THUNDER BAY -- A yellow 1976 Boler travel trailer that visited Thunder Bay over the weekend was part of an effort by business leaders in Lunenburg County, N.S. to attract young families and workers to their community.
Just like Thunder Bay, the Lunenburg area is dealing with an aging and declining population, and outmigration by younger people.
Business people decided to sponsor a cross-country tour to promote the county as a good place to move to, to work and to raise children.
Tina Hennigar, population growth coordinator for Now Lunenburg County, came up with the idea.
She took the trailer to the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition on Sunday.
As she has done throughout the tour, Hennigar talked to fair-goers and invited them to consider relocating to Lunenburg County "to discover the lifestyle that we have. I told folks about the affordable real estate that we have, that we're just minutes from many beaches and lakes, and that there are opportunities in many of the industries that we have."
Those industries, she said, include tire manufacturing, airplane parts manufacturing, video-game development, and beer, wine and jewellery-making.
Hennigar said many business operators in the area are having difficulty finding workers.
"We have lots of retirees, but we need workers," she told Tbnewswatch.com in an interview.
Hennigar found that many Thunder Bay residents had never even heard of Lunenburg, the port made famous by the renowned sailing vessel Bluenose.
She said she usually tells people to look at the Canadian dime, but added that the county is "much more than the Bluenose."
Hennigar conceded that Thunder Bay is much like many of the communities she has visited, in that many people are content to stay where they are, and have no desire to move.
But "about one in four are quite transient," move more frequently, and are thinking already about the next stop, the next phase of their life."
In chats with those people, she finds that they perk up a little bit and lean into the conversation as she reviews the merits of living in Lunenburg County.
Hennigar doesn't expect anyone to pack up their belongings and follow her back to the east coast right away, but said her intent is just to put the Lunenburg area on the radar of people who might otherwise have never considered relocating there.
On Monday morning, the Boler trailer that she calls her mobile billboard was towed out of Thunder Bay headed to Sault Ste. Marie.
