Latest news with #North Bay
National Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Post
Canadian author Giles Blunt trades thrillers for chilling love story
Novelists who deliver a profound sense of place in their writings are worth their weight in gold. Article content Take Giles Blunt, for example. His lauded John Cardinal thrillers were compelling studies in character about the personal and professional crises facing a dedicated northern Ontario cop as he struggled to navigate his way through a dangerously imperfect world. However, they were also anchored to a vividly realized landscape, black flies and all, drawn from Blunt's own North Bay childhood. Article content Article content Indeed, it was a wintry return visit as an adult that led to Blunt's first Cardinal novel, Forty Words For Sorrow. He was walking along the shores of Lake Nipissing during a near whiteout. 'You could just see the faint outline of this little island with an abandoned mine shaft on it, and I thought — what an eerie place to find a body.' With that thought he was on his way as a top-selling novelist. Article content Years later, Blunt is still talking about the importance of place in his creative imagination, only this time it's somewhere quite different — in this case New York State's mountainous Adirondack region and more specifically the community of Saranac Lake as it existed more than a century ago. Article content It's the setting for his latest novel, Bad Juliet, a doom-haunted story of obsessive love, and if it sometimes takes on the aura of a fevered dream — well, this is the sort of period setting that invites it and compels one to read on. Article content Giles Blunt Article content Article content The village began casting a spell over Blunt and his wife the first time they visited it several years ago. 'I couldn't wait to set a story there,' he says now. Article content Saranac Lake was once a renowned centre for the treatment of tuberculosis — so renowned, in fact, that when its original sanatorium could no longer meet patient needs, the entire area would evolve into a 'sanatorium' with local residents turning their homes into 'cure cottages' overseen by doctors, nurses, and public health agencies. Article content 'I was just fascinated by the history,' Blunt tells Postmedia from his Toronto home. In the strange story he has to tell, he reveals a Saranac Lake so economically stable that it can support gourmet restaurants and live theatre. Blunt can still feel the past reaching out whenever he visits. 'Private citizens had modified houses to accommodate patients — for example adding portions so patients could sit inside in the dry healthy air. You can visit today and the modified houses are still there — what an amazing thing.' Article content It's to this place, in the midst of a TB epidemic that is killing 90,000 Americans a year that the book's central figure, a failed young academic named Paul Gascoyne, comes to to eke out a living tutoring patients in literature and the craft of writing while nursing his grievances over his treatment by the wider world. His encounter with Sarah, a mysterious young woman who escaped death during the sinking of the Lusitania only to be facing mortality again through illness, draws him into an emotional drama for which he is ill prepared.
CTV News
25-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
‘Mole Mobile' stops in North Bay to offer skin cancer screening
A mobile melanoma cancer clinic pulled into North Bay on Thursday morning and will be back in action there again Friday. A mobile melanoma cancer clinic pulled into North Bay on Thursday morning and will be back in action there again Friday, where a doctor screens people for skin cancer. 'Mole Mobile' is visiting major Canadian cities with long wait times to see a dermatologist and underserved communities to help speed up diagnosis. Mole main A mobile melanoma cancer clinic pulled into North Bay on Thursday morning and will be back in action there again Friday, where a doctor screens people for skin cancer. (Eric Taschner/CTV News) Dermatologist Dr. Michael Connolly is helping Melanoma Canada by screening patients by checking for melanoma inside the mobile unit. 'This type of service should be more available to patients,' Connolly said. Melanoma and skin cancer rates have been increasing across the globe. Incidence rates for new melanoma cases have been rising on average by 1.4 per cent each year over the last 10 years. When examining patients, Connolly examines what he describes as the 'ABCs' of melanoma -- asymmetry, border, colour, diametre and evolving. These characteristics help health-care professionals recognize suspicious moles or lesions that may warrant further examination. Common type of cancer 'We check not only for melanoma, but we check for non-melanoma skin cancers, too,' Connolly said. 'Like basal cells, squamous cells and for pre-cancerous lesions.' Skin cancers are the most common type of cancer diagnosed in men older than 49 and are among the most common cancers diagnosed in youth and young adults. If detected early, melanoma and skin cancers are largely treatable. Colleen Piekarski Colleen Piekarski knows the importance of getting checked all too well. In 2013, she discovered a bump on her scalp, which turned out to be Stage 3 melanoma. (Eric Taschner/CTV News) Colleen Piekarski knows the importance of getting checked all too well. In 2013, she discovered a bump on her scalp, which turned out to be Stage 3 melanoma. Piekarski's biopsy results were serious. She had immediate head and neck surgery, where a two-inch circle of her scalp and 14 lymph nodes were removed. She then underwent intense rounds of radiation. She started a drug trial, which was unsuccessful, and she was urgently switched to another trial at Princess Margaret Hospital. After eight weeks of initial treatment, the response was going well. So, she continued to receive treatment every two weeks in Toronto for the next six months before she was able to ring the bell in 2015. Ten years later, she's cancer-free but still follows recommendations to wear a wide-brimmed hat and sunscreen when outdoors. 'It's not a little skin cancer on the surface of your skin. It is deep and it can get into your lymph nodes and into your bloodstream and it can move,' she said. Mole Mobile 'Mole Mobile' is visiting major Canadian cities with long wait times to see a dermatologist and underserved communities to help speed up diagnosis. (Eric Taschner/CTV News) She, along with her son Christopher, have organized walks for melanoma awareness in North Bay. She said she's happy knowing others are getting screened. Piekarski plans to even go to the Mole Mobile with her daughter for a quick followup. 'I think it's super important,' she said. During Melanoma Canada's last Mole Mobile tour in Ontario, more than 2,200 people were screened at 30 stops. Among them, dermatologists identified 56 potential melanomas, 148 suspected basal cell carcinomas and 36 possible cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas. The Mole Mobile will be set up Friday at Sunset Park (across from Perreault's Prime Time Ice Fishing) from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. in North Bay. On Saturday, it will be in Sudbury at Bell Park, in the York Street South Parking Lot, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. On Sunday, it will be in Parry Sound at Canadian Tire, 30 Pine Dr., from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. No appointment is needed and the free skin check will be performed by a certified dermatologist.
CTV News
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
North Bay's Voyageur 200 bike fundraiser returns next month
Voyageur 200 bike ride returns Aug. 16, with a barbecue and live music at the Four Season Club in Corbeil. The event raises funds for North Bay Regional Health Centre's aphasia support with routes ranging from 30 km for beginners to 200 km for experts.
