Some locations are defined by the people who pass through them. In Thunder Bay, they have actually come for centuries: voyageurs paddling canoes across Lake Superior, traders carrying furs to the coast, and a boy called Terry Fox facing history on one good leg. Here on the edge of the world’s biggest freshwater lake, every journey leaves its mark.
Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope
Image Credit: Jenn Coleman. If you were an American in 1980, you likely keep in mind the Wonder on Ice, when a scrappy, younger U.S. hockey group stunned the world by defeating the skilled Soviet squad at the Lake Placid Winter Season Olympics. That very same year, another young athlete was catching hearts on a much longer playing field. In April 1980, 21-year-old Terry Fox set out on his Marathon of Hope, encountering Canada to raise cash and awareness for cancer research study on one leg. Over 143 days, he covered 3,339 miles from the Atlantic coast to Thunder Bay, Ontario, becoming the youngest Companion of the Order of Canada and making the Lou Marsh Award as the country’s top professional athlete. His run ended here on September 1, when the cancer returned. 7 months later, he was gone.
Today, the Terry Fox Monument marks the location where his journey stopped. However for travelers, Thunder Bay is frequently where journeys begin. Perched at the head of Lake Superior, this northern outpost has drawn voyagers for centuries, its landscapes shaped over a billion years, its stories carried forward by wind, water, and individuals who call it home.
A Billion Years in the Making
Image Credit: Jenn Coleman. A billion years before canoes and cargo reached these coasts, molten rock pressed toward the surface area, developing copper, silver, and amethyst, together with striking geological formations like dikes and sills. Throughout the Glacial epoch, glaciers sculpted Lake Superior’s basin and divided open Ouimet Canyon, leaving behind an unusual botanical time capsule– alpine flowers growing 600 miles south of their nearby kin.
Visitors can see the canyon from picturesque lookouts in Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park or head to neighboring Eagle Canyon to cross Canada’s longest suspension bridge or zip down the country’s longest zip line. A few miles away, amethyst mines invite treasure hunters to sort through purple crystals born of that ancient volcanic past.
The Sleeping Giant and Ojibway Legend
Image Credit: Jenn Coleman. From here, the Sibley Peninsula extends 32 miles into Lake Superior
, ending in the renowned shape of the Sleeping Giant. This series of towering mesas, formed by the erosion of diabase sills, shelters Thunder Bay’s harbor. Storms echoing off its cliffs once motivated the city’s name. According to Ojibway legend, the Giant is Nanabijou, a humane god who gifted the Ojibway people a sacred silver vein. When the Sioux looked for to declare it, they sent a scout who betrayed the secret to white traders. In anger, Nanabijou summoned a storm to drown the burglars, then set throughout the bay to protect the silver for eternity.
Today, the reach the Giant’s Head is the area’s highest-rated walking, winding through boreal forest before ascending nearly 1,000 feet to scenic views of Lake Superior. For a much shorter trek, the Sea Lion Path uses a less-than-two-mile round trip to a natural stone arch with views of the Giant throughout the water. Even non-hikers make the expedition to the 150-year-old Silver Islet General Store for fresh-baked deals with and tea. As soon as part of a mine that yielded $3.25 million in silver, it’s now a preferred stop on the Lake Superior Circle Trip.
From Fur Trade to Living History
Picture Credit: Jenn Coleman. In the early 1800s, Thunder Bay was a center for the fur trade. Fort William, then the largest fur trading post on the planet, now stands as one of Canada’s premier living history museums. Costumed interpreters bring 1815 to life, demonstrating how products from deep in the Canadian interior made their method east throughout the Fantastic Lakes. Guides also share how the Ojibway traded copper from this region as far south as Mexico centuries before Europeans arrived.
Chasing Waterfalls
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman. Simply 20 minutes from the fort, Kakabeka Falls rumbles 130 feet into a gorge. Known as the” Niagara of the North,”it as soon as presented a formidable obstacle for voyageurs. Today, boardwalks offer effortless access to sweeping viewpoints.
Less than an hour further, Pigeon River Provincial Park marks the U.S.– Canada border and features the 120-foot High Falls. Travelers can see 2 waterfalls over 100 feet high in one day and, with a passport, trek in 2 nations before sundown.
A Place Where History and Nature Converge
Picture Credit: Jenn Coleman. Thunder Bay’s story is etched in stone, whispered in legend, and celebrated in the footsteps of those who have actually journeyed here– whether in birchbark canoes, on a prosthetic leg, or in well-worn hiking boots. It’s a place where history and nature converge, motivating new generations to explore, withstand, and dream.
Hi! We are Jenn and Ed Coleman aka Coleman Concierge. In a nutshell, we are a Huntsville-based Gen X couple sharing our stories of incredible adventures through activity-driven transformational and experiential travel.