Council sits tonight for the last time this term. Midweek is quiet, the theatre season opens Thursday, and then it stacks up — the waterfront lit up Friday evening and a rock show at the Auditorium the same night, then a race at Chippewa and a convention on Arthur Street come Saturday.

Tuesday, September 15

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 Monday evening. The thing to plan around is the wind: overnight showers clear before morning, then a west wind picks up to 40 km/h and gusts to 70 through the day. Secure anything light in the yard.

🌤️ Tuesday, September 15 — Thunder Bay

Overnight low 7°C

Mainly cloudy with a 40 per cent chance of showers. Wind becoming west 40 km/h gusting to 70 in the morning. UV index 3 — moderate.

The Canadian arm of EDF, one of the largest electrical utilities in the world, has partnered with Fort William First Nation and Red Rock Indian Band on the Northern Breeze Wind Project — 35 turbines, 200 megawatts, spread across a large stretch of unincorporated land mostly east of Jacques Township and east and northeast of Pike Lake Road. A mast went up out there last year to measure wind speed, and site evaluations are still running. It is one of two wind projects the province's electricity system operator approved for the Thunder Bay and Nipigon areas earlier this year.

The first chance for anyone to turn up and ask questions is Wednesday, October 14, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Oliver Road Community Centre. A written draft description of the project can be read now at the Lappe Ski Centre on Kam Current Road, and on the project website. If the environmental studies come back clean and the approvals land, the developers expect the first power in late 2029, over a projected 20-year life.

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Thunder Bay's mayor has had strong mayor powers since 2023, when outgoing mayor Ken Boshcoff asked the province for them over the objections of much of council — then delegated several of them straight back. This fall is the first time voters pick a mayor knowing the job comes with them: the authority to hire and fire the city manager and some senior staff, create council committees and appoint their chairs, veto certain bylaws on provincial-priority grounds, and propose or set direction for the budget.

Newswatch asked all ten candidates where they stand, and eight answered. Moe Comuzzi and Trevor Giertuga would give most of them up — Giertuga keeping only the budget lever, and only to pull down a tax increase he thought residents could not wear. Peter Diedrich set a “very, very, very high bar” and said he would go back to the public before using any, though he sees proposing a budget as ordinary mayoral work. Volker Kromm and Doug Vincent would hold on to them without promising to use them. Aldo Ruberto and Wolfgang Schoor were the most open to it, Ruberto pointing at the shelter-village reversals as the sort of mess the powers exist for. Shane Judge, who announced Monday that he is pulling out of the race — too late to come off the ballot — wanted one thing: a standing roads and infrastructure committee. Donald Baxter and Peter Panetta did not respond to repeated requests.

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🗳️ Your call: the powers are there either way. The question is whether the next mayor should keep them in the drawer or actually use them.

An 11-year-old and a 14-year-old came away with minor injuries after a school bus went off Onion Lake Road, north of Gorevale Road, at about 7:45 Monday morning. Nine people were on board including the driver, according to the OPP.

Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay says the bus's right rear wheels caught the soft shoulder on a curve; it gradually left the road and came to rest upright in the ditch, with the driver keeping control the whole way. Emergency crews checked everyone over, a replacement bus took the students on to school, and the operator — First Student Canada — has temporarily removed the driver from service for a routine driving assessment. That happens after any collision, preventable or not, STSTB said, and is “not a reflection of the driver's professionalism or ability.” The OPP investigation continues.

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A duck ended up marooned at the top of the fish ladder at the Boulevard Lake Dam — the structure that lets fish move up the Current River — and was rescued by someone who lives nearby. It was not the first animal caught in that spot. Three beavers were found dead in the same part of the dam in June.

A city crew has since pulled out a section of the grating that forms part of the fish-counting apparatus. A city spokesperson says they are watching to see whether that actually lowers the risk of wildlife getting trapped before deciding whether anything more is needed.

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2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations has been working out of 947 Memorial Ave. for a year now, and marked the anniversary last Thursday with a celebration outside the office. The organization has been in Toronto for more than 30 years; the Thunder Bay office opened because people here asked for it. “We heard from community a few years ago that they wanted 2Spirits to come to the city of Thunder Bay,” interim executive director Saige McMahon told CBC.

2Spirits supports two-spirit people, and First Nation, Métis and Inuit people at risk of or living with HIV, hepatitis C and related infections. Much of the first year here has gone into outreach in the city's encampments — food, water, clothing, hygiene supplies. Thunder Bay declared homelessness a humanitarian crisis in February, and more than three-quarters of the people counted as experiencing homelessness in the city's 2024 point-in-time count were Indigenous. Director of programming Amanda Lomas says what they have heard most often since arriving is that they should have come years earlier.

The office has also brought the Call Cousin line to Thunder Bay — a phone line where the person on the other end is an “Indigenous cousin” who can offer emotional support, help navigating services and referrals. At Thursday's event a 17-year-old jingle dress dancer from Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek danced outside the building, invited by her cousin. She talked about her grandmother, who was not allowed to practise her culture at residential school, and about what it means to be able to dance now.

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Build & Thrive Thunder Bay

Host: Robert Downing

This week's episode is about the small stale details — the hours that changed last spring, the phone number nobody updated, the address from two locations ago — and the argument that they quietly cost real customers, because most people move on rather than call to check. Ten minutes on where outdated business information tends to hide and what to do about it.

In this episode:

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