GUELPH — Chaotic, yet serene may be the best way to describe the new life of a Guelph woman who moved to a northern Ontario town, a town that continues to face a financial crisis.
But despite it all, Coleen Thompson said she wouldn’t change it for the world.
“The easiest way I can put it is that even with the financial uncertainty that’s happening in Fauquier, moving here still feels like the right decision for me and my family,” Coleen Thompson said.
“The sense of community, the space to breathe, the way the people look out for each other here, that’s what’s real value and you can’t put a dollar amount on that.”
In an interview in July, Thompson said she had been looking for houses in the Guelph area, but realized it was too expensive for her budget so she started looking north.
She found a home in Fauquier-Strickland, a community of about 500 people along Highway 11 in northeastern Ontario, about an hour drive north of Timmins.
“I knew that was my forever home,” she said during the summer.
She got the house for $268,000 on July 9. On that same day, the town announced it was in a financial crisis after it accumulated an operating deficit of over $2.5 million in 10 years and had nothing left in its reserve funds.
On Nov. 3, the town said it was taking steps to reconcile some of its past spending, making moves to try and align the records with the township’s actual situation.
In a TimminsToday article on Nov. 12, the township’s deputy clerk and deputy treasurer said the deficit still stands at about $2.5 million.
A provincial audit is going to be done, as upper levels of government try to figure out a way to assist.
Thompson said she has been to several of the town’s meetings since arriving, and has been part of a group picketing outside the town hall ahead of meetings.
“I hesitate to call it a protest, but that really is what it is,” she said.
“We’re out there with our signs, we’re out there sharing our stories so you really get to understand that we’re all in the same boat, but what brought us to the boat is very different.”
Thompson said the joy she should have felt buying her first home was clouded by the news, but her biggest takeaway has been that a financial struggle doesn’t define a town.
“The community is strong, the people are kind and we are worth believing in,” she said.
Thompson, along with her 27-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter, made the move in July.
Thompson found a job in her field as a retail manager 25 minutes down the road in Kapuskasing, while her son is enjoying life and working full-time and daughter is “flourishing in a way that I haven’t seen in her in many years.”
“It’s so different, and honestly, a little magical,” she said.
“I know that sounds cheesy, but every day I drive home from work and I’m moved to tears because I look around and I remember being in the Hallmark store, picking up a snow globe and wishing that that was my life, giving it a little shake and seeing the snow fall on a cabin in the woods.
“That’s my backdrop now.”
She said she is finding great joy, but admits she misses her former co-workers and being close to family.
Otherwise. Thompson said she has no regrets about moving up north, even if there is some trepidation about her property taxes going up due to the township’s situation.
“I didn’t move here expecting perfection,” Thompson said. “I moved here for a life that felt more connected, more authentic. That part has exceeded my expectations.
"And while I know the financial part of it is still really up in the air, I refuse to allow that to design what my future looks like here, and to be a negative cloud over my head.”