Bryan Adams and a garden-centre bingo night on Thursday, a storefront country market on Friday, Johnny Cash at the Legion on Saturday — and then a Sunday that belongs to Hymers, Fort William and the Art Gallery. ✅ Thursday is sunny and 24°C; showers are a 30 per cent shot Friday and again Sunday, so check with the organizer before anything outdoors.

Thursday, September 3

Friday, September 4

Saturday, September 5

Sunday, September 6

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 — that's this weekend. Winners run right here on Tuesday, September 8, with a write-up on every one. If you've been putting it off, it's now or never.

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 Wednesday evening. Latest alerts at Environment Canada.

☀️ Thursday, September 3 — Thunder Bay

Overnight low 12°C

Sunny · early fog patches · humidex 29 · UV index 6 (high)

Bertrand Court — 65 units of row housing in the 500 block of Court Street North — has been sold by the District of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board to Matawa Non-Profit Housing Corporation. The DSSAB said in a Wednesday statement that the chance to divest came up while the board was looking at options for “regeneration” of the property, and that Matawa saw it as a culturally appropriate housing option — with the proximity to Matawa's Algoma Street Wellness Centre described as ideal for people leaving transitional housing who still need supports nearby. The apartments will keep being filled through the DSSAB's centralized housing wait list, the same as Matawa's other properties. What the board did not say is how current tenants are affected; it says a joint news release with Matawa will follow. In a city where the housing conversation has been running hot all election season, this is 65 units moving into Indigenous-led hands without a single new unit being built.

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Ground was broken Monday at Marten Falls First Nation on the Marten Falls Community Access Road — 184 kilometres and 35 bridges and culverts that will give the community all-season road access for the first time. Fewer than 400 people live in Marten Falls, about 400 km northeast of Thunder Bay, and it has been under a boil water advisory since July 2005. Chief Bruce Achneepineskum told CBC the point is getting people out and back for health, education and training without depending on expensive, thinly scheduled flights. “Health is a big one for us,” he said. The First Nation led the environmental assessment itself, roughly ten years in the making, and has signed on Hatch as engineering partner and Bird Construction to build it. “We're taking the lead in any development that happens in our territory,” Achneepineskum said. It's the second of three planned links — the Webequie Supply Road started in June, and the Northern Road Link that ties them to the Ring of Fire is scheduled to start in 2028. Many First Nation leaders and environmental groups remain opposed to mineral extraction in the James Bay lowlands.

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🗳️ Your call: a road that finally connects a community — and opens a corridor to a mineral deposit. Where do you land?

The Dew Drop Inn ran its second-to-last Have BBQ Will Travel fundraiser of the summer on Wednesday, outside Home Hardware on Memorial Avenue. The not-for-profit moves the barbecue around the city through the warm months, selling its Dewey Dogs, burgers, cheesecake and cookies, with the money going straight into program services. “We serve anywhere between 400 and 500 people a day, every day of the week, every week of the year,” finance and administration officer William Porwell told Newswatch. He credited the city's appetite as much as its generosity — the homemade Dewey sauce apparently has a following. If you missed Wednesday, the last one of the year is Tuesday, September 8, at Intercity Industrial Supply on Squier Street, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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A group of local girls has spent the season building the foundation for a lifetime of golf through the First Tee program at Whitewater Golf Course. It's the kind of story that doesn't make the front page and probably should: a sport with a reputation for being expensive and hard to break into, handed to kids who might otherwise never pick up a club — with the confidence part treated as the actual point rather than a nice side effect. TBT's video piece is worth the couple of minutes.

Watch the story →

Overview. Out in the Slate River Valley, a Dutch family has been quietly making Ontario's first farmstead Gouda since 1995. Jacob and Margaret Schep both came from cheesemaking families in the Netherlands — Margaret's mother was a world champion cheesemaker in 1975 — and emigrated to Canada in 1981, starting a dairy farm in Scoble Township, just south of the city. Fourteen years later they began making cheese of their own. In 2002 Thunder Oak won the Dairy Farmers of Canada Grand Prix for best firm cheese. In 2007 sons Walter and Martin bought the operation from their parents: Walter and his wife Joanne run the processing plant, Martin and his wife Charmaine run the dairy farm. The Gouda is still made with fresh milk from the family's own Holstein herd — no preservatives, no added colouring.

What to look for

The experience. This is a working farm store, not a boutique: quiet gravel-road countryside, a cold case you'll spend longer at than you planned, and staff who'll let you taste before you commit. It makes a good excuse for a drive, especially with the fall fair on at Hymers this weekend.

Location & Contact

Farm store hours

Final wedge. Thirty years of one family's cheese, made from their own cows, a short drive south of town. Bring a cooler.

What’s faster than word of mouth? The Harbour Beat Spotlight! Keeps you updated on what’s going on locally and connects businesses to our vibrant community.