A civic night tonight and a weekly draw, then the theatre season opens Thursday and the week stacks up — the waterfront lit up Friday evening, a rock show at the Auditorium the same night, and Saturday brings a race at Chippewa and a convention on Arthur Street.

Wednesday, September 16

Thursday, September 17

Friday, September 18

Saturday, September 19

✅ NO WEATHER ALERTS IN EFFECT

Environment Canada had no watches or warnings posted for Thunder Bay as of Tuesday evening. Last night's west wind eases off, and Wednesday settles into an ordinary early-autumn day — sun, cloud, and nothing to plan around.

🌤️ Wednesday, September 16 — Thunder Bay

Overnight low 7°C

A mix of sun and cloud. UV index 4 — moderate. Mainly cloudy overnight, clearing before morning.

HAGI hosts a mayoral candidates' forum tonight at the Castlegreen Community Centre, 5 to 7 p.m., and the questions are narrower than the usual all-topics debate: housing you can actually live in with a wheelchair, and getting across town without being stranded. As of Tuesday afternoon, chief executive and president Ryley Hlady said Moe Comuzzi, Peter Diedrich, Aldo Ruberto, Volker Kromm, Trevor Giertuga and Doug Vincent had confirmed.

Hlady's two complaints are the ones he hears most from members. Regular bus routes have been short-staffed, and riders tell him about cancellations on the way to work — an hour's wait at a stop is an inconvenience in September and something else in January. And Lift+, the specialized paratransit stream, he calls a great system with hit-and-miss access: people setting an alarm for 8:30 a.m. to start phoning for a ride a week out, sometimes getting a trip one way and not back. On housing, his point is about who is missing from the conversation — the people who need an accessible apartment and cannot find one. The formal part runs two hours, with informal conversation after.

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🗳️ Your call: none of these are free, and the next council will not do all of them at once. If only one moves first, which one?

Ski Haus announced on social media Tuesday that it will leave its Brodie Street storefront — the converted house most of the city pictures when it hears the name — at the end of the 2026-27 winter season. It is not going far: down and across the street into the space The Bargain Shop used to occupy. “It's a Victoria Avenue address but it's on the same block of Brodie Street,” owner Steven Scollie said.

The move is a bet on the south core. That Bargain Shop unit was one of the storefronts that faced inward to Victoriaville Mall; once Victoria Avenue reopens to traffic and pedestrians for the first time in decades, it becomes an ordinary street-facing shop again. Scollie called the demolition a no-brainer and says the benefits are already showing — the South Core Roar, historical facades like the Chapple Building back in view, the sun setting down Victoria Avenue. The new space is a bit over 7,000 square feet against roughly 4,000 now, counting every nook and cranny. The shop has moved once before: his father Bill Scollie and partner Bill Shane ran it from a Victoria Avenue East space near Simpson Street from 1963 to 1973. Steven took over formally in 2017, though he says he has basically been there his whole life. The nostalgia, he says, comes with him.

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Two laws passed by Lac Seul First Nation came into effect Tuesday, and they apply to members and visitors alike. Under the trespass law, non-members now need authorization to be in the community unless they are simply passing through and not doing anything on the prohibited list — which runs from distributing illegal drugs to camping and fishing. The First Nation says it reaffirms that reserve lands are for the use and benefit of its people and gives council another way to remove people who are “uninvited and hurting our people.”

The second, a community safety law, applies to band members and lets council set an assessment process, with reason, to determine whether someone poses a threat to the community — described in the release as urgent but fair action tailored to the specific behaviour. Both sit on top of work already under way: treatment, a harm reduction van, the annual drug awareness walk, cameras at the community boundaries, AA in Frenchman's Head and Whitefish Bay, body cameras and a canine unit for the Lac Seul Police Service, and a response coordinator for mental health calls. Information sessions for community members are being scheduled.

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Thunder Bay police laid 276 charges between September 6 and 11 in a project aimed at back-to-school safety and aggressive driving, running mornings, afternoons and evenings across the six days. More than 110 of those were speeding tickets. Five were stunt driving by speeding, two of them for racing.

The rest of the list is the usual mix — careless driving, unsafe vehicles, a prohibited display screen visible to the driver, commercial vehicle charges, driving under suspension — plus provincial summonses for no licence, no insurance and no permit. Eight Criminal Code charges came out of it as well, including dangerous operation, impaired operation, refusing a breath demand and driving while prohibited.

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The fall dates are posted. Fall 2026 Leaf & Yard Waste curbside collection runs October 6–16 and again November 3–13, on your regular recycling day. Use kraft paper bags only — no bag or bundle limit, but keep each one under 18 kg (40 lbs). Branches and sticks go in twine-tied bundles under 1 metre long and 61 cm around, same weight limit. Grass clippings are not accepted; leave them on the lawn.

The basics:

Dates confirmed on the City's Leaf and Yard page, September 15, 2026.

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