What makes Thunder Bay important? Culturally, it's our diversity

A diverse cultural makeup, and a large immigrant population nearly a century ago,helped to turnThunder Bayinto one of the most important cultural cities in Canada.

CBC Thunder Bay is asking this week, 'What makes Thunder Bay the most important city in Canada?'

• What makes Thunder Bay important? Economically, it's our location

Michel Beaulieu, the chair of the history department at Lakehead University, said the culture of the city hasa strong link to the economics of the first half of the century.

"It was a prime destination for immigrants from Europe," he said. "Up until the 1950's, remarkably, Thunder Bay was per capita, the most ethnically diverse place in Ontario. So, not in sheer numbers, but per capita, you had representation from all parts of the world."

Beaulieusaid the area was also the site of the first Metis communities in Ontario, after the fur trade collapsed in the 1800s.

"You also have the rich intermingling of cultures that occurred in terms of immigrant cultures, but also in part of Indigneous and non-Indigenous cultures."

Early promotion of the Lakehead

Beaulieu points to a film made by the provincial film bureau in 1924 as to showing what role the city played in culture a few generations ago.

"It was a film to promote and boost the province to the world.'

"The plot is very simple. A pharaoh, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh wakes up in 1924 and has to seek out the most economical, cultural, and socially best place in the world, and comes to Port Arthur and Fort William."

Beaulieusaid the premise of the film shows the perspective those with power at the turn of the century had for the Lakehead.

He said even a visit by Sir Arthur ConanDoyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, who also bought property in the area, and touted the region as the 'next big place' in Canada.

"If you go back to the 19th century, Fort William was on international maps. Very few places else in Canada were, but Fort William was, largely in part because of the legacy of the fur trade."

Art and politics

Contributions to art, by the likes of Mary Riter Hamilton, who is touted as being Canada's first female artist, and Norval Morrisseau, with his contributions to the woodland style of Indigenous art are also prominent cultural contributions stemming from the Lakehead.

Those cultural contributions also stem from political leaders, like BoraLaskin and CD Howe, said Beaulieu.

"Not only was he a Chief Justice for the Supreme Court of Canada, but he was the first Jewish Justice to sit on the Court. In a matter of federalism, he was one of the most aggressive supports of federal powers."

"That has profound impact on everything we do today in terms of looking at the country, issues of national identity."