the scheduled metal recycling bin at the fire hall. Stay tuned for details.
The Canada Day picnic in Silver Water will be on Saturday, June 28. The theme is “in the garden.”
Happy Birthday to Aileen Noble on June 26.
Happy Canada Day!
