Minnesota Anglers Win FFCBC

A Minnesota angling team is this year's winners of the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship.

Mark Raveling and Mike Luhman led all three days of fishing combining for 55.06 lbs of bass.

The team had finished second in four previous tournaments.

They beat out Chad Johnson and John Janousek, who entered the final day of finishing 11th and held onto to the top spot with 51.83 lbs before Raveling and Luhman weighed in.


Fort Frances anglers Jim Sandelovich and Karl Howells were fourth with 50.06 lbs.


Ted and Leo Heyens finished fifth with 50.05 lbs. 

Hydro Out

Some residents in the Mine Centre area are without power this morning.

Hydro One says about 50 customers lost their electricity overnight.

There is also an outage in the Devlin area with about 20 customers impacted.

Crews have been dispatched and should have power restored later this morning.

Meantime, nearly two-thousand home in the Kenora area are still without power after a vicious storm passed overnight.


As many as three-thousand were effected.


Hydro One says it will be later today before power can be fulled restored to that area.

Forest Fire Hazard Drops

MNR file photo

Forest fire hazard across northwestern Ontario has dropped to low.

Sixty-six fires are still active, but were slowed by rain on the weekend.

Among the new blazes in the Rainy River district was one near Lizard Lake north of Sapawe.

It's listed as being under control.

Five fires are now within Quetico Provincial Park, but are being allowed to burn themselves out because of  their benefit to the ecosystem.

All of the fires in the district are being identified as being lightning-caused.

First Nation Residents Evacuated

MNR file photo

A forest fire has forced an evacuation of 70 people from Sandy Lake First Nation.

Chief Bart Meekis says he's asked city of Thunder Bay to serve as a host community.

Some Crews Head Home

An easing of the forest fire situation in parts of northwestern Ontario is allowing some out-of-province crews to return home.

Twenty firefighters from Minnesota as well as two CL-415 waterbombers from Quebec left the region yesterday.

Personnel from New Brunswick and Saskatchewan are still in the area helping Ontario forest firefighters.

More ORNGE Hearings

Health Minister Deb Matthews faces another grilling by a legislative committee this week about her oversight of Ontario's embattled air ambulance service Ornge.

Matthews earlier testified that her ministry was kept in the dark by Ornge while it set up a web of spin-off companies with taxpayers' money.

But much of what Matthews told the committee was contradicted by former CEO Chris Mazza.

BizKids Sell Products

There's some new entrepreneurs in the Fort Frances.

Nine youngsters, who participated in the Northwest Business Centre's BizKids camps, pitched products at at open air market Friday.

13-year-old Nicholas Derkson, who sold Candy-Kabobs, says he learned a lot.

The youngsters learned all aspects of operating a business and visited stores in the downtown area before marketing their own wares.

It's the first time the camp has been offered in Fort Frances.

The Centre is looking at bringing it back next summer.

Facebook Travels

Greg Mountenay photo

An Ontario man is trying to get a little face-to-face time with the hundreds of his Facebook friends.

Greg Mountenay is travel across the country and make Fort Frances a stop on the weekend.

He says he's being able to connect with friends he hasn't seen in several years.

Mountenay lists more than 1,200 Friends on this Facebook page.

He started his journey two weeks ago and will end it later next month