'A bunch of stories that are worth telling': new book details North Bay's history

CBC30-05-2025

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A retired North Bay journalist has published a book about the city's history, right in time for 100th anniversary celebrations.
Peter Fleming Handley is the author of "Visa Vis: North Bay in Deed and Tale."
"It doesn't matter if the town is small and doesn't get the headlines very often, there are stories that are worth telling," said the 91-year-old.
"That's what we tried to get together: a bunch of stories that are worth telling."
Handley was born in London, Ont., but made North Bay his home for many years. He worked for local newspapers, radio and television stations, as well as teaching interviewing and broadcasting at Canadore College.
When he was the chair of the municipal heritage committee, he did a podcast on North Bay history and those interviews formed the foundation of this new book.
"The book tries to cover all sorts of different things, different aspects of North Bay history," Handley said.
"There's one on the historians with five different historians telling different parts of North Bay stories. There's one called 'The Happenings' which includes different things that happened in North Bay, of major interest."
That list includes the Dionne Quintuplets, the search for a sunken 19th Century steamship, the deadly Barry Building explosion in 1975 and how BOMARC missiles with nuclear warheads were brought into town on New Year's Eve 1963.
"We wanted in the voices of the people who lived through, wrote about or influenced different aspects of North Bay's history," he said.
"I didn't want to intrude. I wanted it to be them answering my questions without serious editorial interference. There's all sorts of great stuff in it. There's lots of railroad stories, lumbering, politicians coming out of your ears — all telling North Bay stories in their own words."