North Bay - Gateway to the West??

Monday, May 3rd saw us depart for our first official stop on the Western Canada tour, North Bay, Ontario. Our new friends were delighted to discover their city was now part of the west!!

An enthusiastic, all-ages group of 45 persons came together at Omond Memorial UC to hear about Dondi and the Lutamo School and did some wonderful drumming and making of music. The evenings highlights included the presence of two young Angolan ex-pats, Antonio and his brother, who emigrated to Canada from Angola in 2001, another woman, the daughter of missionaries, who went to school at Dondi, and David and Mathias, some friends we met drumming on the beach in Kingston last summer when we were working (playing!) with the Future Quest gang!

Many thanks to our billet/hosts John & Wanda, Allan & Bonnie, John, Sean & Margaret, and to John Bell for the scrumptious meal! Also to Kim for stepping forward to help animate the Drumathon in Niagara Falls! We discovered John HAS rhythm, and NOBODY can say no to John Bell!!

Special thanks to Rev. Elisabeth Fraser and our main man Tim for putting it all together, and to John for dealing with the trailer lights gremlin!!

Finally, it was a trip down memory lane for Rev. Lloyd Paul, aka Pastor Paulo, who went to school in North Bay and who father was clergy at Omond - they even produced some correspondence from the time Lloyd's dad was helping raise $100,000 for church construction - the fund-raising genes run deep!!!

Some healthy donations to the project and a 'sign-on' for the Drumathon made our visit to North Bay complete - now on to Superior!!