Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

Countertops From Around the World

Enlarge Photo

By Erin Dwyer

Homeowners in Atlantic Canada will now be able to pick out their granite countertops from large slabs of the material coming from all over the world.

The first granite slab distributor in Atlantic Canada, Saint John Marble and Granite Corporation, will have two metre (sixfoot) by 3.6 metre (12-foot) polished and resined pieces of granite in a yard that have been quarried from countries such as Brazil, India, Italy and China.

“Customers are actually going to be able to come in and look at a full slab whereas before they picked their countertop from a four-inch by four-inch piece, “ said Richard Bartlett, one of the three owners of the new company.

For 10 years, Bartlett has operated Bartlett Monuments, a supplier of cemetery granite markers. But recently, he looked to expand his business into supplying granite countertops, a product that has become increasingly popular in home improvements.

“But we discovered there was no place for us to go get these slabs except Toronto and Quebec,” he said.

Partnering with Steve Thoner, based in Maine, and Chris Johnson from New York, Bartlett decided to become the first wholesale granite slab distributor in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The new business will supply the stone for granite countertops to Atlantic Canadian manufacturers.

“Later, down the road, we’ll be sourcing quartz material and any type of granite material,” Bartlett said.

Recently, the new corporation received its first container shipment of granite, including rare stone from Norway. For now, the slabs of granite will be housed in a yard at 178 Thorne Ave., but the partners hope to construct a new building in the Saint John Industrial Park before winter where customers can go to choose their slab of granite.

While the slabs will not be sold directly to the public, they will be shipped to the fabricator of their choice.

“We invite and encourage the public, when we get our full stock in here, to come choose their slab from the many we’ll have,” Bartlett said. “It will be like walking around the world.”

For more information, visit www.saintjohngranite.com or call 642-3000.

En français : Les propriétaires de maison au Canada atlantique seront désormais en mesure de choisir leurs comptoirs de granit en provenance des grandes dalles du matériel provenant de partout dans le monde.

Whistlestop Diner

It didn’t take Vanessa (Robertson) Smith long to immerse herself back into the community of Hampton.

Just a year after returning home from living in Calgary, Smith is the new operator of the Whistlestop Diner on Main Street.

For a number of year, Smith lived outside the province, working in restaurants and even managing a couple of them during a 35-year period. For the last seven years, she lived in Calgary after marrying a Canadian soldier. After he retired from the military in 2004, he asked her where she wanted to live.

“I said, let’s go home.”

Smith and her husband moved back 15 months ago. At that time, the diner was under different ownership. But when the restaurant closed earlier this year, the owner of the building approached Smith.

“He just figured it would be right up my alley,” she said.

Smith took over the lease at the end of June. Since then, she and her staff have been serving up chicken fingers, fried clams and scallops, fish and chips, wraps, sandwiches, and the house specialty she calls the Man Burger, a six- ounce patty with bacon, lettuce, tomato, two slices of cheese and onions with a side order of coleslaw and french fries.

The fast-food restaurant is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily except Thursdays and Fridays when it is open until 8 p.m.

En français : Un an après son retour à Hampton de l’Alberta, Vanessa (Robertson) Smith est la nouvelle propriétaire du Whistlestop Diner situé sur la rue Main.

Adex finds more indium

Adex Mining Inc. (TSXV:ADE) of Toronto reported good news from its latest drill results at Mount Pleasant in Charlotte County. Assays on four core samples from its 2008 diamond drill program include two samples with indium in excess of 1,000 parts per million. A re-assay will revise the results upward.

Adex hopes to develop a multi-metal project at Mount Pleasant including tungstenmolybdenum and tin-indiumzinc- copper mineralization.

Adex has contracted the engineering firm Watts, Griffis and McQuat Ltd. to prepare updated resources estimates and technical reports on the Fire Tower Zone (tungstenmolybdenum) and the North Zone (tin-indium) at the Mount Pleasant Mine Property. Since March Adex has completed 24 totalling 7,400 metres at Mount Pleasant.

En français : Les derniers tests de forage au mont Pleasant ont révélé des échantillons contenant une concentration d’indium au-delà de 1 000 parties par million.

Halifax company expands to N.B.

AHalifax company plans to get its share of the market for meetings, conventions and similar events in New Brunswick.

Downeast Destination Management, a subsidiary of the Nova Scotia firm Fraser & Hoyt, opened an office in the Fredericton area on June 30.

Rayanne Mailman, who moved from Halifax, operates the office from her home at Upper Kingsclear, but she expects the business to grow.

“We do a lot of work in St.

Andrews at the Fairmont Algonquin in St. Andrews, and Fredericton as well,” she said.

The company, in business for more than 26 years, has also done events in Moncton and Saint John. Downeast Destination Management bills itself as “the one-stop shop” for people or organizations holding meetings and events. The company has six full-time employees plus a list of contract workers.

En français : L’entreprise Downeast Destination Management, en affaires depuis plus de 26 années, a ouvert des bureaux à Fredericton récemment.

Corridor drills well

Corridor Resources Inc. (TSX: CDH) has completed drilling and logging operations at the 32nd natural gas well at McCully Field in Kings County.

The well reached a 2,791 meters deep.

Corridor and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan each holds a 50-per-cent working interest in the well. Corridor also finished the first horizontal well in the McCully Field.

Corridor has pre-sold a portion of its gas production for the coming winter season, Nov. 1, 2008, through March 31, 2009, priced at Dracut, Mass. The company will sell 5,000 million British thermal units (MMBtus) per per day at US$14.40 per MMBtu, and an additional 5,000 MMBtus per day at $15.49 per MMBtu.

Corridor will delay fracturing at the Green Gables #3 well on Prince Edward Island until later this summer to concentrate on the busy schedule in southern New Brunswick.

En français : Corridor Resources Inc. a terminé le forage et l’exploitation forestière à son 32e puits de gaz naturel dans le comté de Kings.

Buildings permits up

The city of Moncton issued 176 building permits in June, up 25 per cent from the same month last year. These permits totalled $14.6 million, down from $17.2 million in June, 2007, but still strong historically.

Moncton issued building permits totalling more than $50 million for the first half of the year. These permits do not include the new casino/hotel and provincial courthouse projects, the bulk of the new stadium on the Université de Moncton campus, and Mapleton Fashion Centre retail project yet to come.

More than 70 per cent of all permits in the first half of 2008 year were for the residential construction. At $32,480,000, the value of the residential permits represented 65% of the total value of the overall construction industry.

En français : La ville de Moncton a émis 176 permis de construction en juin, pour une valeur de 14,6 $ millions.

MFC buys aircraft

The Moncton Flight College announced the delivery of eight Diamond DA20 C1 Eclipse aircraft. Earlier the college took delivery of two Cessna 172 four-seat trainers.

This will bring the college’s fleet to 32 aircraft at its Dieppe campus, 17 at the Fredericton campus. The two-seat Diamond training aircraft each comes with a 125-horsepower engine capable of cruising at 138 knots.

Fully fuelled, the aircraft has a range of approximately 547 nautical miles. The Cessna 172 aircraft, each with a 180 horsepower engine capable of cruising at 119 knots, has a maximum range of approximately 520 nautical miles.

The Moncton Flight College is the largest supplier of commercial pilots in Canada, says chief executive office Mike Doiron.

En français : Le Collège d’aviation de Moncton, qui recevra la livraison de huit nouveaux avions, aura alors une flotte aérienne de 32 appareils.

Copper deposit bigger than thought

First Narrows Resource Corp. (TSX-V: UNO) says more detailed drilling, combined with satellite and airborne detection have indicating the potential for a much larger resource at its Chester copper project near Bathurst.

First Narrows is a mining exploration firm specializing in developing overlooked and undervalued mineral properties that offer near-term production potential.

The company is actively exploring the Chester site, which is located in the Bathurst mining camp and the Susana D’Oro Copper-Gold-Silver deposit in Mexico. The Chester site consists of three separate zones which contain copper, zinc and lead.

First Narrows plans to continue its drilling program at the Chester site in the fall in order to assess the project’s ability to support a large mining operation.

En français : First Narrows Resource Corp. déclare qu’un forage plus détaillé, conjointement avec une détection par satellite et aéroportée, indique le potentiel d’un plus grand nombre de ressources à son projet de cuivre de Chester, près de Bathurst.