Thunder Bay

Sister cities

• Gifu
• Little Canada
• Duluth
• Keelung

History

Various Anishinaabe peoples such as the Ojibwa are indigenous to the Thunder Bay Area. European settlement at Thunder Bay began with two French fur trading posts (in 1683 and 1717) which were subsequently abandoned (see Fort William, Ontario). In 1803, the Montreal-based North West Company established Fort William as its mid-continent entrepôt. By the 1850s, the Province of Canada began to take an interest in its western extremity. The discovery of copper in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan had prompted a national interest in potential mining locations on the Canadian shores of Lake Superior. In 1849, French-speaking Jesuits established the (Mission of the Immaculate Conception) on the Kaministiquia to evangelize the Ojibwe. The Province of Canada negotiated the Robinson Treaty in 1850 with the Ojibwa of Lake Superior. As a result, an Indian reserve was set aside for them south of the Kaministiquia River. Another settlement developed a few miles to the north of Fort William after construction by the federal Department of Public Works of a road connecting Lake Superior with the Red River Colony. The work was directed by Simon James Dawson (see Port Arthur, Ontario). This public works depot or construction headquarters acquired its first name in May 1870 when Colonel Garnet Wolseley named it Prince Arthur's Landing. It was renamed Port Arthur by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in May 1883. The arrival of the CPR sparked a long rivalry between the towns, which did not end until their amalgamation in 1970. Until the 1880s, Port Arthur was a much larger community. The CPR, in collaboration with the Hudson's Bay Company, preferred east Fort William, located on the lower Kaministiquia River, where the fur trade posts were. Provoked by a prolonged tax dispute with…

Geography

The city has an area of , which includes the former cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, as well as the former townships of Neebing and McIntyre. The city reflects the settlement patterns of the 19th century and sprawls. Anchoring the west end of the city, the Fort William Town Plot, surveyed in 1859–60, was named West Fort William (or Westfort) in 1888 by the CPR. The land adjoining the lower Kaministiquia River became the residential and central business district of the town and city of Fort William. A large uninhabited area adjoining the Neebing and McIntyre rivers, which became known as Intercity, separated Fort William from the residential and central business district of Port Arthur. At the extreme east of the city, a part of McIntyre Township was annexed to the town of Port Arthur in 1892, forming what later became known as the Current River area. The former Port Arthur section is more typical of the Canadian Shield, with gently sloping hills and very thin soil lying on top of bedrock with many bare outcrops. Thunder Bay, which gives the city its name, is about from the Port Arthur downtown to Thunder Cape at the tip of the Sleeping Giant. The former Fort William section occupies flat alluvial land along the Kaministiquia River. In the river delta are two large islands: Mission Island and McKellar Island. Since 1970, the central business districts of Fort William and Port Arthur have suffered a serious decline. Business and government relocated to new developments in the Intercity area. There has also been substantial residential growth in adjacent areas of the former Neebing and McIntyre townships. Thunder Bay is composed of two formerly separate cities: Port Arthur and Fort William. Both still retain much of their distinct civic identities, reinforced by…

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  10,607
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  9,871
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  7,276
• American herring gull, Smithsonian Gull

  Larus smithsonianus Coues, 1862 · Aves
  5,509
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,983
• Red-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta canadensis Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  4,590
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,118
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  4,072