David J. Widmann

Watering hole doubles as museum of technology

Opening the door at 609 Queen Street West is to step into the future we were promised. Robots mill around the bar, computers vigilantly watch over human patrons, and dusty souvenirs of space travel line the walls like your grandmother’s set of collectable plates. The whole scene is bathed in a green glow generated by backlit circuit boards embedded in the bar.

“The circuit boards are from a defunct computer graveyard place that we found when we first opened,” says James Applegath, one of the owners of NASA Dance Pub. “They had piles and piles garbage lying around. We just sorted through it and came up with those.”

The distinctive bar is just the beginning of NASA’s unique ambiance. The walls are rife with items honouring its namesake space agency including mission patches, photos, and one small piece of fabric that has actually made it into orbit.

“This little NATO flag was flown in outer space, on Columbia’s 3rd mission,” says Applegath “It was donated by one of the customers here. Her father worked for the Canadian Space Agency. He gave it to her and she gave it to us.”

Another one of NASA’s claims to fame is its collection of vintage video games. There are few places where you can see original Atari 2600, Sega, Intellivision, Gemini and Vectrex systems on public display.

“We actually had a guy who’s a huge Vectrex fan from Ottawa,” Applegath says. “He happened to come here one night and saw this, and he was so impressed that he actually programmed a cartridge for us. When you turned it on it said ‘NASA’ on the front, and he put five or six games on one cartridge.”

“One of our DJs, DJ Gadget, donated the Commodore Pet,” says Applegath about another piece of cast-off computer hardware. “He’s a huge technology buff. He can pretty much fix anything, so he put that together and brought it here. They used to be state of the art. Now I don’t even know what you’d use it for.”

NASA also makes a home for an impressive collection of science fiction memorabilia. The list of items is extensive, and it includes a cornucopia of action figures, comic books, toy UFOs, and movie posters for such classics as Tron and Battlestar Galactica.

“We got a lot of stuff on eBay before we opened,” says Applegath. “A lot of little toys and robots are from Goodwill. You just go to Buy The Pound and rummage through. A lot of the stuff was just donated by customers.”

It’s not just electronics and collectibles that are finding new life as NASA’s decor. Applegath and his partner, Ben Ferguson, have even sought out secondhand fixtures and furniture to create the bar’s ambiance. Sitting in the front window is a distinctive floor lamp that Applegath says was purchased from a set sale after the movie X-Men completed production in Toronto. Flanking the lamp, two rows of airplane seats provide a comfortable vantage point for watching the action on Queen Street.

“The airplane seats came from a guy that was doing independent theatre on Jarvis just before we opened,” says Applegath. “He cancelled his plans and we got them from him. They’ve got the ashtrays in the arms, so you know they’re old for sure.”

Hanging above the circuit-board bar is a row of silver lamps, each displaying the NASA logo. Even these pristine-looking silver orbs are part of Applegath and Ferguson’s assemblage of used items.

“We purchased the lamps from a club that closed down,” Applegath explains. “Our doorman does sandblasting, so he did the logos on the glass. It worked quite nicely.”

Applegath and Ferguson opened NASA in December of 1999. They gained their management experience working at legendary Toronto hot-spot Industry, then decided to go into business for themselves. As for the collection of toys, machines and furniture that give the bar its vibe, Applegath cites his mother as a big inspiration.

“I was going to auctions with my mom,” he says. “I saw all this cool stuff, and I thought it would make a good space-aged retro-themed place. It’s a cool way to do it because it doesn’t cost a fortune and it’s really unique.”

The low cost of keeping the atmosphere alive at NASA is a plus.

“There’s a bunch of stuff I have at home that I just don’t bring here, because it disappears,” says Applegath. “I had a C-3P0 piggy-bank. That lasted two weeks. We had a cool 8-track tape player that disappeared. It happens all the time, where things are just missing.”

NASA also had to stop its practice of making the vintage video games available for customers to play while enjoying drinks.

“You get some drunk guy playing it and the joystick breaks, and the joysticks are impossible to find,” says Applegath.

Still, for better or worse, it’s the constantly changing collection of items that keeps NASA’s look fresh. Even though the items change, the bar keeps comfortable, friend’s-basement appeal… much like the bar’s owners themselves.

“Back when I was 12 or 13, I had this buddy and we were totally into all this stuff,” Applegath explains. “Years later, he showed up here and said: ‘This is weird. Last time I saw you we were playing Atari and doing all this stuff.’ I haven’t changed at all.”

NASA is open seven days a week from 9:00pm to 3:00am. For more information, check out http://www.nasadancepub.ca

Artist/writer Cynthia Gould finds warmth in Kensington Market

Cynthia Gould is a writer, spoken-word performer and painter who has secondhand shopped “since I was around 15 or 16. I discovered I could get much more for my money.”

“I like shopping, period, but secondhand shopping usually ensures that you won’t run into someone wearing the exact same outfit,” she says, “and there tends to be much more variety in secondhand stores. In new stores, they only have what is supposedly hip this season. I’ll be the judge of what I choose to wear, thank you very much!”

Over a large cup of coffee at the Organic Bhudda Cafe, Cynthia showed off one of her recent finds.

“I found this long, black cardigan with burgundy funfur cuffs and collar at Ohm Shanti in Kensington Market,” she said. “It’s very warm. I saw it on the rack out front. I was just walking by and saw funfur, so shazam!”

Cynthia can often be found haunting the storefronts and laneways of Kensington Market. She says the leisurely pace and friendly atmosphere of the neighbourhood are what attracts her to its many shops and cafes.

“It can take me an entire afternoon to walk up that street,” she laughs. “I can rarely remember the names of the individual stores, because I go through them all at once and it gets blurry.”

Cynthia also displayed one of her earliest and most treasured acquistions.

“I bought this silver necklace for a quarter when I was 16 so I’ve had it for, let’s just say a million years,” she says. “I got it at the Big Sisters secondhand store in downtown Port Hope. There’s three big silver wigglies on it where three blue jewels are supposed to be stuck in, but two of the jewels were missing. I went out and spent 70 cents on blue model paint that matched, and I painted in the other two circles so you can’t tell that their missing. I’ve worn it ever since.”

Sometimes, though, great finds are just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

“My boots are secondhand Docs that are in fabulous condition,” Cynthia says. “I was at a friend of mine’s house for dinner one day. She was cleaning her closet, and we’re close enough to the same size. That’s secondhand I didn’t even have to go to a store for.”

Of course Cynthia doesn’t spend all her time rummaging through the used clothing racks. Since moving into a new art studio space, she’s been “painting like a madperson,” to the point that the gallery section of her web site (www.cynthiagould.com) has become “a bit confusing.” She’s working on that too.

“I’m also going to be hosting some shows coming up.” she says. “I’m going to be featuring at Night of Sirens, which is an evening exploring the sensual side of women. It’s all female performers and musicians. That’s at the Renaissance Cafe on April 28.”

For more info on Cynthia’s live performances, check out http://cynthiagould.coffeehouse.ca.

On Monday, the Ad Hoc School Review Committee for Dr. L. B. Powers Public School was given a tour of Beatrice Strong Public School by principal Karen Vandermeer.

Beatrice Strong P.S. is one of the schools were students of L. B. Powers P.S. will be transferred to should the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board choose to close Dr. Powers.

Vandermeer showed the committee around Beatrice Strong P.S., describing the facilities current students enjoy.

“At Beatrice Strong school, we have a junior Y daycare,” she said. “It is a seamless day, with students coming back and forth quite comfortably from school back to day care at the beginning of the morning and at the end of the day. We also have after-school programs that the Y puts on for all the children at the end of the day.”

In the school gymnasium, Vandermeer explained that access to the rest of the school from that area can be restricted.

“If a community group wanted to come in on Saturday, there is no access to the rest of the school,” she said.

The tour participants were shown many of the school’s bright, spacious rooms, accessibility features, the up-to-date kitchen and washroom facilities, and some of the 100 computers that are available for student use.

Vandermeer also took the time to explain what each area was currently used for, and how it could be repurposed should the need to house more students arise.

“We host the Southfield Centre,” she said. “We have a speech pathology, social workers, psychometrists. They are using the centre right at the moment. If we relocate these people (if the Powers students are moved to Beatrice Strong), this will be a special education resource room as well. So I may have up to three new resource rooms.”

“There are very few modifications needed to accommodate (the new students),” said Joe Hubbard at superintendent of administrative services for the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. “This school is blessed with a lot of storage space because it was built prior to the new (provincial) funding formula. There is one area in here that is currently a storage room that can be turned into a classroom. There is a workshop here that can be turned into a resource room.”

In all, Hubbard said that by repurposing in the existing space, Beatrice Strong Public School could have up to five new classrooms available.

An option being considered to bring portables onto the property could add another two classroom spaces.

The issue of portables raised the question of whether or not closing Dr. Powers P.S. and moving the students to Beatrice Strong P.S. would provide the “equivalent or a better core services” the board is required to provide under the provincial funding formula.

“If we’re going to be objective, we have to list the fact that if the students are going to be housed in portables, that would be a disadvantage,” said Reno Piccini, one of the community representatives on the committee. “I don’t see how students in portables can be considered as having educational opportunities expanded.”

There was also a health issue brought up in regards to portables. Sarah Clayton, and other community representative on the committee, recorded in 1999 report that found over 90% of portables in Peel, Halton and Brant counties had been found to be contaminated with mould.

Hubbard explained that since that report, the mould issue in portables has been addressed.”Since 1999, there have been significant rebuilds and significant further testing (of portables),” Hubbard said. “Those figures might have been true for that specific board at that specific time, but it would not be true for this board at this time.”

Committee chair Erin Brown pointed out that the presence of portables is merely an option at this point.

“One of the options is not to have portables at all,” Brown said.

The Ad Hoc School Review Committee meets again on Tuesday, February 18th at 7:30 p.m. at Dr. L. B. Powers Public School.

Tim Hortons bag program going gangbusters

It’s only the first week of the Tim Hortons Food Share bag program, and it is already being branded a success.

“So far this year it’s going well,” said Joan Bebee of Northumberland Fare Share in Port Hope. “Just since Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we’ve had an excellent response, above and beyond what we thought we’d pull in.”

George Leger at Fare Share in Cobourg agrees.

“People are donating by the bagful,” he said.

He also noted that the Tim Hortons Food Share bags, which were included in last Friday’s Port Hope Evening Guide and Cobourg Daily Star newspapers, are not the only donation vehicles being used.

“Donations are coming in bags and boxes, any way, shape or form,” Leger said.

“We pick this time of year because it’s normally a slow time for the food bank,” said John Meeussen, owner of the Tim Hortons franchises in Port Hope and Cobourg. “Christmas and Thanksgiving are strong times of the year, but this is when the shelves are normally empty.”

“This is the second year that we’ve been in partnership with Tim Hortons, and with CHUC and Star 93,” said Mike Walsh, publisher of the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide. “We’re encouraging the public to fill the bags with items as outlined on the bag itself and drop them off at Tim Hortons in Cobourg and Port Hope by the 28th of February.”

The items needed by the food bank are powdered milk, canned fruit or juice, canned vegetables, canned salmon and tuna; canned meat and stews; rice, pasta and pasta sauces, peanut butter, jam and honey, condiments, sugar, cereal, pancake mix and syrup, diapers, baby formula, toiletries and toilet paper.

And remember, Food Share accepts donations throughout the year, not just during campaign times. Non-perishable food items can be dropped off any time at police and fire stations, and at Food Share offices on Wednesdays and Fridays. For more information, call (905) 885-6674 in Port Hope, or (905) 372-5308 in Cobourg.

Tracy Francis and Ann Doucette sport clown schnozzes at M&M Meat Shop in Cobourg. Friday was the 12th annual M&M Meat Shops Red Nose Day, when store employees bring a smile to customers’ faces to combat the February blahs.

Many sites to be included in upcoming cleanup project

“Port Hope has lived with this problem for so long,” says Sue Stickley of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office in Port Hope, about the radioactive and industrial waste throughout the municipality.

“The waste was placed in the 1930s and 1950s and got spread around,” she said at the start of a tour of waste sites in Port Hope. It was a time when the long-term effects of radioactive and industrial wastes hadn’t even been conceived, much less considered.

The refinement of materials such as radium and uranium at Eldorado Nuclear on the waterfront, as well as the manufacture of consumer and industrial products by other area companies, created waste. To the people creating it, it was waste just like any other — it was buried, dumped into the lake or shipped off, and then forgotten about.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the full scope of the problem had been realized. Not only had the sites occupied by factory, foundry and refinement operations been contaminated, but radioactive materials and other industrial waste products had been found throughout the town, Ms. Stickley said. Contaminated fill had been used on building sites, radioactive materials had been discovered in garbage dumps, even transportation routes had been polluted. There was even radiation detected in some of the community’s commercial and residential buildings.

“When they took down the radium factories in Clarington in the 1950s, a lot of people took building materials because they didn’t know,” she said.

The Atomic Energy Control Board began a large-scale radiation reduction program in Port Hope in 1976, and in 1982 the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO) was established to manage Port Hope’s waste, both radioactive and industrial.
While the LLRWMO works with the federal government and the local community to come up with a long-term solution to containing this waste, it is being monitored at several sites in and around Port Hope.

The centre pier area in the harbour is marked by the LLRWMO as one of the main industrial waste sites that needs attention.

“The harbour itself needs to be completely cleaned up,” Ms. Stickley said. “The sediment needs to be dredged.”

The centre pier and harbour is currently the home of the Port Hope Yacht Club. According to Ms. Stickley, the club will have to be moved before cleanup operations can take place.

“We figure that we can clean up the harbour in one boating season, so they only have to move for one season,” she said. “We’re trying to minimize the impact as much as possible.”

With cleanup of the harbour not scheduled to take place for another five years, the Yacht Club has yet to announce where its temporary location will be.

Just southwest of centre pier is the waterworks area.

“Back in the very first days of Eldorado Mining, they called it the Lakeshore Disposal Area,” Ms. Stickley said.

Much of the area has been cleaned up already, but further cleanup in the area will have to go ahead of schedule. The waterworks building is being expanded in the spring to meet new provincial water treatment standards. Part of that expansion area is still contaminated.

“We’re looking for a temporary storage site until we get the permanent facility,” Ms. Stickley said.

Overlooking the waterworks area is the entrance to the Alexander Street Ravine.

“The waste got to the Alexander Street Ravine during the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s by diversion from designated disposal areas,” Ms. Stickley said. “Subsequently the contamination was spread down the ravine, contaminating soil and other materials dumped there such as ash, cinders, municipal and industrial waste.”

The corner of Alexander and John Streets is nondescript, but is another industrial waste site that the LLRWMO is eager to get cleaned up. It is the site of a coal gasification plant that operated between 1859 and 1939. Although the last of the buildings was removed around 1971, the plant left a legacy of various heavy metals and hydrocarbons. Some of the pollutants on this site are considered leachate, which will require monitoring until it is moved into a permanent storage facility.

“Another area is around the Lion’s Recreation Centre here, literally in my back yard,” Ms. Stickley said. “There’s foundry waste and a variety of industrial waste. We’re not exactly sure how all of it got here — most of it came from the same plant that was at Centre Pier. There are areas that have lead, boron, and various other metal contaminates.

“We would clean this area up as well and put it in the long-term storage facility.”

The tour then proceeded to the Jack Burger Sports Complex on Highland Drive.

“Directly behind the sports complex is the old landfill site,” Ms. Stickley said. “The east end has been contaminated with radioactive material, runoff mixing with the waste, that sort of thing.”

Not far from the Highland Drive site is the Pine Street Extension area. This is where waste is consolidated and stored on a temporary basis.

“After the cleanup that took material up to Chalk River this whole area, called Brewery Pond, was then cleaned up,” Ms. Stickley said. “There was no place to put it outside the municipality, so we put it in an engineered mound called the ‘consolidation site.’ The other mound, the one with the tires, is a temporary storage site.

“We doubled the size of the temporary storage site because we knew that this has to last until we get a permanent site.”

The Pine Street Extension site is also one of the proposed sites for a permanent waste management facility. A permanent facility would replace the current mounds with a multi-component capsule designed to “cap and cover” the contaminated material. The waste would be isolated from the surface and from the flow of groundwater, and monitored to ensure that no leakage occurs.

Another proposed site is the Welcome Waste Management Facility on Marsh Road.

“This site is still owned and operated by Cameco Corporation,” Stickley said. “They’re looking after the waste on behalf of the federal government until a decommissioning and cleanup plan goes ahead.”

An auto wrecking yard adjacent to the site would be removed to facilitate expansion. As well, a house across from the facility is scheduled to be moved. The federal government has purchased the property so an access road can be built, allowing construction and waste-transportation vehicles to avoid passing through any residential areas after exiting Highway 401.

Ms. Stickley said that this site was under construction because it is “large enough to accommodate everything from Port Hope and Welcome.”

East of Rose Glen Road and south of Lake Street is the site of the former Chemetron property, now occupied by Esco.

“Chemetron was a pigment producer who came in, didn’t stay very long, polluted the environment and left,” Ms. Stickley said. “They left this lagoon area here that’s filled with chemicals and pigment. We’ll clean it up as part of the overall project.”

The waste in the lagoon will be dried, then encapsulated with the rest of Port Hope’s radioactive and industrial waste.

Not far from the Chemetron site is a temporary storage site for some contaminated sewage, near the treatment plant. All of the sewage waste has been biologically treated, but is still considered contaminated.

“There was a certain amount of uranium going into the sewers, so the sludge has uranium in it,” Ms. Stickley explained. “Some contamination got spread around Port Hope by the sludge too, because in those days some people took the sludge and used it in their gardens.”

There are some other minor areas of contamination within Port Hope that are also being monitored by the LLRWMO and are slated for cleanup. The project is currently in the environmental assessment process, with facilities construction and cleanup scheduled to begin around 2006. Although a few years down the road, the project has been moving according to schedule since the federal government and the municipality signed the legal agreement that set the cleanup process in motion.

For her part, Ms. Stickley is glad to be part of the process that will finally see a resolution to Port Hope’s ongoing industrial pollution problem.

“We’ve lived in this community for a long time, and we get to work on the solution to a problem,” she said. “That’s really satisfying.”

ABOVE: The centre pier at Port Hope harbour, one of many contaminated areas due to be cleaned up.
BELOW: A temporary storage mound with sewage treatment plant sludge in the background, at the east end of Lake Street.

The repercussions of a furnace oil spill on Front Street in Harwood are rippling more than where the nearby creek and ditch empties into Rice Lake.

An oil slick is still visible near shore, coating surviving geese.

Two geese have already died, according to nearby property owners.

Water and oil soaked pads are frozen into the lake ice about 20 feet from shore.

Furnace oil continues to seep into the lake from a drainage ditch that runs behind the house, 150 metres away.

A tenant in the house where the leak originates is out thousands of dollars, and is now also experiencing health problems, believed to be associated with the oil.

The house and furnishings are impregnated with the stench of furnace/diesel oil.

The registered owner of the property, George Newton Lang, lives in Studio City, California.

The property is under the care of Fred Holloway of Cobourg, as property manager.

It was rented to tenant Sandra Mate in December 2002.

The spill was reported to the Peterborough Office of the Ministry of the Environment on Jan. 24 and was told by Mr. Holloway that “approximately one gallon of furnace oil had leaked from the basement of the house at 5425 Front Street.”

He also indicated to the Ministry, according to a Provincial Officers report “that on behalf of the property owner, he would retain Johnson Septic Service Limited, a local spill clean-op contractor, to begin controlling and cleaning up the spill.”

Provincial Officer Michael Longpre, writing in his report states: “based on an update from the Spills Action Centre on January 27, 2003, indicating that the spill was ongoing, and that area waterfowl was being impacted at Rice Lake, he and another Officer, David Arnott attended the site location to assess current conditions”

He wrote “it was noted there was a creek flowing through the site location, connecting to a municipal ditch which in turn connected to Rice Lake”.

The officers observed that the creek, the municipal ditch and an open section of Rice Lake “all had visible signs of oil present on the surface of the water”. They also observed “visible contamination on the banks of the creek and the municipal ditch.”

In addition, the provincial officers observed “that oil was getting past the booms placed in the ditch by Johnson Septic Service on behalf of the property owner and was continuing to flow downstream into Rice Lake.”

Their investigation of the house, also on Jan. 27, “revealed significant flooding in the basement with visible oil on the surface of the water in the basement.”

Samples of the contaminated water were collected from all areas, from the house to the Lake.

Subsequently a clean up order was issued as a result of a contravention of section 14 of the Enviromental Protection Act due to the spill. The report was issued Jan. 28 and gave the property owner/manager 24 hours to contain the problem, hire a consultant to assess the damage, prepare an action plan with implementation schedule to restore the property.

Ministry officials said the clean-up will include removing all contamination, vegetation and soil from the affected site all the way to the Lake, a distance of about 150 metres. Cost is expected to run between $140,000 and $180,000.

However, while they currently don’t know the total impact or effect of the damage, they expect to know soon.

Ministry investigators have also been brought in to study the violation to determine if any further prosecution may take place.

The new tenant, Sandra Mate said all of the problems started in December when they moved in to clean up the house, repaint and wallpaper.

She paid her first and last months rent in the amount of $1,000 on Dec. 16 and was told there was a lot of oil in the tank.

They ran out of oil two days later.

Because they could not get a company to refill the tank before Christmas, she was forced to spend $280 filling the tank five gallons at a time with diesel fuel until Dec. 26.

The furnance oil supply company she contacted said an inspection of the tank would have to be done before they filled it on Dec. 27. Because it had a hole in it, it was condemned.

A new tank was installed on Jan. 2, but it apparently also leaked near the furnace.

The red coloured furnace oil had apparently leaked into a sump pump well in the corner of the basement. With a continuous odor of oil, Ms. Mate said she bailed out between 30 and 40 gallons of the red liquid which now sits stored in a large drum on the front lawn. And the problems were not over yet.

Water almost eight inches deep seeped into the basement and froze, mixing with the furnace oil, and then leaked out a basement door, across the grass, and into the ditch.

They were ordered out of the house Jan. 27 by ministry officials and the power has been turned off, Ms. Mate said.

Ministry officials in Peterborough were contacted late in the day Monday, and told their questions would be answered by Tuesday morning.

Mr. Holloway, who is also reeve of Hamilton Township could not be reached Monday at the Municipal Offices, nor could he be reached at home prior to the paper’s printing deadline of the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide.

Sudbury shop is Ontario’s most northern source for woodcarving supplies and classes

In a blink-and-you-might-miss-it storefront location on Sudbury’s Bancroft Drive, a small shop is starting to build, among other things, a reputation.

Thompson’s Woodcarving is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Morris (“Moe”) and Brigette Thompson.

They have built what started as a way for Moe to relieve the stress of working as a Sudbury Regional Police Officer into Ontario’s most northern source for woodcarving supplies and classes.

“We started the shop here in 1999,” said Moe. “I was still working full-time in the police service at the time. I retired in the summer of 2001, and we’ve been steady at this ever since.”

After trying several different types of woodcarving, Moe found his passion was in carving caricatures.

Shelves and display cases at Thompson’s Woodcarving are dominated by wooden characters, many of which are originals drawn from Moe’s experience as a police officer.

Reference Materials, Supplies

Thompson’s Woodcarving also carries reference materials and supplies for several styles and methods of carving.

“Just about anything that’s out there, I have some supplies here that will help,” said Moe.

You can’t buy what they sell just anywhere, said Brigette, who takes care of the business end of running the store.

“Woodcarving tools are so different from any other carpentry tool or any other woodworking tool.”

“There was no place in Northern Ontario to purchase carving tools,” Brigette said. “People in Sudbury, until we opened, were limited to looking at either a print catalogue or a Web site. They couldn’t try anything in their hand. We thought if we could get the tools in, people could try before they buy.”

As well as running the store, the Thompsons attend woodworking and carving shows. This helps them expand their customer base, as well as help their current customers.

“Morris loves to carve, and it’s a way to meet people,” Brigette said.

“We’re the central contact point for information about woodcarving in the area. Through shows, we’re able to keep tabs on what’s going on and pass that on to other carvers. Plus, we get to see new products.”

The store is also working on increasing its inventory of wood- burning supplies.

“‘Artistic arson,’ as one person put it,” she said. “With the aid of your burning pen, you’re sketching a picture onto wood or other mediums. It’s not a new art, but it is seeing a revival.”

Before retiring from the police, Moe’s job was the main source of funding for the business. The business grew slowly, and as time went on, became self-sufficient.

“We ran a cash business, which we still do,” Brigette said. “We find that has been the best way to do business. We buy what we can afford. Once we have sold it, we buy more. Occasionally we do run out of things, especially the big-ticket items, but generally we can get it in a short period of time.

“For the first few years, growth was very slow. Where we’re at today is about where we should be. We have no bank loans.”

Brigette cites the banks’ lack of understanding of small- business issues as one reason why she and Moe couldn’t get financing for Thompson’s Woodcarving.

“The banks would not look at us, because they had nothing to assess this type of store against,” she said. “As a small business, we’ve found that the banks have been very frustrating to deal with.”

Brigette also said that other industries still haven’t figured out the needs of their small-business customers.

“If I want high-speed Internet, because I’m a business I have to pay nearly twice as much as I would as an individual, yet my usage is probably less.”

Still, by avoiding bank loans, creating and following a business plan, and choosing a location that is “tailored to the budget,” the Thompsons have managed to keep their love of woodcarving — and each other — from being overtaken by the stresses of running a business.

“Being retired, we don’t depend on this for our bread and butter,” Brigette said. “We do it mostly because we love it.”

One of the things Moe loves most about woodcarving is teaching. In the past, he has taught classes at Cambrian College, and given instruction to hearing-impaired children. Now he teaches classes in his Bancroft Drive shop.

“I keep my classes very small, because that way I can give individual attention to everybody,” he said. “I carve along with the students, so we all start with the same blank cut-out of wood cut the same way.”

More Carving Shows

In the future, the Thompsons hope to get the word out about their business by doing more woodworking and carving shows. They have also made the first few steps onto the Internet, with their Web site at ww.woodcarve.netfirms.com.

The Thompsons are also working on a project to help increase awareness of Sudbury’s small-business community.

“We’ve tried to interest local cable companies to do a hobby show,” Brigette said. “The reason hobby stores don’t make it in this town is because people don’t know they exist. We’ve got to get them to understand that retailers here in Sudbury carry the same products and often at a competitive price or cheaper.

“People in Sudbury still have to learn to support their local businesses.”

Some of the world’s best curled for cash at the T.M. Davies Community Centre in Lively this past week.

Photo accompanied story by Sudbury Star staff.

Some of the world’s best curlers are showing their form at the T.M. Davies Centre in Lively during the Masters of Curling event.

Photo accompanied article by Sudbury Star staff