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| The Sleeping Giant in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada |
Thunder Bay "The Land of the Sleeping Giant"
Thunder Bay is one of the most beautiful cities in all of Canada. Thunder Bay was an amalgamation of the former twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur which are cities in the natural picturesque are of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. Thunder Bay is also the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario with a population of over 122,000 people, and the second most populous in Northern Ontario after Greater Sudbury. It is made up of Oliver Paipoonge and Neebing, townships of Shuniah, Conmee, O'Connor and Gillies and the Fort William First Nation. The area of Thunder Bay was previously a famous meeting place called Old Fort William which was a European settlement in the region founded in the late 1600s with a French fur trading outpost on the banks of the Kaministiquia River.
Thunder Bay was officially formed as a new city in 1970 by the joining of the cities of Fort William, Port Arthur and the geographic townships of Neebing and McIntyre. Its protected deep water port is an important strategic link in the global shipping of grains and other products from western Canada through the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Seaway to the east coast and rest of the world. Vast green lush forests, grain elevators and small manufacturing played significant roles in the city's economy for many years. They have declined in recent years, but have been replaced by a "knowledge economy" based on medical research and education.
Thunder Bay is headquarters to educational excellence institutions such as Lakehead University and also to one of the newest and most successful research hospitals in Canada, the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute where patients receive some of the highest standard of medical care in the country.
The area has also become one of the most important mining areas on the planet with new discoveries of gold, silver, iron ore, diamonds, palladium and chromium.
The city takes its name from the immense fresh water bay at the head of Lake Superior, known on 18th-century French maps as Baie du Tonnerre or "The Bay of Thunder." Thunder Bay is also referred to by the tourist, students and business people as the "Lakehead" or "Canadian Lakehead" because of its location at the end of Great Lakes navigation which is considered the center of Canada and the deepest inland port in North America. If you are a global tourist, looking for business opportunities, an environmentalist, a hunter, fisherman, or a student of the new world searching for a higher quality of life then you must visit Thunder Bay. The Land of The Sleeping Giant is waiting for you.
