THUNDER BAY – It’s a quick 12-hour stop on a 13-day cruise, but Paul Pepe sees big potential. The Tourism Thunder Bay manager says this summer’s visit from the Hanseatic Inspiration is a sign of growth in a market that’s been cold for several years.
Thunder Bay saw regular cruise ship traffic between the mid-1990s and 2012, but visits have since dried up. Pepe says few cruise ships are small enough to fit through the St. Lawrence seaway – only around 70 worldwide. But with about 30 more under construction, he sees promising signs for Great Lakes cruising.
“The big trend everybody’s aware of is ships are getting bigger and bigger – the 6,000-passenger vessels in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean,” he explains. “But there are a lot of cruisers who are saying, ‘whoa, that’s too big for me, I want something more intimate. I don’t need to be on a beach every day. I want to see something not a lot of other people get to see.’”
Passengers on the Hanseatic Inspiration, which is set to dock in Thunder Bay on June 11, are paying between $11,000 and $23,000 for a voyage that will take them through all five Great Lakes. The ship will make an initial journey from Toronto to Chicago, with stops like Parry Sound, Sault Ste. Marie, and Duluth. A second cruise takes the journey in reverse. Thunder Bay is so far only confirmed as a destination on the first leg.
Even that brief stop will inject $40,000 to $80,000 into the local economy, Pepe estimates. That includes passenger spending on expeditions, shopping, and food, and ship supply purchases. He says the city spends about $5,000 per year marketing to cruise companies, and around $10,000 preparing the Pool 6 dock site in years when ships visit. That’s in addition to around $250,000 the city spent to renovate the dock in the first place. But Pepe says those costs are recouped when ships visit.
“Sometimes it takes us a year, sometimes it takes five years to make a sale,” he says. “But when you do get that vessel in, then the [investments] are paid back to the community pretty quickly.”
Four cruise companies currently offer Great Lakes experiences, but most focus on the lower lakes. Building itineraries on Lake Superior with enough daily stops has traditionally been challenging, but Pepe says that's changing, with emerging destinations like Marquette and Houghton-Hancock, in Michigan.
Locals may take Thunder Bay’s appeal to global tourists for granted. Pepe points to the city’s natural surroundings, Indigenous culture, local food scene, attractions like Fort William Historical Park and Kakabeka Falls, and even its industrial heritage.
“Companies we’ve worked with have had a fascination with our mining, our pulp and paper industry, our grain industry,” he says. “Things we take for granted as a community about why we’re here today and how Thunder Bay developed are actually fascinating to a lot of people.”
Standing in his office, he points to a picture of a sailboat with a backdrop of dramatic cliffs: “This is the backside of Pie Island, five kilometres from downtown Thunder Bay. This could be as exotic as anywhere in the world.”
