THUNDER BAY — SnowDay on the Waterfront returned this past Family Day afternoon with various winter activities for all ages.
Outdoor events ranged from the HMCS Griffon helping with a Scotties inspired Crokicurl rink and Science North hosting a Science of Snowy Sport workshop to horse and wagon rides, Youth Move events and free maple taffy.
With chilly temperatures, there was also indoor programming with the Boreal Museum, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, the Thunder Bay Museum and the Community Arts and Heritage Education Project.
“In previous years, we’ve had upwards of 10,000 people come out. So we’re really hoping that people still will come out for the programming and we’re just really excited to see the community come together and to experience all of these different snow activities,” said Karen Kadolph, the special events developer with the City of Thunder Bay.
She said this year, they also brought back their daytime programming.
“In 2023, we were very lucky. We were able to have our snow sculptures. We had daytime programming, but then it rained the day before snow day, so everything was very icy,” said Kadolph.
“We had to change a couple of our programs and that kind of stuff. And then, in 2024, we didn’t have any snow, so we weren’t able to do our snow sculptures. We did an evening type of thing and it just didn’t really work out the same as our daytime programming.”
So, Kadolph added, they were very excited that the snow finally came after they asked for it.
“For an event called SnowDay on the Waterfront. This is amazing. So, I’m very excited about the snow. It’s really nice to see,” said Kadolph.
She explained that the snow has supported them this year in having snowshoeing, snow sculptures and all of their programming throughout Marina Park.
Of this programming, the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and Dorian Fish Culture Station came together to stock the pond with 60 lake trout for ice fishing.
“We have lots of people that are out there trying to catch a fish right now (and) very excited,” said Kadolph.
The snow sculpture competition also came back this year, featuring five different sculptures for people to vote on their favourite ones.
Paul Morralee, the managing director of the Canadian Lighthouses of Lake Superior, sculpted the Shaganash Lighthouse with Andrew Ehn. He said they were inspired to do a lighthouse since it is about connecting in the community and is symbolic of telling the story of trans-shipment.
“I wanted to get our organization involved in doing a snow sculpture so that we could keep telling the story of trans-shipment,” said Morralee.
“We live in this city of transshipment, the movement of product back and forth, and the lighthouse is very important to have that picture demonstrated that the movement of product is going past these lighthouses.”
He said that being there and sharing that story lets people see Thunder Bay in a different light.
“It took us about 20 man hours to do the actual sculpting, the moving of the snow away from a block of snow we started with and as we carved it out, we froze. It (has) been pretty cool out here and we persevered,” said Morralee.
The 1 to 5 scale of the lighthouse located 54 km from the waterfront is the most recent snow sculpture he has worked on since he sculpted the Coca-Cola polar bear in 1996.
Morralee added they have been seeing an amazing amount of families out enjoying the winter and it’s been really great.
The City encourages residents to look online to see its tons of summer events planned next, including the Quest: Tech and Gaming event and the Drone Show.
