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The Thunder Bay Port Authority is a
port authority In Canada and the United States, a port authority (less commonly a port district) is a governmental or quasi-governmental public authority_for_a_special-purpose_district.html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type of Nonprofit organization">nonprof ...
in
Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population ...
,
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, which was created by the '' Canada Marine Act'' of 1998. The 19 port authorities created by the act were 19 of the 20 most economically significant ports in Canada. The port is primarily a grain shipping port for
Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada– ...
, with approximately 85% of the cargo tonnage consisting of grain exported to ports around the world. Coal and
potash Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form.
make up most of the remaining cargo of the port, though increasingly
wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year ...
supplies going to Western Canada are also shipped through the port. In 2019, 429 ships called at the port, with 316 being domestic vessels and 113 foreign vessels. The 2019 shipping season saw an increase of 500,000 tonnes to 9.3 million for the year, with most of the increase coming through the grain sector, though white potash numbers were also up. The port authority is under the supervision of Canada's Federal Minister of Transport, and is responsible for of shoreline, of shore and of water.


History

The historical beginnings of the port lay with the
North American fur trade The North American fur trade is the commercial trade in furs in North America. Various Indigenous peoples of the Americas traded furs with other tribes during the pre-Columbian era. Europeans started their participation in the North American f ...
and French
voyageurs The voyageurs (; ) were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places ( New France, including the ...
in 1678. Fort William was erected on the
Kaministiquia River The Kaministiquia River is a river which flows into western Lake Superior at the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario. ''Kaministiquia'' (''Gaa-ministigweyaa'') is an Ojibwe word meaning "where a stream flows in island" due to two large islands (McKe ...
in 1805 in what is called the East End and the fort was soon the site of frequent canoe and ship visits, the first for the area. A second port was also established soon after at Prince Arthur's Landing, later called Port Arthur, and located in what is now north Thunder Bay. During the
Red River Rebellion The Red River Rebellion (french: Rébellion de la rivière Rouge), also known as the Red River Resistance, Red River uprising, or First Riel Rebellion, was the sequence of events that led up to the 1869 establishment of a provisional government b ...
in Manitoba, troops from
Central Canada Central Canada (french: Centre du Canada, sometimes the Central provinces) is a region consisting of Canada's two largest and most populous provinces: Ontario and Quebec. Geographically, they are not at the centre of Canada but instead overlap ...
were sent to quell the uprising via Port Arthur. A small rivalry was born between these two ports over the next decades. It was this spirit of competition that helped two communities thrive, silver was discovered there and the railroad came in the 1870s and 1880s. The cities’ building boom ended in the early 20th Century, but World War I saw shipbuilding increase in the port areas as well as munititions manufacturing. The communities of Fort William and Port Arthur competed with each other until they amalgamated as Thunder Bay in 1969. When the
St. Lawrence Seaway The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Ameri ...
opened in 1959 this meant that the port was now opened to ocean going vessels nicknamed "salties", while
Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
freighters were known as "lakers". Salties were frequently freight and container laden vessels, so Keefer Terminal opened in the same year of 1959 to serve as a freight terminal. More modernization in the form of automated grain elevators saw an increase in loading rates, with shorter stays of vessels. This led to highs of 1,749 ships carrying 16,955,937 tonnes in 1964, while the annual shipping record for the port in tonnes was set when 1,359 vessels carried 22,397,940 tonnes in 1983. The mid 1970s to the 1980s was the busiest period in the history of the port, with 1983 this peak in 1983. This was driven in part by grain shipments to Russia and ending when the Canadian government ended loan guarantees to them in 1983. Recent times have seen the Thunder Bay Port Authority decline as it struggled against economic pressures from outside. Grain shippers increasingly preferred ports on the
British Columbia Coast , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Britis ...
and grain shipments continued to decline until recent years. Both industry and shipping ventures in the area decreased and the Thunder Bay Port Authority shifted to a role as a regional service center for
Northwestern Ontario Northwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Its western boundary is the ...
and
Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada– ...
, though grain shipments continue to be the backbone of the port.


Cargo statistics


References


External links

{{commons cat Port authorities in Canada Transport in Thunder Bay