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Canadian Relocation
Thunder Bay, Ontario

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THUNDER BAY BRIEF:

Thunder Bay is the seat of Thunder Bay district, on Lake Superior's Thunder Bay, at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River.

Probably first occupied by French fur traders as early as 1678, its site was permanently settled only after the birth of the towns Port Arthur and Fort William in the 19th century.

Fort William originated shortly after 1800, when the North West Company built a fur-trapping fort at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River.

Port Arthur, the Hill City, developed in the 1850s as a silver-mining settlement on the hummocks a few miles to the north. Both communities prospered in the early 1870s from silver strikes in the vicinity and again with the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1870s and '80s.

An intense rivalry that existed between the two for some time was resolved with the unification of their harbour facilities in 1906.

Plans to amalgamate the twin cities began in the 1950s, and the merger created the city of Thunder Bay in 1970.

Thunder Bay is Ontario's largest port, and Canada's sixth largest port, rated by tonnage of cargo.It is one of the largest grain handling ports in the world, with grain elevators having an estimated 2 million tonnes of storage capacity. The forest sector companies presently account for roughly 5.4% of Canada's total forest-based sales output. Thunder Bay is the site of Lakehead University.

The city population is 108,359 as of the Canada 2011 Census,; the metro population or CMA is 121,596.