Northern Ontario: truly hidden treasures.

• Author: Cirtwill, Charles
• Position: Think Tank

Eight, double zero, five, six, five, seven, four, two, one. That's eight, double zero, five, six, five, seven, four, two, one. Since the 1970s, that ditty has been bouncing around in my head. Sung to a catchy beat in the unmistakable tones of Stompin' Tom Connors. It was then (and still is today) the phone number to call for Prince Edward Island tourist information. Go ahead, try it. You know you want to.

This campaign, almost 50 years along, is still to me the epitome of effective tourism marketing: clear, concise and constant. Now, I realize that not every province or region is going to be blessed with a talent as singular as Stompin' Tom, so let's discuss today, something a little bit more mundane: signage.

Everyone can have signs. Good signs. Useful signs. Informative and simple to understand signs. Predictable, consistent, regularly spaced, and useful signs. Northern Ontario doesn't.

Believe me, I would like to sugarcoat this. I would like to hold up the examples showing we know how to tell people where they are, what cool things they can find nearby, and where they might be able to get gas, food, accommodations or other creature comforts. But, with some remarkable-for-their-isolation examples, we do not.

In the last three and a half years I have been on every major and almost every secondary highway in Northern Ontario (northeast and northwest) and a lot of roads smaller than that (including the Caramat Road--wheee). I have seen one, count it, one "distance to next gas" sign. It is just outside of Timmins heading towards Sudbury.

Our "distance to community x" signs are only slightly more frequent. Get much beyond Thunder Bay or Sudbury, however, and they shrink to postage stamp size. Signs showing what services are available at the next exit? Rare. Signs indicating the hours of operation of gas stations or tourism centres? Oh, please. Public signage for tourist attractions, museums and other services or attractions? Don't get me started.

All of the signs I have listed are available in standard formats and used routinely elsewhere. On a recent road trip from Thunder Bay, Ont., to Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and back, I checked. Nova Scotia has them, P.E.I, has them, New Brunswick has them, Quebec has them, southern Ontario has them, heck even the Parry Sound region has them.

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