Mark Bonokoski
 Mark Bonokoski, or Bono to his friends, lives in two worlds, and has the best of both — first as a gritty, award-winning columnist and National Editorial Writer for Sun Media for half the week, bunking into a basement squat in one of the dodgier parts of Toronto (or occasionally in a seedy hotel in Ottawa), and then escaping for the rest of the time at his country home on the shores of Baptiste Lake, near Bancroft.
Mark was honored in 2004 with a National Newspaper Award citation for column writing, and has been a frequent winner of the Dunlop Award as Sun Media’s top columnist.
A graduate of the Ryerson University journalism department, his career as a columnist began in 1977, after serving as a general-assignment reporter with the Calgary Herald and the Windsor Star, before joining the Toronto Sun in 1974.
Between 1988 and 1991, he served as Sun Media’s European bureau chief, stationed in London, Eng., covering such international events as the escalating troubles in Northern Ireland, the terrorist bombing of the Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the coming down of the Berlin Wall, and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. He also travelled extensively in southern Africa.
In 1991, he was named Editor of the Ottawa Sun and, in 1997, he was named the newspaper’s Publisher and CEO.
He returned to his writer’s roots in 2000 as National Affairs columnist for Sun Media, in Ottawa, and then returned to the Toronto Sun as a columnist in 2002, and was later appointed National Editorial Writer for the Sun chain in September, 2010.
To stretch his legs with longer pieces, he has had his freelance work published in Maclean’s and Reader’s Digest.
As well as Outdoor Journal Radio, Mark's radio commentaries can be heard weekends on the Haliburton Broadcasting Group network of Moose-FM radio stations north of the 905.
He has also availed himself as an instructor to fourth-year students at Ryerson University's School of Journalism.
Links:
Toronto Sun
Moose Country
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Mark Bonokoski - December 25 2010 |
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December 25, 2010 |
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I went to bed last night, not with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, but with visions of being on Angelo Viola's boat — fishing for big bass at some exotic locale for a taping of a Fish n Canada show.
It was as if I were a kid again.
Maybe the invitation is under my Christmas tree, like the needle in the hay stack, or the proverbial pony under a pile of manure.
One can only hope.
I have been a weekly part of this radio program for well over two years now, providing insight, a few laughs, and even an occasional bit of sadness, but not once have I been invited aboard Angelo's boat.
Okay, a few weeks ago, he invited me — at the 11th hour — to go fishing with him for walleye on the Bay of Quinte but, lord love a duck, it was November.
I may be a Polack, but I am not a dumb one.
Give me the dog days of summer, Ang — when the fish are jumping, and the cotton is a T-shirt.
Not November, the year's ugliest month.
I have fished with some of the best in pro-am tournaments over the years — Denny Brauer, O.T. Fears III, Bob Izumi, Big Jim Crawford.
But never the best. And the best is Angelo Viola.
Will he come through for me now?
After all, it's Christmas Day. Christmas Day in the morning. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_12_25.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - December 18 2010 |
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December 18, 2010 |
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Up in my neck of the woods, on the shores of Baptiste Lake, there are two times of the year when I cross my fingers that my cribbed docks will survive the onslaught.
One is ice-in; the other, ice-out — with ice-out being the worst.
But I am not so sure about this year.
As the lake sealed itself in ice this year, its level was way too high — so high that my docks are almost under water.
This is not good.
I now suspect my docks will be toast come spring, and it will cost big money to fix the damage.
The water level on Baptiste is controlled by a dam managed by the MNR and the fear, of course, is in letting out too much water and flooding the town of Bancroft a few klicks downstream.
This, too, would not be good.
But, unless the water was brought down at least a foot when I was off in Toronto, there will be tonnes of damage on Baptiste Lake during the spring melt — to docks and shoreline boat houses.
No doubt listeners with cottages share similar concerns. Mother Nature can be cruel enough when she gets angry. Past days have reminded us of that.
So she doesn't need any help. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_12_18.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - December 4 2010 |
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December 4, 2010 |
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A few days before I joined the boys live last Saturday at the Outdoor Show at Toronto's International Centre, I tended a fundraising dinner for Gerry Ouellette, the MPP for Oshawa, and former Minister of Natural Resources under Ernie Eaves.
He was the best at the job of any minister I've ever seen, and I hope he doesn't take that as an insult considering how bad the Liberals have been.
Ouellette is an outdoorsman. He knows his stuff.
The Liberals, meanwhile, know diddly.
Just my opinion, of course, and I've been wrong once — back when I thought I was wrong, but wasn't.
Anyhow, Ouellette begins talking about the log cabin he and his wife are building – right down to felling their own timber and hand-pealing the logs.
And he hauls out this one picture of him lugging a nine-foot log on his shoulder — it must be at least 500 lbs — as if it hadn't been photo shopped.
Which he claimed it wasn't.
In order to convince me, he then proudly tells me on-and-on about his now-wrecked back, the hernia and the grapes of wrath he developed lugging stuff that belonged on a fork lift.
In the end, I believed him. I just hope he puts the picture on his website.
I get hemorrhoids just thinking about it. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_12_04.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - November 27 2010 |
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November 27, 2010 |
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Living in the Near North as long as I have, you get to appreciate the difference between city women and rural women — especially rural women who like to hunt deer and moose, as opposed to city cougars who like to hunt something totally different.
Both have their virtues.
A couple of years ago, when taking my garbage to the dump, I struck up a conversation with a rural woman who had just returned from the moose hunt with her husband, and was proud of the fact they had bagged a huge bull that had been grazing in a bog up around Lake St. Peter.
“How big was its rack?” I asked.
The woman stretched out her arms as far as they would stretch, and then said — “Twice this.”
It was some huge moose rack.
Now, the difference between city women and rural women can be summed up — at least somewhat — by what this moose-hunting woman said when I asked her where the rack would be put on display.
She didn't hesitate a second.
“I don't care what anyone says,” she said. “But that rack's going up in my kitchen.”
Try finding a city woman with that kind of mindset.
Trust me, you won't. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_11_27.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - November 20 2010 |
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November 20, 2010 |
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Back when I was the European bureau chief for Sun Media, I spent a lot of time in gay Paree — no, not that kind of “gay” if you know what I mean, not that there is anything wrong with it, of course — but could not bring myself to eating a slab of old dobbin.
Horse meat was everywhere. In the super marche, for example, there was more horse meat to be found that beef. And you could buy anything at this super stores, including a saddle.
One rather drunken afternoon in Aix-en-Provence, a friend of a friend who lived there took us out to dinner, and insisted on doing the ordering.
That was fine with me, cause I was legless.
When the meal was over, and as we got even more legless on after-dinner stickies, he asked us what we thought of the horse steak.
I just about tossed my cookies back on the plate, but somehow I managed to keep the stomach rumblings from erupting.
If I had known it was horse, I would not have been able to eat it, even though it was smothered in some kind of sauce.
Don't know why. Its just the way it is. It's like how I cannot eat rabbit because it lies on your plate looking like a skinned cat.
And that's a good enough reason for me. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_11_20.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - November 13 2010 |
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November 13, 2010 |
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After all these moons, I have finally figured out why Saskatchewan has never bought into the idea of spring-forward, fall-behind, and why going to standard time has me suffering from jet lag.
It's the animals.
Animals, at least farm animals and pets, could not give diddly-squat if the clocks go back an hour in the fall as long as they get fed when they are used to being fed.
Routine is essential. And if your 7 a.m. is now their 6 a.m. because the clock has gone back, then so be it. In their mind, 6 a.m. is still 7 a.m., and it is time for their daily routine to begin.
Take Arthur the Airedale for example. When the clocks went back last Sunday morning, do you think he gave a damn?
No, instead of waking me up at 6:30 for his morning walk and constitutional, he is now waking me up when the clock shows 5:30.
Arthur the Airedale is 15 years old, and you know the expression that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
So it is up to me — and I am not exactly a young dog any more — to follow his pattern or end up risking a rather large mess on the carpet.
So much for an extra hour's sleep. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_11_13.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - November 6 2010 |
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November 6, 2010 |
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If you happen to hear an echo, it's because I am recording this from a ghost town.
No one is home.
Everyone has buggered off to go deer hunting, which means you could shoot a cannon down the main street of Bancroft and hit nothing until the cannon ball slammed into Posie's Flower Shop at the end of the street.
Last Saturday, just after this show aired, I drove into town and watched the salivation being among the orange blaze crowd as they loaded up on enough ammo to bring al-Qaeda to its knees.
The hunt was less than 48 hours away.
Nearly all the half-ton trucks that pulled into the Canadian Tire gas bar had their cargo beds weighed down with so many apples destined to be deer bait that I thought it was a Johnny Appleseed convention.
The next day it snowed, at least up Maynooth way, and every hunter who had a camp up there was salivating even more.
A little snow, of course, is great for tracking deer, and well as following the blood trail.
Last year it didn't snow at all, and the faces were as long as Princess Anne's.
Disappointment reigned.
It was a sad sight to behold. |
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_11_06.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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Mark Bonokoski - October 30 2010 |
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October 30, 2010 |
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Tomorrow is Halloween and, every year, we load up with enough candy to have every kid in Hastings-Highlands on a sugar high that will last until every tooth in their head is riddled with cavities.
It's a total lost cause, though.
Last year not a single goblin knocked on our door. No ghost. No witch. Not even a kid dressed up as a monster muskie.
Same with last year. And the year before that.
And I don't blame the kids.
Even compared to the most desolate subdivision in the GTA, we live in the middle of nowhere — in the bush, and down a long dark lane that looks the entrance to the black hole.
There is no street light. In fact, there is no indication at all that, at the end of that long dark lane, there is anything there at all.
In fact, it's too spooky for words.
More than once, while walking the dog on one of those pitch black nights, I have found myself falling into the small ditch that runs beside the lane.
And I was sober each time.
Still, we buy a ton of candy — just in case.
Truth be known, though, we buy it for the memories of the days when we took our daughter on the rounds back when we lived in Ottawa.
In other words, we buy it for ourselves. |
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Links:
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Toronto Sun
Moose Country |
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odjradio.com_mark_bonokoski_10_10_30.mp3 (Right click and select "Save As" to download.) |
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