Thunder Bay, Ontario – I’m sitting on the Hillcrest Park stone wall overlooking the city where I was born and raised. The view of Lake Superior and the Sleeping Giant is magnificent, as always.

So are the memories. Except for one.

I can see into downtown and the side street that once housed my favourite pool room. That brings a painful memory.

I was leaving the pool hall one day in the early 1960s when the air raid siren began blaring. Canada’s national defence department had installed air raid sirens in strategic cities across the country to alert citizens of a nuclear attack. Those were Cuban missile crisis-Cold War times.

We had been told that when we heard the air raid siren we should take cover wherever we could find it. I dived under a bus stop bench down the street from the pool room.

The siren was just a test, but finding cover was considered good practice for the real event.

The air raid sirens were dismantled in the 1970s because missile technology was so advanced that a strike could occur 15 minutes after launch, instead of four hours in the 1960s.

So here we are 50 or 60 years later, once again hearing nuclear strike threats.

Earlier this month the New York emergency management office released a short online video showing New Yorkers the steps they should take if “the big one has hit.”

Emergency officials said the likelihood of a nuclear attack is “very low,” but if so, why release a video telling people what to do when a mushroom cloud obliterates the city?

The fact is that chances of a nuclear attack are increasing rapidly.

Sad Vlad Putin, the lunatic with his finger on the nuclear buttons, said the other day that he will “make use of all weapon systems available” if need be. “This is not a bluff,” he added.

“The horsemen of the apocalypse” are on their way, the equally crazy Dmitry Medvedev, said recently. Medvedev is a former Russian prime minister, now a security council chief.

He also says Russia’s nuclear doctrine does not require it to be struck first before launching its own nuclear warheads.

Russia is said to have 6,000 nuclear warheads, the world’s largest nuclear bomb stockpile. Threats of using them have increased as Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine has heightened his humiliation over how badly it has gone for him.

Putin is a kleptocrat and trained killer who has a reputation for becoming more vicious the tighter he is pushed into a corner. The fear is that if he is pushed much farther, he will make good on the threats.

“I fear that they will strike back now in really unpredictable ways,” Rose Gottemoeller, a former deputy secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” told the BBC recently. “And ways that may even involve weapons of mass destruction.” Some commentators say nuclear strikes would be only with dialed down tactical nuclear weapons. The experts call these non-strategic weapons because they don’t take out large cities and kill millions in surrounding areas.

As I sit staring out over the city and the 30 kilometres of water separating the downtown and the rocky Sleeping Giant peninsula, I recall the legend of Nanabijou.

The local Indigenous people referred to the Sleeping Giant as Nanabijou. They said Nanabijou guarded a silver-rich little island known as Silver Islet.

If any intruders tried to reach the island to dig its valued silver, Nanabijou would awaken and roar with thunder, toss lightning bolts and blow destructive winds.

These were warnings that invading Nanabijou’s territory to steal the silver would mean certain death.

Stealing the valuable silver from the little island the Giant protects, is an issue no longer. But I like to think that when the Giant throws a summer tantrum across Thunder Bay, it is warning of something bad to happen.

Nanabijou’s roar is still loud and shrill, its lightning bolts still sharp and the winds still powerful enough to whip Lake Superior into giant waves.

When the nukes start flying – non-strategic or not – Nanabijou will still be around to roar. The trouble is, no one will be left to listen.

And so begins the annual invasion of the mice.

They are on the move, searching for cracks and gaps in homes, cottages, garages, sheds and other buildings where they can find rent-free room and board for the coming winter. 

Early reports indicate an invasion of epic proportions.

Most years, people will have one or two mice show up as the weather cools in September and October. At my place, we have evicted 15 of the sneaky little critters in the past 10 days.

Some New England states are reporting increased sightings following large mouse outbreaks in the last two years. A University of Rhode Island mammalogy class reported trapping and releasing 24 mice in one night. Their capturing for study purposes typically gets only six mice a night.

On the other side of the world, Australians are concerned that an invasion that started in 2020 is continuing. By late last year, they were calling it a mice plague that had grown into the “many millions.”

Researchers say warming temperatures and milder winters have allowed mice populations to increase. They say our Great Lakes region has warmed almost two degrees Celsius since 1970.

Last winter was relatively mild, allowing more mice to survive and to keep reproducing. Experts say that female mice can begin having babies just 30 days after their own birth, and can produce three or four broods of four to eight babies every year.

Another factor is a banner year for acorns, a favourite food of mice. The warm summer with little rain has had acorns falling earlier than usual.

All this has created a well-fed and healthy mouse population that has become a robust baby-making factory.

And now, they are all looking for comfortable winter lodgings inside our buildings. Why the early start when the weather is unusually fine and outside food plentiful, no one seems to know.

There is the usual weather folklore that says an early autumn mice invasion means an early and harsh winter. The Farmers’ Almanac is forecasting a record cold winter with record snowfalls in Ontario and Quebec.

Keeping the mice out of your home or cottage is a near impossible chore. They squeeze through the smallest cracks that are difficult to find and seal.

Some people try chasing them out with electric plug-in units that emit high-pitched signals. An old-fashioned deterrent is to leave cotton swabs soaked in peppermint in areas where mice or mice droppings have been seen.

You also can hire one of the professional rodent control companies, whose numbers have grown significantly in the last few years. The North American rodent control market was valued at $1,596.2 million in 2020 and is expected to grow even more in coming years.

There are good reasons to keep the little critters out of your buildings. Health and safety are two good ones.

Mice transmit dangerous diseases such as Lyme disease and Hantavirus. They do not have to bite you to infect you.

Mice are natural reservoirs for Lyme disease bacteria. Black-legged ticks that feed on mice can become infected, then pass it on to humans when they bite and burrow to get a blood meal.

Hantaviruses occupy mice urine, droppings and saliva and can be spread through the air.  They are easily breathed in during vacuuming or sweeping, especially in confined areas.

There is no known cure for Hantavirus and the death rate for persons infected is about 40 per cent. 

However, Hantavirus cases are rare. Canadian health agencies report only three or four cases a year.

Still, it is a deadly virus that must be taken seriously. Health officials advise wearing rubber or plastic gloves and using a disinfectant when cleaning areas occupied by mice.

Aside from posing health risks, mice also are a cause of house fires. They gnaw almost everything and electrical wires seem to be a favourite. When they chew through cable protective covering, they expose bare wires and cause sparking which can start a fire.

If you find a crack or hole where mice might get in, fill it with steel wool, then caulk it to ensure it stays in place.

Mice are good for the environment – out in the wild, not in any of our buildings.

 This week marks a special anniversary. It’s of little interest to anyone but me, but I’m writing about it anyway.

Sixty years ago this week I walked into the second-floor newsroom of The Sault Ste. Marie Daily Star and was assigned a desk as its newest journalist.

I got there through a skillful piece of deception. 

I was passing through Sault Ste. Marie, where my mother lived, enroute to visit an uncle, who was a reporter at The Sudbury Star. The hope was that he would get me a reporting job in Sudbury.

“Why drive to Sudbury?” my mother asked. “The Sault Star is looking for a young reporter. It was in yesterday’s paper.”

Off to the newspaper I went and was greeted in the newsroom by a woman who turned out to be the Women’s Editor and a member of the Curran family who owned the paper.

“Someone gave you bad information,” she said. “We specifically advertised for a young woman to work in our women’s section.”

I was mortified. I flushed red and stammered. She turned away me from but instead of returning to her desk, she went to talk to a stern-looking gentleman at the main news desk.

“I don’t need anyone who looks like a scared little rabbit,” he replied when, pointing at me, she asked if he needed a new reporter.

She said she had a good feeling about me, and so it was that a couple days later I took my place in that newsroom.

No sooner did I get seated than everyone in the newsroom got up and left. Did I smell? Or, was this to protest my hiring? I learned later that the first edition deadline had just passed and everyone went to the coffee room for morning break.

I was left alone in the newsroom except for a sleepy looking guy bent over the wire desk, where national and international news chattered incessantly on The Canadian Press (CP) and United Press International (UPI) teletype printers.

I walked over, introduced myself and asked how he liked working there.

“Beh, beh, beh ter ter tha. . . an . . . ,“ he stuttered. I can’t tell you the rest because it was pornographic, obscene and simply not very nice.

He was drinking from a coffee cup, which I noticed was half filled with a clear white liquid, which was not water.

There have been many changes in the news industry in the 60 years since. Some good. Some bad.

Hundreds of newspapers have closed in the past 10 years and thousands of journalists have lost their jobs. Many news operations now are controlled by companies more interested in revenue and balance sheets than good journalism. 

More people now get their news and information from non-reliable sources such as social media platforms. We live in a broken media environment polluted by toxic talk, rumours, misinformation and disinformation.

Hopefully, this is just a phase and changes are coming that will fix the fractured media environment. There are signs already that news consumers are becoming more aware of, and concerned about, the dangers presented by the decline in fact-based news and information.

It’s not likely that we will see the return of the days of families sitting and reading in-depth newspaper stories. But, maybe growing concern about fractured media will result in positive changes.

One thing that should never change is the lesson learned in my early Sault Star days: The role of the reporter is to observe and report. Accurately, honestly and fairly. To produce news stories that are balanced and put into context.

Good journalism is not about awards, citations or wearing an Order of Canada pin on your lapel. Good reporters leave their egos at the newsroom door. 

The only thing that matters is the story and getting it right. 

Helen Thomas, a UPI reporter for 57 years, said many years ago:

“We don’t go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.”

That was a good day 60 years ago this week. The payroll clerk who came to my desk to enrol me as an employee later became my wife.

The world is on the move again after 2 1/2 years of Covid. I'm itching to do some travelling but can't decide where to go.

I’ve considered Tasmania to see the ancient Huon Pine trees, some of which were growing at the time of Julius Caesar. 

I’ve also considered visiting Newfoundland’s quaint coastal towns to see the icebergs moving down the coast. The province’s television ads are spectacular.

And, it would fun to visit Italy’s Tuscany region to take in the beautiful scenery and sample the great Italian foods.

There are many choices, but I think I’ll go to Missouri. 

Missouri?

Missouri indeed. There’s a neat little town in Missouri called Marshall, roughly 300 kilometres (180 miles) west of St. Louis. It is an unimportant place with a population of only 13,000, but it does have two things of special interest for me.

First, one of my grandsons is going to school there. He is in his first year of college, playing baseball for the Missouri Valley College Vikings. (Vikings? In Missouri, the absolute heartland of the US?)

Secondly, Marshall is the home of Jim the Wonder Dog, whose bronze statue stands in the memorial park named after him a short walk from the college.

Jim the Wonder Dog was an English setter said to possess remarkable powers of prediction. He reportedly could predict the sex of unborn children and picked the winners of the Kentucky Derby seven years in a row. He also predicted the New York Yankee victory in the 1936 World Series.

In 1930, Van Arsdale wrote on pieces of paper the names horses expected to run in the Kentucky Derby. He spread the papers in front of Jim, who sniffed them, then placed a paw on one. The piece Jim selected was sealed in an envelope and opened after the race was run.

Seven years in a row, the papers Jim selected bore the name of the winning horse.

Jim was born in 1925 of pureblood champion stock and was given as a gift to hunter Sam Van Arsdale. Jim was the runt of the litter and Van Arsdale’s hunting friends bought him for less than one-half the price of his litter mates and gave Sam the dog as a joke.

Van Arsdale and Jim did a lot of hunting, with the hunter boasting he shot 5,000 birds over Jim, then stopped counting.

On one hunt, Van Arsdale said to Jim: “Let’s go over and rest under that hickory tree.” Jim immediately went to a hickory tree and sat.

Surprised, Van Arsdale then told Jim to go to a walnut tree, then a cedar, then a tin can lying on the ground. Jim went to each quickly and accurately.

Van Arsdale discovered that Jim could locate a car by colour, or licence number. He also could select people from a crowd after being told to find the man who sells hardware, or find the one who takes care of sick people.

Jim even followed commands given to him in foreign languages, Morse Code or shorthand.

News of Jim’s unique talents spread and he was invited to demonstrate them in other towns and other states. Magazines, including Outdoor Life, wrote articles about him.

Some folks suspected Jim was a scam so Van Arsdale brought him to Dr. A. J. Durant, a well-known veterinarian and head of the University of Missouri veterinary school.

Jim was examined and other vets, two psychiatrists and vet students watched as the dog was given commands to locate or identify things. He passed the tests with flying colours.

Dr. Durant, who expected to uncover a scam, concluded that Jim “possessed an occult power that might never come again to a dog in many generations.”

One day in the spring of 1937 when Jim was 12, Van Arsdale took the dog out in a wooded area near a lake. Jim jumped out of the car, ran a short distance, then collapsed. Van Arsdale rushed him to an animal hospital where he died.

Jim’s headstone is the most visited site in Marshall’s Ridge Park Cemetery. 

I think I’ll pass on Tasmania’s tall trees, and Tuscany’s delicious foods, and head on down to Missouri.

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