Free jazz at the Delta and a 5K around Boulevard Lake to open September, Bryan Adams alone with a guitar on Wednesday, coffee with the police chief and a cricket final on Thursday, and Johnny Cash covers at the Legion to close the week. ✅ The stretch is warm and mostly dry — but the wind gusts to 40 km/h Tuesday morning, so check with the organizer before anything outdoors.

Tuesday, September 1

Wednesday, September 2

Thursday, September 3

Saturday, September 5

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 Monday evening. Latest alerts at Environment Canada.

☀️ Tuesday, September 1 — Thunder Bay

Overnight low 11°C

Sunny, clouding over near noon · west wind 20 km/h gusting to 40 · humidex 29 · UV index 6 (high)

After two years of debate about where to put it, the city's temporary shelter village is nearly ready. It sits at the end of Alloy Drive, built by ModBox Modular: 80 sleeping cabins plus common buildings with a kitchen, washrooms and laundry, a gathering space, offices and on-site security. People are expected to start moving in this September — not all at once. “The intention has always been to take a phased approach,” said Rilee Willianen, the city's supervisor of encampment response. “It will start with a smaller number of units and then scale up.” There is no timeline yet for full operation; the spring goal of 20 units running by the end of June slipped on construction delays. Twelve staff hired by the operator, Demetrakopoulos Enterprises, have been out doing outreach with the city's encampment team — the theory being that people are likelier to accept a spot from someone they already know. CBC's Sarah Law also spoke to Riel Lyon, who has been in a tent on the south side for two and a half years and would take running water and a door that locks: “It would be like my own place of zen.” He is honest that not everyone will: some people he knows are too used to being on their own. Meanwhile Shelter House has been at capacity all summer, executive director Brendan Carlin says, and its street outreach program expands this month. The last point-in-time count found 652 people unhoused in the city; advocates think the real number is roughly double.

Read more →

🗳️ Your call: Eighty cabins open this month, with no date for the rest. What should the city do next?

About thirty people — family, friends and First Nation leaders — marched on Parliament Hill on Monday over the full parole granted to the man convicted in the manslaughter of Barbara Kentner of Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, who died in 2017 after being struck by a trailer hitch thrown from a moving vehicle in Thunder Bay. He was released on full parole with conditions on Aug. 13. Her sister Connie Kentner said the family was not told in advance. “There is a family on the other side of that decision, which is us. There is a community on the other side of that decision,” she said. “There are Indigenous women and girls watching.” The Parole Board of Canada said it cannot comment on the case under the Privacy Act, expressed sympathy to the family, and said it has reached out to help them register — registration being what triggers notification of hearings and decisions. Chiefs of Ontario issued a release Monday calling for a dedicated, culturally safe support service for First Nations families navigating federal corrections and parole, with a clear point of contact throughout. Ogichidaa Francis Kavanaugh of Grand Council Treaty #3 called the release “a miscarriage of justice.” Connie Kentner: “My sister was a real person. She was not just a victim.”

Read more →

Support for anyone affected by the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people is available 24/7 at 1-844-413-6649, and through the Hope for Wellness line at 1-855-242-3310.

Mark these down. The Thunder Bay Public Library will run seven candidate events before the Oct. 26 vote, covering the mayoral race, the at-large race and every ward. All run 6–7:30 p.m.:

Questions come from a public survey the library ran through August, and candidates see them in advance so they can actually prepare. Library CEO Richard Togman is moderating, and frames the whole thing as literacy: “Just like people need to learn to read and need their numerical literacy for math, being a citizen means being democratically literate.” The at-large night is deliberately looser — 14 certified candidates for five seats, set up at their own tables like a trade show, so you can walk up and ask. As of Monday afternoon 17 candidates had accepted, none declined. Worth knowing: this is the first Thunder Bay election contested with strong mayor powers on the table.

Read more →

The Thunder Bay Police Service Board has named Christy Radbourne its new executive director — only the second person to hold the job. She comes straight from the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board in Kenora, where she has been CEO and director of education for four years; the board confirmed her resignation Monday. Before education she spent about a decade in federal law enforcement in the United States, working complex fraud, domestic terrorism, internal corruption and environmental cases. Board chair Karen Machado called her “the leader the board needs.” Radbourne succeeds Mark Figliomeni, who left last February after three months to run the Municipality of Shuniah. The position itself exists because of the 2018 Sinclair Report — the late Senator Murray Sinclair recommended it after finding the board's workload unmanageable without one. It is a governance job, not a policing one: the executive director is the board's primary advisor under the Community Safety and Policing Act.

Read more →

The Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre marked International Overdose Awareness Day on Monday with a gathering built around remembrance, healing and recovery — a pipe ceremony, drumming and singing, then personal stories, dancing, a feast and cultural teachings.

Janet McQuaid, the centre's treatment and aftercare coordinator and the day's main organizer, put the reason for it plainly: “We have been in a toxic drug and opiate crisis for the last five plus years, and unfortunately, people are dying. Because there's so much stigma around drug use, it's not talked about. It's kind of pushed into the shadows.” Her working position is that people should not be shut out of support just because they aren't ready to stop entirely — “that first step is hard.”

Guest speaker Darren Fenton, a local firekeeper, described three decades of losing roughly a friend a year, and the moment reconnecting with culture turned it around for him. “That's the hard part: figuring out the storm, how to walk through that storm with our head held high.” He said his life changed sitting in front of a fire at a treatment centre. “Learning how to use that voice in a good way is why I'm here.”

What the centre actually runs, year-round:

Tawnee Thompson, a case worker with the Drug Treatment Court program, on why the cultural piece matters: it gives people “a place to know that they're welcome.”

Read more → · Friendship Centre event calendar →

Build & Thrive Thunder Bay

Host: Robert Downing · Guest: [guest]

Your Google reviews were always a shop window. Now they are training data. This week's episode makes the case that as AI assistants start summarizing businesses for people who never visit a website, the reviews sitting on your profile stop being social proof and start being the source — which means a thin, stale or unanswered review page quietly shapes what a machine tells a customer about you. It is under ten minutes, and it is aimed squarely at owners who have been meaning to deal with this for a year.

In this episode:

🎧 Listen on Spotify →

New episodes every Monday.

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.

September is the month the good stuff lands at once — new-crop wild rice, the first hard squash, and apples that actually snap. This is our own recipe and it is deliberately forgiving: warm for supper, cold from the fridge for lunch the next day, and it travels to a potluck without falling apart. The nutty chew of the rice against sweet roasted squash is the whole idea; everything else is texture.

Ingredients (serves 4–6)

Steps

Tip: if you are cooking ahead, hold back the apple and nuts and stir them in just before serving so they stay crisp.

Got a family recipe you'd love to see featured? Just reply to this email and send it our way.