Be careful up there!

Deer stands offer sniping advantage but also pose risk of serious injury

by Jim Moodie

MANITOULIN-You see them here and there across Manitoulin, spiking skeletally from the edges of fields and forests like tree forts for grownups or a kid's conception of a sentry tower.

As a type of homespun architecture and functional folk art, they're as emblematic of Island life as a rail fence or fish hut, but you won't see them gracing too many scenic calendars or postcards. Nor, most weeks of the year, will you see anyone in these contraptions.

This week being the notable exception. As the gun season for whitetails commenced Monday, these jerry-rigged aeries were suddenly bristling with human figures, even if these figures didn't-in their puffy orange attire, and eerie ability to remain still for hours on end-seem quite human from a distance.

But yes, the hunt was on, and with it, the homely deer stand had finally found a role to play, other than to teeter there for 10 months out of 12 looking weird and forlorn.

Its brief annual application is an important one for hunters, allowing them to gain an edge on their prey in two respects: being elevated, they are less apt to be seen or smelled by the animals moving about below; meanwhile, the hunters' own view of the terrain is greatly improved, and their chances of pulling off a clean shot is infinitely better than if they were mired amid a swamp or thicket.

Many hunters put a lot of effort into creating these deer-sniping turrets, shoring up the scaffolding, weatherproofing the roofs, even installing comfort items like padded chairs and thermos holders. Hours on end can be spent in these things, after all, and the weather in the third week of November can easily include rain, sleet, and snow, or some combination thereof. Some of these stands are practical penthouses.

But many are rickety things, their legs gnawed by beavers and weakened by decay, that are rarely visited or tended to during the non-hunting season, making for dicey ascents and equally tricky times astride their tops, be they free-standing towers or platforms wedged into the forks of trees.

Even the swankier versions can be hazardous simply by the fact that they're so far off the ground-often, these stands perch higher than a basketball hoop-and their occupants, encumbered by heavy clothing, hauling a gun, and excited by the sudden appearance of, say, a 10-point buck, might easily lose their footing, lean too heavily on a punky or poorly-fastened rail, or otherwise precipitate a plunge.

Falls from tree stands are not daily occurrences during the hunt-given the volume of hunters who take part in the annual ritual on Manitoulin, and the sketchy-looking state of some of these structures, they're actually pretty rare-but accidents do happen, and when they do the results are rarely good.

"We usually end up with one or two people during the hunt who fall out of tree stands," said Dwayne Elliott, a paramedic and captain of the Assiginack Fire Department, as well as a hunter himself. "As paramedics, some years we're busier than others-it's kind of like Haweater Weekend-but because of the increase of people during the hunt, there's definitely an increase in medical problems, and an increase in accidents."

One such mishap occurred this fall, during the bow season for deer, when Manitowaning hunter and Sudbury resident John Bradley fell from his stand, incurring serious injuries. Mr. Elliott was among the crew that responded to that emergency.

"The fire department here helped the ambulance crew to get him out of the bush," he said. "We had to gain access with four-wheelers." Which is part of the issue with something like this: "People expect quick service, but when you're out in the middle of the bush, it takes that much longer to get there," Mr. Elliott noted.

Mr. Bradley's accident occurred in mid-October, and he remained in hospital for several weeks. "He fractured his arm and had a concussion," said Mike Sprack of Manitowaning, who visited his friend in Sudbury. "He's been released from the hospital now, but will still have to go in for checkups."

Mr. Sprack, an avid hunter himself, said this latest mishap should be a wakeup call. "Guys are really going to have to start taking this deer stand stuff seriously," he said. "I climb telephone poles for a living, and I'm getting more nervous because of this. Stuff malfunctions, and down you come."

Rick McMurray of Tehkummah knows first-hand, having experienced his own plummet from a deer stand in 1982. "I was climbing a tree when the limb broke and I went down," he recounted. "I fractured my back in two places and also broke my hand."

The latter injury, although it would give him lots of grief later, was the last thing he thought about when he first hit the ground, as it was the spinal pain that quickly eclipsed everything else. This would remain true during his two-week stay in a Sudbury hospital, and through the immediate aftermath of his discharge.

"I was home for a week before I even realized my hand was broken," he remarked. "That's how much pain and stress my back was causing. The accident happened in October, and I was in a body cast until February. It was very traumatic."

While he eventually recovered from the ordeal, and resumed hunting soon after he regained his mobility and strength, Mr. McMurray remains haunted by the experience, and is more careful when he does go out now to try to bag a buck or doe.

"I don't go near as high as I used to," he said. "When I fell, I was probably up 15 to 20 feet. Now eight to 10 feet is enough." And he's quick to instill a similar degree of caution in his children, who have taken up hunting as well.

Mr. McMurray characterizes his accident as "one of those freak things," as he wasn't being particularly reckless when it happened, although in retrospect he feels he maybe should have taken better stock of the tree he was climbing. "The one I was in was a poplar, and the branches can get brittle," he said. "People should check each year to make sure their stand is safe, and avoid poplar or balsam, because they get rotted out."

As painful as his recovery was from the incident, the hunter considers himself relatively fortunate. "I was lucky because I had a hunting buddy with me who heard me when I fell," he noted. "And the doctor said I was a lucky guy, because if it had happened a few more inches (along his spine) from where it did, I could have been crippled for life."

Peter Koskela, a conservation officer (CO) with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) in Sudbury, and a hunter too when he's off-duty, agrees the ramifications of such missteps can often be much worse. "I've heard of people falling and becoming paraplegic," he said.

The risk may be the greatest for those who hunt with bows during the lead-up to the gun season, as these sportsmen (and women) tend to "go out by themselves," noted Mr. Koskela, rather than as a member of a hunting party. "Someone will head out for a little hunt after supper, and not tell anyone where they're going," he said. "We come across it all the time."

A few years ago, one of his colleagues, working in the Owen Sound area, just happened to be in the vicinity of a lone hunter who was in distress, he said. "He heard this yelling, and it was a guy who fell out of a tree stand, so he was able to come across him," Mr. Koskela related.

While there are no precise regulations governing deer stand use, Mr. Koskela said there are a number of rules hunters should follow simply for their own protection. "You should always use good judgment when climbing because of the potential of a fall," he said. "And you should always let someone know where you are and when you are apt to return."

A safety harness is also a good idea, noted the CO, adding that most of the portable stands that you can buy and assemble come equipped with such devices.

The majority of Island stands seem to be of the more permanent, handmade variety, however, and many of these have seen better days and could benefit from a bit of extra bracing or rung repair. "I hunt myself on Manitoulin, and I've been in some real haywire tree stands, climbing up on pegs," said Mr. Koskela. "Or you'll have a little 2X4 in the crook of a tree. I've seen it all."

Hunters should tend to these structures well in advance of opening day, suggested the CO. "If you're going to climb an old stand, you should always inspect them and replace the ladder if it's deteriorated," he counselled.

Too often, hunters will congregate at their camp the night before opening day, and discuss where they plan to position themselves, but fail to perform a thorough checkup on the state of the stands. "You have to be familiar with the equipment," said Mr. Koskela. "Guys head out in the early morning, when it's sometimes still dark, and if they've never climbed the stand before, they can easily miss a rung or fall."

Demonstrating a responsible approach to stand maintenance last week was Wally Moore, who, along with Don Sinclair and another helper, could be found making a few improvements to his perch a full five days before opening day. The former Northeast Town foreman had a chainsaw in hand and some other tools and supplies nearby as the trio readied the structure for this year's hunt.

"We're just fixing it up," said Mr. Moore, adding that the stand remains relatively new, having been built just "four years ago."

Even those who carefully maintain their deer stands still need to exercise caution when climbing, however, particularly since they're hauling a weapon along with them. "Some people do it with the gun strapped to their back, but that's very dangerous," said Mr. Koskela. "All of a sudden the firearm comes off your shoulder, and you take your hand off the ladder to save this precious gun, sacrificing your own safety. It's just a reflex that happens. And the gun can also hook onto something and cause you to fall."

The prescribed approach, he said, is to "place the firearm or bow on the ground, and bring it up to you with a rope." His recommendation is to "tie it at the butt, behind the trigger, so the barrel is pointed away." Guns shouldn't be loaded at this point, anyway, but to be doubly safe a weapon should never be angled towards the user.

There's no law governing the height of deer stands. "It's a personal choice," said the conservation officer. "The general state of mind is that the higher you are the better you can see, and the less chance there is of your scent being picked up, but it's a hard fall if you go too high. If you're standing up, and have no safety harness, one step off and you're done."

Portable tree stands can be particularly tricky to erect. "If you're putting up a ladder stand, 15 feet high, you have to assemble it on the ground and then place it against the tree," noted Mr. Koskela. "Now you have to climb this thing that's unsecured to the tree, because it doesn't ratchet-strap on its own; you have to tension it once you're up there. One false move, and 'timber,' that's it, you're coming down. The best thing to do is have somebody hold it, like you would with an extension ladder."

The bulky clothing that hunters typically need to don in November only adds to the potential for a mishap. "In archery season you're a little more mobile, but when the gun season comes around, you're wearing these big heavy boots, a jacket over a jacket, and big mitts or gloves," noted the MNR officer. "Climbing in that heavy stuff makes it easy for you to get hooked on something or lose your balance getting on or off the platform."

He's personally encountered a few accidents, including one in the Gogama area, where he was previously stationed. "I remember a guy fell out of a tree and broke his back, and was off hunting for a year," he said. "It changes your life."

Mr. McMurray knows that only too well. While it's been 27 years since his spill from a tree stand, it took him quite a while to feel normal again and he hasn't forgotten how excruciating that recovery was. "Before I hurt my back, I didn't realize just how much you use it," he noted. "Even trying to get your socks on, or getting out of bed, is difficult."

Apart from being more prudent in his own hunting approach now, and schooling his children in self-protective strategies, Mr. McMurray tries to ensure others won't end up scaling a sketchy structure. "When we get to the point where a stand is too far gone, we take it down so nobody else gets up in it either," he noted.

"The biggest thing is common sense," he said. "Unfortunately, not everyone has it."

A fall from a deer stand happens "almost every year" on Manitoulin, this survivor of an earlier spill reckons. "It's just a matter of how badly you get hurt."

Council blesses zoning change for Prov Bay's abattoir location

by Jim Moodie

MINDEMOYA-The Island slaughterhouse project is moving (mooving?) steadily forward, with approval granted last week by Central Manitoulin Township for a rezoning of municipal property at Monument and Cranston roads to facilitate the development.

The authorization came following a mandatory public meeting, at which over a dozen taxpayers were present to air their concerns. A petition, containing the names of 33 residents of the Cranston Road area, was also submitted to council, arguing that the chosen location, at the site of the municipality's sewage lagoons, is not ideal for the facility.

On hand to explain the project and try to dispel concerns about odour and traffic were Birgit Martin and Jim Anstice, the chair and co-chair, respectively, of the Manitoulin-LaCloche Slaughter Facility Steering Committee.

"Birgit had a lot of good answers for people," said Steve Orford, a councillor with Central Manitoulin as well as a cattle farmer in Spring Bay. "I think they have a plan that is well thought out and seems quite realistic."

The plant envisioned for the Providence Bay-area site is patterned on an existing abattoir in Vanessa, near Brantford. "It will be an attractive building," Ms. Martin earlier promised. "And there would only be one day per week where it would operate as a butcher day, so it's not a high-traffic issue."

Some composting of waste would occur on site, but Ms. Martin has indicated that the rules governing this process-which involves a generous mixture of sawdust and shavings-guarantees that "there is no smell or unsightliness."

Mr. Orford believes "it will be a positive thing for the municipality," benefitting both the agricultural sector and the economy in general. "It means more business here. And it's certainly a big help for beef farmers."

The majority of council supported the zoning change, with deputy reeve Sarah Bowerman being the lone objector. "I voted against the rezoning because I'm sensitive to the petition and those 33 residents with concerns," she said.

Everyone on council, though, is "supportive of the concept," she said. "We all realize it's a needed thing. But when it's in your own backyard, it's not always an easy thing to digest."

She noted that residents of the Monument Road/Cranston Road area "had to put up with odours from the lagoon operating in the past, and they don't want a repeat of that." A few were reassured, however, to learn that "a majority" of the potentially pungent material created at the plant "would be leaving the premises," she said.

Should the abattoir proceed at this site, Monument Road resident Jim McKillop stands to become its nearest neighbour, but he's satisfied that the development will be responsibly managed and won't have an appreciative impact on the environment or the peace and quiet to which residents of the rural area are accustomed.

"My personal biggest concern was the waste stream," he said. "But in conversation with the steering committee, as well as the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, I'm confident that there are rules and regulations to make sure this is very well controlled."

Given his proximity to the proposed slaughterhouse, Mr. McKillop did his homework on what the development might entail, contacting both government officials and the owner/operator of the Vanessa kill-and-chill on which the local plant is based.

"I phoned a couple of abattoirs, and visited one, and read a lot of reports," he said. "I've looked into it thoroughly enough that I can see no real issue with it."

Regulations governing the operation of slaughter facilities "have changed a lot from 20 years ago," he noted, "so it seemed prudent to investigate what those expectations might be. I haven't discovered anything to give me a reason to be alarmed or upset."

If anything, he's reassured by what he's learned, and feels that, while policies can change with successive governments, "the rules are only likely to become more stringent."

Between the strict requirements laid out by government ministries, and "the quality of the people on the steering committee," he believes there is little to fear. "I can't speak for other people in the neighbourhood, but I don't see any major concerns," he said.

Earlier last week, members of the abattoir committee held a public information session in Providence Bay to field questions and hopefully quell opposition to the plan. Mr. McKillop said there was a decent turnout for this meeting.

The group had already passed its first logistical hurdle to securing use of the Central Manitoulin property when an application for severance of a 10-acre lot was approved by the Manitoulin Planning Board in early November. Now that the zoning amendment has been okayed by council, there will be an appeal period, following which the sale of the lot to the abattoir group (presuming the appeal process doesn't yield a new holdup) can be finalized.

The committee is simultaneously looking into the acquisition of a local butcher shop, which would be operated in connection with the slaughter plant. "We have an agreement in principle for this purchase," said Ms. Martin. "But it's all contingent on the lot creation and funding approval."

A grant of $345,000 has already been earmarked for the project through the Ontario Cattlemen's Association, although accessing this money is dependent upon the development moving tangibly forward before the end of this calendar year, so there is some urgency in tying up the final details for the land transfer. Additional funding is being sought through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation and FedNor.

The site near the sewage lagoons is coveted by the abattoir committee since three-phase hydro is readily accessible, wash water from the plant could be easily flushed into the liquid-waste ponds, and the location would be central to the Island's beef producers, a third of whom live in the township.

While Central Manitoulin isn't planning to gift the land to the abattoir organization, council has indicated it will contribute to the cause through a separate donation-as other townships have done-if the lot transfer goes forward.

OPP_investigates woman's remains discovered near Prov's Blue Road

PROVIDENCE BAY-The OPP's Northeast Regional Crime Unit has been brought in to investigate following the death of a 47-year-old Manitoulin resident near Providence Bay last Sunday.

Residents confirmed on Monday that the body was that of Catherine Monti, who had been living on Manitoulin for several years, and was staying in a residence on the Blue Road prior to her death.

Police were called to this rural area just north of Providence Bay late Sunday afternoon, where they discovered her body in thick woods off the Blue Road. A post-mortem was to be conducted in Sudbury on Monday to determine the cause of death.

"Late Sunday afternoon it was brought to our attention that somebody out walking in the bush came across this woman's body, which was located in a wooded area just off of Blue Road in Carnarvon Township, just north of Providence Bay," confirmed Constable Al Boyd, community services officer with the Manitoulin OPP. "We attended the scene and found the deceased 47-year-old woman in the wooded area, immediately cordoned off the area, and called the coroner, who pronounced death at the scene."

As of Monday afternoon, the area remained blocked off and police were still at the scene investigating with the assistance of the Northeast Regional OPP Crime Unit, directed by Inspector Mark Pritchard of the Criminal Investigations Branch. The inspector's involvement does not denote foul play, however, said Constable Boyd.

"We're treating it as a sudden death investigation at the moment," he explained. "Sudden death can go in the gamut of many different avenues; it all hinges on the evidence that comes up."

Calling in additional experts means that the cause of death is "something that is not obvious to us," and requires further evidence before a determination can be made, Constable Boyd added.

The police will now try to piece together the last 48 hours of the woman's life, including her whereabouts, who she might have been with, and what brought her to the relatively remote bush location. "There are a lot of questions to be asked," Constable Boyd said.

Results of the post-mortem will likely be released to the police immediately so they can continue the investigation, but will not be made public right away. Constable Boyd said the OPP hoped to be able to determine by Tuesday whether foul play was involved and whether the investigation would be ongoing.

FLU FILES

Health unit expands priority group for vaccine

MANITOULIN-Community clinics providing the H1N1 shot remain postponed until further notice, but the Sudbury and District Health Unit is now expanding the priority group, and setting up elementary school-based clinics.

The health unit made the decision to expand the list as part of a provincial directive, said Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, the health unit's medical officer of health.

"We are following a targeted immunization strategy because we continue to experience some delays in receiving the H1N1 flu vaccine," she said in a press release. "We will be collaborating with health-care providers, walk-in clinics, and area schools to make sure people in the priority groups have access to the vaccine that we do receive. Our community clinics remain postponed until further notice."

The priority list now includes healthy children between five and 14, and people 65 and over with underlying health conditions.

Others included in the priority group include people under 65 with chronic medical conditions, pregnant women, children between six months and five years, people living in very isolated areas, health-care workers, and care providers of those who cannot be immunized.

Clinics were supposed to take place this week on Manitoulin, in Tehkummah and Gore Bay; however, they have been delayed following a nationwide shortage of the vaccine. People in the priority groups can still call the Mindemoya branch of the health unit and request a vaccination by appointment.

The health unit announced that vaccination clinics will be set up in some schools across its catchment area to provide the shot to students in junior kindergarten up to Grade 8. A list of schools has not yet been published; however, letters will be sent home with parents to inform them of which schools will receive the clinics, and they will be required to sign consent forms in order for their children to be immunized.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has also altered its recommended vaccination dosage for children this week, suggesting that children aged six months to three years should receive two doses of the vaccine; children between three and nine who have underlying medical conditions should also receive a second dose. Children must wait at least 21 days between their first and second dose.

The previous recommendation was that all children under 10 should receive two doses of the vaccine.

The health unit is also encouraging people feeling ill to continue to use the online self-assessment tool-available at www.health.gov.on.ca-to determine whether they should seek medical health, or to call Telehealth Ontario at 1-866-797-0000 (TTY: 1-866-797-0007) for more information.

EDITORIAL

Compromise needed from both sides of long-gun law

It is just as well that the national long-gun registry program-at least in its present form-will likely be scrapped following the second-reading passage of a Tory private member's bill two weeks ago.

The Conservative government was clearly prepared to use the long-gun registry as a wedge issue for political gain and it would continue to use it against any political foes (the Liberals, the NDP, primarily) whose MPs would dare to support its continuance.

This would also have had the unfortunate consequence of continuing, at least on this issue, to pit rural issues against those of urban residents across Canada.

With the successful passage of the private member's bill on its second reading, the bill travels on to be examined by appropriate committees and, finally, by the senate. The success of the bill's second reading also means that any tinkering in committee or by senators cannot challenge the proposal's basic intent and so, barring a federal general election call before the process is finished, the bill to scrap the long-gun registry will very likely come into law.

By appealing to the rural and Northern constituencies where the long-gun registry was universally unpopular right from its onset, the Tories were able to make this into a national issue-one that received far more publicity than it deserved-and so put pressure on rival MPs from opposition parties who had continued to feel the wrath of gun owners on the issue.

Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing, our own riding, is a good example. New Democratic Party MP Carol Hughes was elected just over a year ago when she upset a dynastic tradition of federally elected Liberals in this riding that had gone back to 1933.

In the process of getting to Ottawa (last fall's successful election was Ms. Hughes's third successive attempt to take the riding) the candidate was able to move over to her side a very large number of voters whose 'X' had traditionally been placed beside the name of the Liberal candidate.

In a poll-by-poll analysis of the last year's election, together with a poll-by-poll comparison of the election before that one, it's clear that a migration of Liberal votes to the NDP is exactly what took place-right across the riding save for one notably regional exception, in the riding's far North.

Ms. Hughes no doubt believes that the existing long-gun registration legislation is flawed, but from a strictly practical consideration, her second-reading vote in favour of the bill designed to scrap this law neatly removes this wedge issue from her future campaigns and, at the same time, rewards those discontented Liberals who loaned her their vote a year ago and for whom her support of this proposed legislation was an important issue. It may also gain her some Tory votes next time around.

The hurdle of this all-important second reading of the firearms bill has been cleared and, barring an election call, the long-gun seems doomed.

That will effectively bring Canadian people to the same point they were before the Chretien Liberals enacted the long-gun registration in the first place: some people will want a form of it put back in place while those who consider gun ownership a right rather than a privilege will vigorously oppose any attempt to re-implement it in any shape or form.

One thing is certain: it will be virtually politically impossible now for any political party to support a form of long-gun registration that is tied to the Criminal Code of Canada whereby it becomes (as it presently still is) a criminal offence not to register such firearms.

This has the potential of making any future long-gun registration attempts something of a self-fulfilling prophecy because it was specifically the long-gun registry's links to the Criminal Code of Canada that so offended the community of law-abiding hunters.

Interestingly, the original framers of the registration law may not have wished in their hearts to make non-compliance a criminal offence but making the law, in essence, an adjunct of the Criminal Code of Canada was the only way in which it could have been made an obligatory requirement nationally, and one which individual provinces could not opt out of, which several of them attempted to do a decade ago.

So the law as it stands will in all probability disappear and no political force will dare to consider criminalizing non-compliance in any future legislation that attempts to register hunting weapons.

By way of compromise, it would be a simple thing to continue to require the registration of any weapons purchased new from sporting goods stores and other licensed dealers.

But then what? Rifles and shotguns tend to have very long lives and are often given as gifts to friends or, more frequently, passed along in families.

Under the current legislation, any such transactions have to be tracked and the new owner is required to go through a re-registration process, even if it is a gift within a family. This, too, has been a point of objection among members of the hunting community.

The alternative is to adopt the US model (and the previous Canadian model) and not require anything more than either an ownership or acquisition permit which is proof that an individual has, at some time, taken a weapons handling course and that the courts and police have no objection to a particular person being a rifle or shotgun owner.

There will, however, be ongoing pressure on this government and its successors from groups and individuals in favour of some form of national long-gun registration and they will feel their arguments and concerns are every bit as valid as those of the hunting community and other members of the gun lobby that have, by means of political strategy, brought this country to the brink of abandoning a national registration process.

At the very least, long-gun registration, including transfers and ownership within a family or among friends, can for the time being be made a voluntary activity with the federal government creating an ongoing educational budget to encourage voluntary registration compliance.

This time in the year resonates both locally and nationally and echoes both the anti- and pro-long-gun registration communities. It is presently Manitoulin's gun-hunting week for deer-and as such is symbolic of the gun owning/hunting community-while three weeks from now, December 6 will be the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre when 14 young, female engineering students were gunned down in their Montreal university by a psychopathic would-be fellow student, which has been (and will continue to be) used as a powerful image by the pro-registration faction.

This is to say that this debate isn't over. The ChrŽtien Liberals clearly sought, through the long-gun registration requirement, to eventually change Canadians' relationships with rifles and shotguns.

This might have, in fact, happened over a generation had the prairie-based Reform/Conservative party not been the immediate successor to the Liberals' hold on power, as the "old" Tories, like former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives, by way of contrast, would in every likelihood not have chosen to make this a wedge issue.

Other than voluntary registration, a compromise on some form of record of long-gun ownership (better not call it registration) will require the wisdom of Solomon to work out.

But it will be important to reach such a compromise if this government or its successor is going to reach a national consensus with groups and individuals on both sides of the issue who consider their conflicted points of view equally important.

Letters to the Editor

Death of a puppy serves as warning to drivers

Residential streets call for slower speeds

To the Expositor:

Last Friday evening (November 13) around 6:30 pm, a person driving down Campbell Street West in Little Current hit a young puppy and kept right on driving without stopping to see how badly the dog was hurt or to inform the owner. I'm sure the person did not intentionally hit the puppy; however, the decision to just drive away was intentional.

I was home at the time and heard the awful cry and ran outside thinking maybe my old dog had wandered out into the street or my younger pup, who was tied up, had somehow gotten loose and ran out into the street. Instead I found someone else's puppy seriously injured but still alive and suffering right at my step. I believe when the puppy was hit, its instinct was to run to where my two dogs were before it collapsed. I could tell right away the injury was serious and the puppy didn't have long to live. I felt awful knowing there was nothing I could do except stay with the puppy so it wouldn't be alone while my own two dogs huddled close to me.

Afterwards the owner was called and informed about her puppy. When she arrived to get her puppy I had not had a chance to wrap the puppy up in a blanket yet, and I know it was awful for her to see her puppy like that. I was still upset myself, and all I could do was apologize for not being able to do more as she picked up the puppy and carried it home in her arms. I would like to let the owner know that her puppy did not suffer very long and the puppy was not alone when it died.

I know some people may be thinking, "It was only a dog," or "The owner is responsible," but I would like to just point out a couple

of things.

First, dogs are like children: when they see a friend or something that interests them they are not aware of anything else around them. So in their excitement they will sometimes run across a street unaware of the danger just to get to the object that has caught their attention. Second, on our street we have many families with small children and dogs or pets that, from time to time, do wander into the street. I'm sure everyone knows that all you have to do is turn your back for one second and next thing you know your pet or child is gone off exploring on their own. Finally, our street, like so many other streets here in town, has a small incline or hill which makes it impossible to see if there is a small child, grown adult, or even someone's pet crossing the street until it is almost too late to stop if you are driving too fast.

People, please slow down when driving around town and pay close attention, especially now when it gets dark so early in the evening.

Sally Assinewai

Little Current

Kagawong Remembrance_Day display a world-class exhibit

Efforts go a long way to educating Island students

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a letter addressed to Billings Museum Board chair Wes Newburn and is reprinted here at the author's request.

To the Expositor:

Dear Wes,

It is with extreme pleasure that I put pen to paper commending your curator of the museum, Rick Nelson, for such an excellent display and realistic portrayal for our kids.

I was unable to attend on November 11 as I was committed to another activity that day, but did arrive in time to share the excellent work done by Rick. I invited a few Legion members to accompany me whom I knew had not had the privilege of attending this site and meeting Rick.

Wes, I assure you it was a world-class calibre display. It brought home and celebrated our local people, and the video testimony presented by Island residents is a golden treasure not to be lost with time. We certainly, as a community, owe Rick a debt of gratitude.

Being responsible for educational matters on the Island, Wes, and accountable to the residents of Manitoulin, I can be comforted that the time spent by our students and anyone who so chooses to attend this stand-alone tribute to our heroes helps us fulfill the promise, "We shall remember them!"

I am sure the director of education in Sudbury, Jean Hanson, would want me to extend her thanks and gratitude as well.

I trust that you will convey my appreciation and thanks to Mr. Nelson for a job well done.

Kindest Regards,

Larry B. Killens

Rainbow District School Board Trustee

South Baymouth

Manitoulin Health Centre an oustanding medical facility

Staff provided excellent care during summer illness

To the Expositor:

I am writing this letter now that I am back home in the United States to thank the physicians and nurses at the Manitoulin Health Centre for the excellent care that they provided me at the end of this summer season when I became ill. I was much impressed with the total scope of the care provided to me during my numerous visits to this fine hospital. I am especially indebted to Terry and Alice, two of several outstanding nurses who took great care of me, and who made me feel as comfortable as possible. I also would be remiss if I did not thanks Doctors K. Barss, A. Ariana, and S. Cooper for their dedication and expertise in helping me survive this medical emergency.

I am sure the people of Little Current and the surrounding area are justly proud of this fine medical establishment within their midst, but perhaps it helps if an outsider-who is only in God's country for the summer months-reinforces the sentiment that the Manitoulin Health Centre is an outstanding medical facility and a tremendous boon to your communities.

To the nurses, physicians and hospital staff/administrators, I send you my heartfelt thanks.

William F. Stier

New York