Ribfest finishes its four-day run today, a brand-new monthly market opens in Shuniah, and the model trains are out at the heritage park on Highway 61. Then a golf classic turning 25, classic cars on Dawson Road, a Tuesday run around Boulevard Lake, Bryan Adams alone with a guitar — and a cricket final at Current River. ✅ Sunday and Monday both carry a chance of showers, so check with the organizer before you head out to anything outdoors.

Sunday, August 30

Monday, August 31

Tuesday, September 1

Wednesday, September 2

Thursday, September 3

Where's the best slice in town? Which counter pours the coffee worth getting out of bed for? We stopped guessing and handed the question to you. 15 categories, about two minutes, one ballot per person.

Voting closes Saturday, September 5. Winners run right here on Tuesday, September 8, with a write-up on every one.

Back the places you actually love — then go tell them you did.

✅ NO WEATHER ALERTS IN EFFECT

Environment Canada had no watches or warnings posted for Thunder Bay as of Saturday evening. Latest alerts at Environment Canada.

☁️ Sunday, August 30 — Thunder Bay

Overnight low 16°C

Cloudy · 30% chance of morning showers · humidex 25 · east wind 20 km/h in the afternoon · UV index 6 (high)

Shebandowan spent most of this year without a fire service. The department shut down in January after the chief retired and volunteer numbers ran out; David Delzotto was appointed chief in March and told to rebuild it. He has — about a dozen volunteers have signed on, a mix of year-round residents, seasonal cottagers and people who live in the city but have ties to the area. They are now certified for wildland firefighting through the Ministry of Natural Resources, which matters more than it did in the spring: the Fort Frances 14 fire came close enough this summer to put Shebandowan under an evacuation alert. Volunteer firefighter David Bel called it “one of the closest fires that we have experienced here.” The crew is working through first aid and first response training now so it can also answer highway collision calls, with exterior attack and auto-extrication training still to come. As Bel put it: “Maybe a fire crisis or forest fire crisis brings out the volunteers again.”

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For a four-year-old, the bus is often the scariest part of starting school. Saturday at Confederation College, the 33rd annual First Rider program let incoming kindergarten students get that first ride over with — families booked a time slot, boarded, went for a short loop around campus and reviewed bus safety with instructors on board. Craig Murphy of Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay says the point is the nerves, for parents as much as kids, and that the program has run long enough that parents who rode it as children are now bringing their own. Driver Lisa Rioux, nearly 20 years behind the wheel, has helped out for more than a decade: “I want them to have a happy and pleasant experience.” One note for the first week — Murphy says operators are still working through a driver shortage, recruiting and raising wages, but expect every route covered when school starts.

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The August 19 decision to close every Workplace Safety and Insurance Board office in the North — Thunder Bay, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and Timmins — is drawing steady fire. It affects more than 180 northern staff and 466 across Ontario, with services consolidating into seven southern locations. Janice Hobbs Martell, who founded the McIntyre Powder Project and has spent a decade helping retired miners file claims, calls it a “callous disregard for Northern Ontario workers and their families” — her point being that the people who need WSIB most are often in their 70s and 80s, sometimes without a printer, a scanner or reliable internet, and that moving the process online “does not serve people.” Staff have been offered relocation south, which she says is unrealistic for anyone with a house and a support network here. The Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association has now asked the province to pause the closures outright.

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🗳️ Your call: Modernizing a claims system, or pulling services out of the region that files them. Where do you land?

The Mole Mobile — a van staffed by dermatologists offering free skin cancer screening, run with the Canadian Dermatology Association — spent the past few days in Thunder Bay, at County Fair Plaza on Friday and the Arthur Street Marketplace on Saturday. It is one of two touring the country from May to October, and the reason it exists is a number worth knowing: Canada has one of the world's lowest ratios of dermatologists to population, and waits to see one are long. Dr. Mark Kirchhof, on the road with the van, says he regularly meets people who ignored a spot for years — often because they have no family doctor — and got into the system only through a clinic like this one. Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in Canada and rates are climbing. If you missed the van, the takeaway still stands: get a changing mole looked at. Next stops are Parry Sound Sept. 4, North Bay Sept. 5 and Sudbury Sept. 6.

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