This is Oak Street, North Bay. These buildings face Lake Nipissing.

North Bay's Main Street lost another "heritage" building last night due to fire. Over the past few decades there have been a number of old buildings that have gone up in flames. This one, the Cochrane Building built in 1911, also lost 2 great vibrant businesses in the fire - Vested Interest Trading and Lefebvres.

New Year's Eve 2011

Happy New Year!!!
Here's a New Year's Day photo of the ice and open water in front of our place. With all the cold weather that's around the corner starting tomorrow, the lake should freeze over soon.

Yesterday morning was very clear and cold (-26C). It sure made for spectacular photo ops, though.

Post annual Boxing Day road hockey photo. We won again!

"The Greatest Snow on Earth?" I don't think so, at least not yet, not by a long shot. There's barely a skiff of snow anywhere; although, it is -19C this morning under a clear cold blue sky.

Not sure how this cap ended up at the shoreline frozen in the ice, but it looks like it will be there until the spring thaw. By the way, what emblem is on the cap? The Avalanche?

One Mile Bay frozen over. The main lake is still ice free.

Nice scarecrow in downtown Arden, ON.

I was in Arden, ON, for a couple of hours on Sat. to pay respects at a friend's funeral. Arden is a tiny town south of Perth, off Highway 7 in "nowhere land." It seems to be a town that will be close to ghost town status in 10 years or so. It currently has 2 churches, a community hall and a Legion. The Legion doubles, a tiny bit, as a small small convenience store. The houses are dilapitated, and the ones for sale will probably never sell. I wonder how many other little towns there are like this that are succumbing to the move to urbanize.

Happy Holidays sign from our local pub on the lake, The Portage.

Went for a hike up in the bush yesterday with the Ice Marshal and our hounds- a great trek! Here Sunny perches over a ravine looking down a hydro line.

The Portage dock on One Mile Bay. The rest of the dock is made of floating sections, and they were removed in October.

Here's another photo from yesterday morning taken on One Mile Bay.

I took this photo this morning as I was looking down towards the mouth of One Mile Bay.

Early morning photo looking down One Mile Bay.

It's been a rainy day here at the lake. This is one of 2 young deer that were out above our place checking out the salt at the edge of the road.

We had our first snowfall of the season yesterday. Here's the view over the lake from the hot tub this morning.