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There is a sign on the wall at Flint House restaurant in Fort Frances that Christine Cridland bought for her parents when they retired. It reads: Just because it was a bad idea doesn’t mean it won’t be a good time.

Six months later, Duane was throwing holes through the walls of a building downtown and opening a restaurant.

That’s the Cridland way.

Christine and her sister Stacey grew up at Gillons Insurance, the Fort Frances brokerage their grandfather Herb bought into. which their parents Duane and Grace eventually came to own.

The girls shredded paper, stuffed envelopes, and treated the place like a second home. They watched how their parents handled employees: the staff parties at the cabin; the loyalty that ran in both directions.

“We treat our employees like family,” Christine says. “We want people to enjoy coming to work.”

Sarah Bagacki has been on staff at Flint House since 2016, her first job in hospitality. She never expected to still be there a decade later.

“Duane Cridland lives forever in the walls and spirit of Flint House,” she says. “The question for Duane was never ‘if’ but ‘how’ something can be done.”

Duane and Grace ran Gillons for about 35 years. Retirement lasted about six months. Duane had always wanted a restaurant, and when a long friendship with a fellow Fort Frances business owner became an opportunity, he took it.

By May of 2015, renovations were underway. On November 25th, Flint House had its opening night.

The sisters have been running it together ever since.

Today, Christine and Stacey operate three businesses out of Fort Frances. Flint House anchors downtown, a restaurant built inside a repurposed heritage building where old stonework and a pressed tin ceiling set the mood.

Directly across the street, Christine owns and operates Northwoods Gallery and Gifts, where locally made jewelry, pottery, and art reflect the character of northwestern Ontario’s bush country.

About a 45-minute flight north of town, on the remote shores of Lower Manitou Lake, the family’s fly-in fishing lodge, Manitou Weather Station, has been drawing anglers to world-class muskie, pike, and lake trout waters for more than two decades.

Not many siblings can run businesses together. Christine and Stacey have figured out why it works for them: they split responsibilities, lean on each other for the hard calls, and have an honest sense of where each one’s strengths end.

“I come up with the radical ideas,” Christine says with a laugh. “Stacey figures out how to make them work.”

It’s a dynamic that mirrors what they watched growing up. Their mother was the one who made Duane’s off-the-wall ideas land. Their parents worked together as opposites who complemented rather than competed.

Both sisters were named Fort Frances Business Woman of the Year at the 2025 Chamber Awards. Not a usual outcome. They find the whole thing a little funny. “We’re a package deal,” Stacey says.

For all three businesses, the guiding instinct is the same: make people feel at home.

Whether someone is sitting down for dinner at Flint House, browsing handcrafted pieces at Northwoods, or pulling a trophy muskie out of Lower Manitou Lake, the experience the sisters are building toward is comfort, not transaction.

“People don’t need us,” Christine says. “They want us. So we have to make sure we’re putting in that effort every time.”

Fort Frances is a tourist community, and the sisters know the seasonal rhythms well. They’ve been deepening Flint House’s catering work — weddings, corporate events, group celebrations — as one way to extend the business through the year.

They’re active in the local BIA, pushing for a more welcoming downtown and a stronger experience for visitors coming through the Rainy River District.

Their kids are getting recruited into the family orbit the same way Christine and Stacey once were, helping where they can, picking up garbage at the lodge, learning the rhythms of a working business from the inside.

But when the time comes for first jobs, both mothers plan to send them somewhere else.

“We want them to have a different employer,” Stacey says. “Not us.”

It’s the kind of thing Duane probably would have said too.

Flint House, Northwoods Gallery and Gifts, and Manitou Weather Station are Fort Frances family businesses. For more information, visit their Facebook page, flinthouse.ca and manitouweatherstation.com.

On August 11th, someone will step off the roof of 1801 Hollis Street, the tallest office building in Atlantic Canada, and lean back into 22 storeys of open air over downtown Halifax.

For a few seconds, gravity will be the only thing anyone in the crowd below is thinking about. But the real story of that moment started decades earlier, and it has far less to do with heights than it does with who gets left behind when the safety net runs thin.

This is the 21st year Easter Seals Nova Scotia has hosted Drop Zone in Halifax, and in that time it’s grown from a local stunt into a national event running in ten cities across the country.

The premise hasn’t changed: ordinary people, some in costume, some pushed well past their comfort zone, rappel down a high-rise to raise money for Nova Scotians living with disabilities.

Wanda Sinclair, Director of Development and Marketing at Easter Seals Nova Scotia, has watched the atmosphere on that rooftop for years and says it never quite loses its charge.

“It’s very high energy, but it’s also participant driven,” she says. “If they know you’re nervous, they’ll take their time with you. They’ll reassure you, give you options.”

Wheelchair users go over the edge alongside first-timers white-knuckling their harnesses. HFX Spider-Man will also make an appearance.

According to Sinclair, the fear tends to evaporate the moment people trust their gear. “Once you’re in your harness, and you know how secure you feel and how much control you have, the jitters go away,” she says.

Her advice for anyone still bracing for it: “The most dangerous part of the day is driving there.”

Drop Zone is Easter Seals Nova Scotia’s single biggest fundraiser, typically bringing in somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000 in a single day. Every dollar stays in the province, and a large share of it goes toward programs that receive no government funding at all.

One of which is Camp Tidnish, a fully accessible camp just outside Amherst that runs entirely on donations and event proceeds. Unlike most camps, it isn’t built around a single age group. Children attend, but so do older folk, and everyone in between, which makes it one of the only places in the region offering that kind of open-ended, barrier-free access to a summer away.

Representing the Country 103.5 team at this year’s Halifax event is midday host Melody Rose, who isn’t new to throwing herself off tall things.

She’s rappelled before, and gone skydiving as well, so the 22-storey drop doesn’t rattle her the way it might a first-timer. “There are always a little bit of nerves right before you start your descent,” she says, “but pretty quickly you realize you’re safe, stable, and can just enjoy the best view in the city.”

Her path to becoming the station’s rappeller was less a decision than a default. “I think everyone was asked before me and they all declined because it sounded scary,” she laughs. “I didn’t have to think twice about it. I wanted to do it.”

On the day itself, a cheer zone will be set up around the building for family and friends to watch, take photos, and greet participants as they touch down.

Registration remains open for individuals or corporate teams right up until 48 hours before the event. Drop Zone typically sees between 40 to 50 people rappel each year, and there are still a few spots left for this year!

Whether that means stepping off the roof yourself or just showing up to cheer for someone who is, the view from the ground on August 11th is one worth being part of.

To pledge support for Melody Rose or register for Halifax’s Drop Zone, visit easterseals.ns.ca/drop-zone