Thunder Bay Unseen

The Start of the Dawson Road

In the early days of western settlement Port Arthur was the gateway to the west.  Before the transcontinental railroad was completed (and after) Port Arthur offered the only safe deep-water harbour on the western half of Lake Superior.  This meant that almost everyone heading west came through Port Arthur.  The first major destination west of Port Arthur was the Red River Settlement.  The overland route to that settlement was called the Dawson Trail.  The name survives today in various places across Northwestern Ontario and Southern Manitoba.  In Thunder Bay the route is called Dawson Road and still marks the route west - in fact it is one of only three routes leading out of Thunder Bay in all of Canada.  All east-west traffic traveling in Canada must pass this intersection at one point.

Following the naming conventions of the surrounding streets Carl Avenue is named for the people and places in Wellington's Life.  Although its original name was Karl Avenue, in 1912 it was renamed by an amending Port Arthur by-law. The street also used to go all the way through to Dawson Street but was closed off after the construction of the Thunder Bay Expressway in order to control traffic.

The lot behind the Landmark sits undeveloped although, at one time, it had been planned as a parking lot.  The light poles were installed but the lot was not paved and the cleared ground has become overgrown. The tops of the light fixtures have also been removed. Around the bases of the lights are a number of concrete traffic barriers. There have been a number of proposals over the years to build a small strip mall on this site but, unfortunately, due to its location behind the Landmark and subsequent poor visibility the fate of this area seems to be that of a parking lot.

Zellers has been a part of County Fair Plaza since the building of the mall.  Although it is quite faint in the picture if you look quite closely at the sign you can make out the outlines of the previous sign to the left and along the bottom of the current sign.

Although now bricked over this was once the outside entrance to Bourke's Drug Store, a tenant of the mall for many years.  When Bourke's was sold and was renamed Medi-Plus it was moved from its original location in the mall.  When that happened the outside entrance was no longer needed and was replaced with a standard steel security door. The drug store's previous location was then occupied by a combined Rikki's and Bootlegger store. This outside entrance is also flanked on the right hand side by a staircase leading down to the lower level of the mall, occupied by Zellers.

The development of the lands around the mall took place before the creation of Thunder Bay in 1970.  Most of the subsurface works from the same time period bear the markings of the Public Utilities Department of the City of Port Arthur. The cover at right dates from 1967.

Running alongside to Mall property on its west end this avenue was so-named because it was the easternmost boundary of a proposed subdivision called 'Morningside'.  For decades East Avenue ran only terminated at the mall as there was a gate stopping traffic from running straight through into County Park and County Boulevard.  The gates were removed many years ago.

The Shuniah Telephone Exchange building lies within the former boundaries of McIntyre Township.  The exchange was built to service the area of Shuniah, north and east, of Port Arthur. Although the telephone needs of the area have changed over the years very few changes have been made to the exterior of the building, the most noticeable is the large CDMA Cell phone Tower behind it.

Originally part of the McIntyre Township, Jumbo Gardens once boasted its own public school.  Originally built in 1954 the building now serves as a city-owned and operated day care centre.  The students of Jumbo Gardens now journey to Forest Park School (on the other side of the Expressway) or Five Mile School (further out Dawson Road). In 2007 Forest Park school was closed and replaced the new Woodcrest Public School in Sherwood Gardens.

This street originally formed the western boundary to the Morningside development and was originally called, fittingly, Westerly Street.

One of the newer developments that is not commercial in nature is the new St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church on Hilldale Road.  Built to as a replacement for the former St. Anthony's which was located in Downtown Port Arthur, near Bay Street, the moving of this church was not without its controversy. The building, itself, is a beautiful construction of naturalistic design elements and building materials.  It can be seen from various places across the north end of Thunder Bay as well.

In front of the building is the bell from the original St. Anthony's and it is inscribed with the following: Donated by A.E Guerrard To St. Anthony's R.C. Church Father D. Tomaselli, Pastor Port Arthur, Ontario Claudo deum verum, plebem voco Congrego clerum defunctos ploro pestem fugo pesta decoro Although my Latin is somewhat rusty I will attempt a translation at a later date.