atikokan daylight saving (or lack of it)

[Chris Walton]

Paul,

Have you decided how you what to deal with Atikokan?
Should we:
1) update the entry for America/Coral_Harbour but not add a zone called America/Atikokan
Or
2) add a new zone for America/Atikoan and leave America/Coral_Harbour alone
Or
3) delete America/Coral_Harbour, add America/Atikokan, and update the "zonetab" + "backward" files.


For anybody on this mailing who may be interested, I was able to ascertain that
Township of Atikokan in Northern Ontario does not observe daylight saving time and keeps
the clocks fixed at GMT-5 year-round.  The practice is done in violation of the Ontario Time Act.


This is a summary of the info I obtained from Warren Paulson (Chief Administrative
Officer for the Township of Atikokan):
1) Atikokan uses Eastern Standard Time year round.
2) Residents call it "Fort Francis time (CDT)" in the summer and "Thunder Bay time (EST)" in the winter.
3) There is no by-law or official documentation governing the practice.
4) At some point in the past, the mines in the area requested (via an undated letter) that Atikokan not move the clocks.

According to Garry McKinnon (Executive Director Atikokan Economic Development Corporation), the practice has been in place since at least 1952.  Garry got this information from one of his board members who supposedly has a good memory.


What happened prior to 1952 is anybody's guess.
My guess is that Atikokan was permanently on Central Standard Time until WWII... same as neighbouring Rainy River.
During the war, the Federal government (under the power of the war measures act) forced the entire country to adopt daylight saving year-round.  I am guessing that Atikokan never set the clock back after the war was over.

-chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Walton
Sent: Mon 7/17/2006 10:50 AM
To: 'Paul Eggert'
Cc: 'tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov'
Subject: RE: atikokan daylight saving (or lack of it)
 
Paul,

Yes Atikokan could use America/Coral_Harbour.
As you pointed out Atikokan and Coral Harbour are separate locations;  they are in fact unrelated incontiguous areas separated by 1110 miles. 
I will let you decide what is best!  I don't mind which way we go with this as long as there is some sort of reference to Atikokan in the zonetab file.

If you decide to share the zone, keep in mind that Atikokan has a much bigger population than Coral Harbour; I am not sure what the implications of this are.  Would we have to rename the zone and create an entry in the "backward" file?


-chris