Your Greyhounds got too comfortable, eh?
Bonjour from the North — three cities, one corridor, and the stories that don't make it south of Barrie.
Okay, so I’m looking at the news, and there’s the Greyhounds losing a chance to sweep the Knights, which, tabarnak, that smarts. And the treaty payments, that's serious stuff. But then I see something that just makes me shake my head and smile, because it’s so… Sault Ste. Marie.
**The Golden Age of Chicken**
You want to talk about "only in the Sault"? We're talking about a news item from 2001, but it just popped back up. Back then, when the new Swiss Chalet was opening on Great Northern Road, near the big box stores, more than 800 people showed up looking for a job. Eight hundred! For one restaurant! Imagine that lineup, stretching past the Canadian Tire, probably all the way to Home Depot. That tells you something about a city, doesn't it? It tells you about a community that shows up, that sees opportunity, even in a rotisserie chicken joint. It also tells you about a time, before the internet was everything, when you actually had to *go* to a place to apply.
This wasn't just a restaurant opening; it was an event. It was a moment where the Sault showed its hunger, literally and figuratively. It reminds me of the boom times around Algoma Steel, not in scale, but in that collective drive. People in this town, we work hard, and we take pride in it, whether it's pouring steel or serving up quarter chickens. It speaks to the spirit of the Sault, the kind of place where a job, any job, is a big deal, and people are willing to line up for it.
* **Community Spirit:** Folks in the Sault understand the value of a good local job. * **Economic Snapshot:** It shows the economic climate and the drive for opportunity back in 2001. * **The Sault's Character:** We're a city that shows up, that works hard, and that knows how to appreciate a good thing, even if it's just the dipping sauce.
It’s easy for folks in Toronto or Ottawa to dismiss the North, to think of us as just a resource town. But this story, about hundreds of people lining up for a chance to work at a Swiss Chalet, it shows the hustle, the dedication, the pure grit of Sault Ste. Marie. It shows you what community means here, and how every job, every business, contributes to the heartbeat of this place, right alongside the rhythms of the St. Marys Rapids and the constant hum of the steel plant.
Marc-André Desjardins, Sault Ste. Marie, MiTL Sports Desk.
My buddies on the morning show, they'll be talking about this and more. Catch them live at mornings.live.