Some of the pages on this site are under construction, I beg your patience while I work the bugs out. Thank you.

It´s been a while since I have worked with my webpages.  twosox and I have moved from Thunder Bay, Ontario, 130 miles west to Atikokan, a small town near Quetico Provincial Park.  I moved to take a job at the Atikokan Mining Attraction as Manager and Fund Raiser.  It was a one-year contract with possibility of renewal. This job ended an eight month period of unemployment and was an opportunity to embrace change in my life.

As of August 2001, my contract has been renewed because the Mining Attraction has been successful in obtaining a second years' funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Melody, my daughter is in Thailand for about two years. I will be visiting her in September 2001.  Just as she had made great changes in her life, it seemed as if it were time for something new in my life too. Life in a small town is very different from life in a larger urban centre. Different, but not unpleasant or lacking. True, there are fewer options for shopping, but life is about more than shopping, and, since on-line shopping is a viable option, we do not lack for anything.  Friends visit from Thunder Bay, and I have traveled back for a visit and plan more in the future.

The house at 124 Ravenwood in Thunder Bay continues to be rented out, and the tenants have painted and made it their own. I am living in a wonderful, small, two-bedroom house in Atikoan, and the job provides daily challenges.

I provide links to Atikokan-related pages off the Photos page.  You may want to check out the Steep Rock Iron Mines Naturalization Site which has photographs of the open pit mine site which, in the past twenty years, has undergone a passive naturalization and is quite lovely. 

Some other sites I have created since coming to Atikokan:

Caland Ore Company,  Atikokan Mining Attraction

"Paint the Pits" party

Another facet of life is Atikokan is the gardens alive with garden gnomes and assorted other figures, twinkling lights, streams, fountains, windchimes and candles. An evening´s walk takes on a magical element as you pass these little worlds. Houses and yards hug hulking rock outcroppings, so the gardens provide a sense of whimsy and lightness to an otherwise intimidating landscape.  Summer is lived and enjoyed to the extreme with fishing being an activity of choice; winter is long and arduous.  I hope you enjoy these pages.

I am consistently surprised by the level of artistry in Atikokan. I am painting a lot more and have joined both the Pictograph Gallery and the Chamber of Commerce, on their Board.  I have a new page up with winter-related artwork.

Other new pages: Virtual Art Gallery and Putting your art on the Internet computer course