10. Members of Hornepayne First Nation took over Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s office at Fort William First Nation, the sit-in seeking official recognition of the band-without-a-home’s election results. NAN countered with a $150,000 lawsuit in May that resulted in a $3.4-million countersuit, but also ended the occupation.
9. Target’s brief honeymoon with Thunder Bay – and Canada from coast to coast – came to a quick end in April, when the company shuttered all of its stores north of the border. More than 100 people were put out of work locally. The good news is that Lowe’s Home Improvement is planning to fill Target’s empty space at Intercity Shopping Centre.
8. Peter Collins ousted Georjann Morisseau and was re-elected chief of Fort William First Nation, after a two-year absence. Collins promised to jumpstart the reserve’s economy, even suggesting it might make sense to build a new casino near the long-closed Big Thunder Bay Nordic facility. Collins also vowed to take on CN in the ongoing James Street Bridge battle.
7. Fire tore through the abandoned Great West Timber Mill in June, drawing hundreds of curious onlookers to the waterfront to watch it burn to the ground. Months later investigators still haven’t been able to determine the cause of the blaze.
6. The James Street Swing Bridge saga wound its way to court, nearly two years after a fire shut the Kaministiquia River crossing to vehicular traffic. City officials maintain CN is responsible for maintaining the span in perpetuity, while the railway offered to open the rail deck to vehicles one way, a move the city rejected.
5. Late in the year Thunder Bay prepared itself for the intake of up to 20 refugee families and 100 people in total, fleeing from war in Syria. City council OK’d spending thousands of dollars to help facilitate their arrival and care until permanent homes could be found.
4. An early December riot on the top floor of the Thunder Bay District Jail brought renewed attention to call for the province to construct a new correctional facility. More than 60 prisoners took over the second floor of the 89-year-old facility, taking jail guard captive. The guard and several prisoners required hospital treatment. The siege lasted more than 12 hours.
3. The Liberal’s red tide rolled through Northwestern Ontario, sweeping out the NDP and Conservative representatives in its wake. Don Rusnak (Thunder Bay-Rainy River), Patty Hajdu (Thunder Bay-Superior North) and Bob Nault (Kenora) were voted into office. Hajdu, a first-time MP, was elevated to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, named in November the Minister of Status of Women. Hajdu was one of the lead voices in December when the inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women was announced.
2. A long-awaited, much-delayed inquest into the death of seven Aboriginal students in Thunder Bay finally got under way in October. Family members and friends have detailed the final moments of several of the students who died. The proceedings, expected to take six months or more, opened with controversy when lawyers for the families of the deceased complained the court room was too small.
1. The controversial plan to build an event centre finally came to a close early in the year. Or did it? Told by the federal government the city could not use federal gas-tax funds to cover Ottawa’s portion of the $114-million downtown north core project, the city officially put the project on the shelf. But with the election of a new Liberal government in Ottawa, council brought the proposal, now in Phase 3, back to the table in December.
