Over the past 15 years, the custom animal carvings of Robin Deruchie have begun showing up at cottages and northern locations all across Ontario. He’s done demonstrations from Sarnia to Ottawa to Timmins. One park near Sarnia has 32 of his works spread throughout the park. Last Saturday, he was in Arden for the Frontenac Heritage Festival, a gig he’s done several times before. Many of his creations come to life at Wolf Creek Carvings, his studio/home in the Cloyne area, but he always draws a crowd at events, perhaps because he seems to be enjoying himself when he’s taking a chainsaw to a log. “Well, it is relaxing,” he said, taking a break from the owl he’s been working on. “I also do some…

“If we adhere (to these training requirements), I don’t see how we can continue to operate a fire department,” Addington Highlands Fire Chief Casey Cuddy told Council at its regular meeting Tuesday in Flinton. Cuddy was responding to an Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) memo on proposed mandatory training requirements for volunteer firefighters being proposed by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. “I understand the value of training,” Cuddy said. “But to continue the level of service we provide, you’re looking at 25 to 37 days of training at the fire college without exams. “We can’t possibly make the deadline (later this year).” Cuddy said that while some firefighters can be grandfathered in the requirements, (about 75 per cent of the Kaladar members),…

A request from the Too Far, Too Fast organization for Addington Highlands to declare itself an ‘unwilling host’ for any marijuana distribution operations once it becomes legal July 1 seemed to garner the most discussion at Council’s regular meeting Tuesday afternoon in Flinton. “Is there any point to declaring ourselves unwilling?” said Coun. Tony Fritsch. “The government did say municipalities would have some input but we haven’t heard from them yet and they likely wouldn’t listen to us anyway.” “A lot of things are like that,” said Reeve Henry Hogg. Clerk-treasurer Christine Reed said she understood that the 14 municipalities who would have sales outlets have had some input. “It used to be with alcohol a municipality could declare itself dry but who’s to stop…

It started up 74 years ago, during the second world war in 1943, when the idea of forming a marketing organization for a region that was just developing road access was pretty forward thinking. Over the years the Land O’Lakes Tourist Association (LOLTA) has seen many ups and downs, and this week in Sharbot Lake the current Board of Directors took the difficult decision to disband. Harvey Webster, the Manager of the Loughborough Inn, was the chair of LOLTA until Monday. He has been an active member and a member of the Board of Directors over the years. He said that while LOLTA is shutting down, the marketing work that it had been doing will carry on. “It was a sad situation but its not…

It seems that every time Lennox and Addington County Council considers making changes or upgrades to its ambulance service, the question of whether to keep the Denbigh service up and running comes up. It happened again last week, at a meeting of Council on November 15. Council is intent on establishing a service in Stone Mills township, and one way to help finance it would be to cut the 12 hour a day service based out of Denbigh. “I am getting tired of continuing to have to argue that even though there are not a lot of calls to Denbigh, the service is essential because of the distances involved. There are also two provincial highways that meet at Denbigh, 41 and 28,” Hogg said when…