Thunder Bay – Summer 2021, Part 1

Thunder Bay is a city with lots to offer, in my opinion. We have been here a few times and I always enjoy it. We always stop at the Terry Fox Memorial.  If you haven’t heard of him, he is a Canadian Icon. Terry Fox, from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, was diagnosed with cancer and had his leg amputated, he was only 18 years old. Seeing the suffering that cancer causes, he knew more money was needed in research so he started training for a cross-Canada run. In April, 1980, he dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean and proceeded to run across Canada. I can’t even imagine doing this but he did until when he reached Thunder Bay, he had to stop. Cancer was found to be in his lungs and he could not continue through the rest of Canada. He passed away in June 1981. Now every year, almost every community across Canada holds Terry Fox Runs to raise money for cancer research, raising more than 850 million since his run. Pretty impressive.

Thunder Bay has a lot to offer, an old Fort, museums, restaurants and they also have a great waterfront. They have lots of artwork on the waterfront and you can get a map and do your own tour.  Below is a set of statues donated by the city of Jiaozuo City, China. The middle statue represents Chen Wangting, the founder of Tai Chi and the other two represent Tai Chi moves. I didn’t know but apparently Thunder Bay is known as the Tai Chi capital of Canada! There is a lot to look at by the waterfront however they could use more restaurants/bars.

We went to the Alexander Henry Ice Breaker Museum which is down at the waterfront and it’s actually on the ship! Pretty cool (lol) and very interesting. We even got a senior’s rate to get on! $7 bucks each. Ethan was our tour guide and his knowledge was very impressive, he was a great guide.

Now they have some nice restaurants downtown with outdoor dining. The Foundry was pretty good. They also have a couple of breweries and I love breweries. We went to Sleeping Giant Brewery and shared a taster tray or two. Their brewery is huge and includes a large outdoor area and a store. The inside also has a lot of room for seating with one large area for the making of the beer and there is an upstairs seating area that overlooks the beer vats and rest of the seating area. The beer is okay, they have so many different kinds on tap. We actually prefer Dawson Trail Brewery, it’s smaller and they carry less types of beer but we enjoyed it more. And yet somehow, even though we liked them better, I neglected to get any photos of their building or beer. I did however get one photo of a third brewery we stopped at called One Time which had two beers on tap. Their beer was good, we purchased some to take home to try.

Well I think that’s a long enough Blog Post, I will save the rest of the excitement of Thunder Bay for the next Post….. Until then, Stay Safe.