The Good Doctor Smellie

The Good Doctor Smellie

Move through time as you walk down our streetscape past Dr. Smellie’s surgery. Dr. Smellie was another of Thunder Bay’s most prominent citizens. As early as the 1880s, he traveled the district by rail caring for patients in lumber and railway camps and mines. He also acted for years as Fort William’s Medical Officer of … Read more

Moustache Cup

Moustache Cup

A drink cup with a half moon shape inside.  This ledge allowed the person to drink but also serve as a guard to keep the moustache nice and dry.  It was invented in the 1860s by a British potter named Harvey Adams.   From 1860 to 1916, the British military required its soldiers to have … Read more

Oven

Oven

Operating from an industrial base south of Fort William’s downtown, the Copp Stove Company was the Lakehead’s foremost foundry and manufacturer of kitchen equipment in the early twentieth century. William J. Copp was an English industrialist who moved to the Province of Canada in 1842. Settling in Hamilton, Copp turned to the trade of manufacturing … Read more

Peter McKellar (1908-1929)

Peter McKellar (1908-1929)

Founding father of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society Few communities were as fortunate as Fort William and Port Arthur in having an individual like Peter McKellar. A member of one of the community’s leading pioneer families, Peter McKellar devoted his knowledge, talent and money to the cause of history. On October 2, 1908, he … Read more

Hans Krakhofer (1918-1997)

Hans Krakhofer (1918-1997)

Hans Krakhofer, artist, mapmaker and illustrator, is one of Thunder Bay’s unique artists. The works seen here represent only a small proportion of his large volume of work which also includes wood and soapstone carvings, and sculpture as well as oil paintings. A great deal of his work deals with logging, appropriate for a man … Read more

Aviation in Thunder Bay

Aviation in Thunder Bay

Few cities can match Thunder Bay for down-to-earth, consistent contributions to Canada’s aviation heritage. Yet very little of that history is known. This book will change all that by showing how much we owe to the city’s aviation pioneers, pilots, mechanics, engineers, politicians, and businessmen who contributed so significantly to the development of aviation in … Read more