The Ghost Road

Jul 18, 2025
Near North Bay, Ontario

“That’s looks interesting. Let’s circle back and check it out.” 

(Can’t read the full email – click here for the online version.)

It all began with a comment from my father. He had heard of a sighting of an uncommon bird, in a rural area some 50 minutes southwest of the city. Near the supposed location of the bird, he had stopped at a small general store to grab a bite to eat. 

Somehow, he discerned that the owners of this business spent much of the winter in Panama.

A few days later, we ventured to the North Bay Farmer’s market to see what was available for fresh, local produce. Among the 200 odd vendors, we discovered a stall that was selling locally produced beef, pork and chicken. When we asked where they were from, we were told that their place of business was located in a small community, south of Lake Nipissing.

I thought to myself, I have never been there. Nor had I ever been to the area of the general store, whose owners spent time in Panama. Maybe we should check these two spots out.

So it was that we organized a couple of half-day excursions to explore some of the rural regions south of North Bay. 

Near the beginning of one of these excursions, we passed through a small hamlet. On the left was an immaculately preserved wooden structure, with a sign that said; “Museum”.

We pulled over and turned back to check it out.

It turns out that the museum was originally a small church built around 1884. But that is not the most interesting piece of history.

The first settler family, the Beattys, arrived in the area in the winter of 1862/3 to take advantage of free land being offered by the province of Ontario. At that time there was no road, nor a railway. They traveled in the winter because they could take advantage of the frozen lakes and waterways, by which they used horses pulling a sleigh. 

The provincial government, however, did want to promote settlement in the remote regions so they began building a series of roads all over the province.

One of these connected the tiny settlement of Nipissing, which was founded by the Beatty family, with a small settlement called Rosseau, which in turn had a road to Parry Sound, located on Lake Huron – one the 5 Great Lakes. 

It is interesting that while the purported reason for this road was to promote settlement, it is much more likely these roads were built to make it easier to facilitate the export of timber, the eastern white pine specifically, for which there was big demand both in the areas of New York and Boston but also Europe.

In the end, a combination of factors contributed to the eventual decline of the village of Nipissing. Railroads were built that bypassed the area. And the enticement of large, free land in the Prairies lured most pioneers west.

Today, much of this historical road, called the Rosseau-Nipissing, is no longer in use. Some sections wind through dense bush and passes by abandoned farms, thus earning its moniker “The Ghost Road”. But this section eventually led us to the empty highway that brought us to a small and isolated store called the Mill Bay Market. 

It was here that we found more of the locally produced meats and sausages that we had found at the early city market. They were doing a brisk business. 

Locals and tourists camping in the nearby provincial park were snapping up items to cook or barbeque later. Outside there was a queue for ice cream. Around the corner, a fellow was busy with a bobcat, using it to move a boat trailer. I got the impression that they did a brisk business renting and storing boats.

What lesson can you learn this?

In a nutshell, do you offer products and/or services that are so appealing that your customers would drive through a blinding snowstorm in a vehicle with no heat and bald tires, to buy what you sell?

If not, what can you do to create such an experience or offer such value that they would do so?

To learn more on how to create such an advantage, click here to grab my free and low-cost  training.  

Until next week, 

Stay healthy and focus on profit! 

 - Hugh 
The “Profit Accelerator” Expert