Somewhere in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a band is playing “Fat Bottomed Girls.” The song is so loud that scepticism can no longer hear itself. Citizens stand in line, drink tickets in hand. The kids are looking forward to face painting and mini golf.
Some four thousand people move through the block that evening toward the arena, where the Greyhounds take on the Saginaw Spirit. The Hounds jersey has a legendary history behind it. After all, Wayne Gretzky, Paul Coffey, and Joe Thornton once wore it. A piece of hockey nobility, freshly washed and ironed.
The opponent is a team from Michigan. Michigan, in the United States of America. Michigan versus Ontario, right in the middle of the tariff dispute — and nobody in the arena really cares. Canada stays polite, even when the tariffs hurt.
**Uncle Frank and the Fine Print of Hope**
Frank DeMarco holds a plastic cup of beer and hands out hugs the way other people hand out confetti. People call him “Uncle Frank.” His father came from Italy in 1965, laid bricks into houses, and brought along a recipe that goes by the name Chiff-Choff here. Chiff Choff is a rustic, spicy Italian-American dish made by slow-searing chicken with pickled hot cherry peppers — just a small culinary aside.
The son, Frank, became warehouse manager at Algoma Steel, the glowing heart of the city.
Tariffs up, restaurant open — Frank opened DeMarco’s Boots & Saddles Roadhouse anyway, or precisely because of it.
Then came the December surprise: a blue letter fluttered through the door. Not one, but a thousand letters stated dryly that in March, after the last shift, the employment contract would end.
Frank hasn’t missed a single shift.
**The Blue Letter and the Municipal Election on October 27**
A few streets from the arena, you stare at boarded-up windows. Connie Raynor Elliott knows them all. Her organisation hands out food and clothing, and she calls her clients “friends,” because it gets closer to the heart of the matter. After all, her friends have grown from 350 to 600 in just three years. The quote of the day won’t leave my head: “The donors of yesterday are standing in line themselves today.”
Challenger Joel Rowswell has focused on fixing the crime and disorder that come more sharply into view in socially lean times. At the doorsteps, Joel often hears the same answer, and he figures: everyone’s in a negative mood. Joel sounds like a grump. Or like the only one who’s actually listening. At the door, the difference is hard to make out. Both might be true. A city is not a slogan. A city has a local election coming on October 27.
**Staying Quiet Is Not the Same as Agreeing**
*’And then, across the Atlantic, the same question in another language.’*
On September 27, the Swiss — myself included — voted on the neutrality initiative. The SVP wanted to enshrine “perpetual and armed” neutrality in the constitution. More than seventy percent of Swiss voters said no. Not a single canton was swayed to a yes. Well, well. Foreign Minister Cassis summed it up soberly, more or less like this: Switzerland was neutral yesterday, is neutral today, and will be neutral tomorrow. So the people hadn’t voted against neutrality, but against the unnecessary escalation.
That’s a form of resistance that fits in no headline. No defiance, no flag, no shouting. *’Just a quiet no to the grand gesture. Then you go home and carry on living.’*
*’In Sault Ste. Marie, that same resistance carries another name: carrying on.’*
Frank wanted to cancel his hockey tournament in January, after so many people lost their jobs. The event was meant to raise money for young doctors, so they’d stay in the city. The laid-off workers came anyway, and they donated. Frank told the story with a trembling voice, before excusing himself. “Times can be low,” he said. “But we still come.”
In the evening, at the tables, they call out for Big Frank Burgers and Franktastics, the cocktail of coconut rum and pineapple. Frank wipes his forehead, drinks some water, and says: “It’s a slow climb.”
Homo sapiens often doesn’t react the way experts’ forecasts predict. Human nature obeys no oracle.
Peaceful resistance always comes with a sweet side dish: hope.
Canadian main spans of the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridges in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Ontario, viewed from the West Pier in 2025
I pray that the people of Sault Ste. Marie will have all their needs met. And may they find a way to smile through it all. They sound like a great bunch of people.