Mayor of Cole Bay

Quick Facts - Leonard can be found meeting with executives trying to get businesses to either locate in Cole Bay or invest in the people there, or you can find him working outdoors, enjoying Nature's Bounty

Basically I moved to Cole Bay 17 years ago from Buffalo, to marry my wife Shirley. I have been here ever since. As soon as I moved here, I got a job with Marple's as a maintance worker for North Haven Lodge. I have been there ever since. This is my first term as mayor as well.

As a maintance worker the job is pretty easy, but the hours are long. I wake up early in the morning (6:00), and check all the equipment out. I have to make sure each motor on every boat works, and is gassed up ready to go before any of the customers leave to go fishing. After breakfast, there is clean up and repair duties, and attending to the customers needs. You have to be a real handy man to work at the lodge. You have to know how to repair small engines, do carpendary work - Jim Marple has a wood lathe and turns out logs for cabin building, fix the plumbing, and small electrical repairs. My work day usually ends at around 9:00 to 11:00 at night. As I said the hours are long, and not too many people want to put those hours in, but the work is real enjoyable.

I like meeting the tourists. They come from all over Canada and United States. A lot of people are real interested in how the log cabins are built, and would dearly love to have one of those cabins as a home or cabin back where they live. A guy could have a good job if he were willing to take a chance and invest in cabin building. Unfortunately, the Marples sold there interest in North Haven Lodge to the Canoe Lake First Nations. What is going to happen here now, is still up in the air. I am certainly willing to train anyone to do the job here.

As mayor of Cole Bay my main duty is the simple administration of the town office, but what I am constantly doing is battling for resources against the bigger communities. It seems the provinces only sees the bigger towns around here, and we are constantly trying to get better services for our members, but we tend to get ignored a lot. I would be nice if there was a more willingness to share, it should would make my job easier. Cole Bay is a small community with only 200 people, but it is growing. As we get bigger, we need more jobs to come to the community. There is a real traditional work attitude in the community, and people sure enjoy the outdoors. The trick is to find someone who is willing to invest in our people.

Right now our kids are our future. We are teaching them some of the basic skills to survive - respecting nature and don't be afraid to work with your hands. We see our kids having great opportunities with the school. Right now even my youngest boy teaches me everything about the computer. Its hard to think what will happen five years from now, but I hope as mayor that I will be able to bring some jobs back to Cole Bay, and that our kids will have the best education possible - that from their parents who know and love the outdoors, and the teachers will show them something about how the world works.