https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Colleen-Wheaton-Mane-Attraction-Jan-12-2021.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\nMane Attraction first opened up in January 1981, in a small space behind the Audio Loft and Home Hardware. After nine years, Wheaton felt she needed more space, and moved to York Street, where Blind Forest Books is today.<\/p>\n
Then the house at 36 York Street came up for sale. \u201cAnd I thought well, bite the bullet, Colleen. Let\u2019s go for it,\u201d Wheaton recalls. \u201cSo that\u2019s what I did. And we added on to the front of the house, and it just went well from there on. That was back in \u201999 when I moved to my recent location.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of changes,\u201d says Wheaton. \u201cLike right from the Fawcett Foundry to the Enterprise Foundry, which was owned by my family, to the new building of the Royal Bank, the Scotia Bank, those new buildings going up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheaton even recalls years where rumours of Mount Allison going under, and worry about the devastation that would bring to the local economy, were top of mind.<\/p>\n
She recalls previous businesses like Steadman\u2019s and Goodwin\u2019s, and Pizza Delight when it was located downtown. \u201cIt was a booming town when I started up,\u201d says Wheaton. \u201cUnfortunately, things go down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheaton says the increase in the number of cars people owned contributed to Sackville\u2019s shrinking downtown over the years. \u201cTo me, I feel it has a lot to do with the fact that people were starting to get two cars in the family,\u201d says Wheaton, with a car always available to go shopping in Amherst or Moncton.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were not shopping in town anymore,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were moving on to bigger boxstores and whatnot, and we\u2019re stuck in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when Colleen thinks of Sackville, she\u2019s mostly grateful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful town,\u201d she says. \u201cI love it. It\u2019s given me everything that I could ever ask for. It gave me a life, it gave me an income, it gave me my family. All my siblings are here. So Sackville has given me a good life and I\u2019m very proud of the town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many different hairdressers have worked at Mane Attraction over the years, some of whom went on to open their own shops. \u201cI just said to myself, you know, I\u2019m not here to make a living off of them. I\u2019m here to let them make a living,\u201d says Wheaton.<\/p>\n
Two stylists currently work with Wheaton at the shop, where she works three days a week.<\/p>\n
Impressively, Wheaton says she still loves her work. \u201cIn 42 years, I\u2019ve never once got up in the morning and said I don\u2019t want to do this anymore,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Mane Attraction is operating under the province\u2019s revised orange level restrictions which require masks, collecting contact information, and taking the temperature of clients before they are served. Wheaton says it takes more time, but it\u2019s better than the alternative, being closed down, as hairdressers where during the October orange phase.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re self employed, you don\u2019t get paid if you don\u2019t work,\u201d says Wheaton. \u201cSimple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheaton says she\u2019s not sure when she will retire yet, though she is not planning on sticking around into her old age.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t want to be that person on the ATV news saying \u2018she\u2019s 80 years old and still cutting hair!\u2019\u201d says Wheaton. \u201cBut when I check around in Sackville and the surrounding area, I\u2019m probably one of the oldest, still working, full-time hairdressers. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a good thing or a bad thing,\u201d she says, laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gotta be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sackville\u2019s own Colleen Wheaton has been cutting hair for 42 and a half years, and she still gets up every day looking forward to her work. Not only has Wheaton had a successful and lengthy career as a hairstylist, but she\u2019s also been a small business operator for nearly as long. This month, Wheaton\u2019s York…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":33630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217,57,218],"tags":[],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33622"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=33622"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=33622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}