Portal:Ontario

The Algo Centre Mall (legally Eastwood Mall since 2005 but almost never referred to as such) was a mall and hotel located near Highway 108 in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. It was the largest commercial complex in the area. When the community was hit by uranium mine closures in the 1990s, the complex gradually refocused, hosting multiple services, such as a library, constituency offices, and public health offices. In the years leading up to 2012, many businesses located in the mall either closed or moved to outside locations. Still, the mall was a community hub, with most of the area's clothing stores and its largest grocery store, employing upwards of 250 local residents. It accounted for 10% of the community's retail space and 6% of the total wages.

The mall was plagued by structural problems and leaks throughout its history. It underwent a partial structural failure on June 23, 2012, when a 12m x 24m (39'-by-79') segment of the rooftop parking deck collapsed into the building, crashing through the upper level lottery kiosk adjacent to the food court and escalators to the ground floor below. Two people died in the collapse and more than 20 people received non-life-threatening injuries. An investigation and class action lawsuits into the collapse are ongoing and the mall has been demolished.

The city of Elliot Lake purchased the vacant former Algo Centre Mall site in 2019, as the first stage in redeveloping the land for new residential and commercial uses. Part of the site will be retained by the city as a municipal "community hub" project, while the rest of it will be sold back to residential and commercial developers. (Full article...)

Thomas John Thomson (August 5, 1877 – July 8, 1917) was a Canadian artist active in the early 20th century. During his short career, he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels and approximately 50 larger works on canvas. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes, depicting trees, skies, lakes, and rivers. He used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's accidental death by drowning at 39 shortly before the founding of the Group of Seven is seen as a tragedy for Canadian art.

Raised in rural Ontario, Thomson was born into a large family of farmers and displayed no immediate artistic talent. He worked several jobs before attending a business college, eventually developing skills in penmanship and copperplate writing. At the turn of the 20th century, he was employed in Seattle and Toronto as a pen artist at several different photoengraving firms, including Grip Ltd. There he met those who eventually formed the Group of Seven, including J. E. H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Frederick Varley, Franklin Carmichael and Arthur Lismer. In May 1912, he visited Algonquin Park—a major public park and forest reservation in Central Ontario—for the first time. It was there that he acquired his first sketching equipment and, following MacDonald's advice, began to capture nature scenes. He became enraptured with the area and repeatedly returned, typically spending his winters in Toronto and the rest of the year in the Park. His earliest paintings were not outstanding technically, but showed a good grasp of composition and colour handling. His later paintings vary in composition and contain vivid colours and thickly applied paint. His later work has had a great influence on Canadian art—paintings such as The Jack Pine and The West Wind have taken a prominent place in the culture of Canada and are some of the country's most iconic works. (Full article...)

• ... that Doug McMurdy was the inaugural winner of the Red Tilson Trophy, given to the most outstanding player in the Ontario Hockey League each season?