Thunder Bay With Hal Lightwood

This past weekend, my mother and I had the chance to visit with my brother Oliver and his girlfriend Marlene. They are expecting their first child in early December. They live in Thunder Bay.


My brother Oliver with Marlene and I
Thunder Bay, which has about 100 thousand people living there, is about a 3 hour drive from Duluth. Many skaters fly into Thunder Bay and drive to Duluth for the Northshore Inline Marathon. Thunder Bay is home to Hal Lightwood. Hal had a bad crash at this year's NSIM and dislocated his shoulder (for the 6th time!).


This is Thunder Bay's sleeping giant: It looks like a giant that is lying down
Hal and I met up on Saturday and went for a long road skate. He guided me to a very nice new highway which is not yet open to traffic. While we were skating, he tried to convince me that bears may chase us. In reality, that's not true, they don't chase us. Hal was very welcoming just as my brother and his girlfriend were.


Hal and I after our skate

Hal and his son Nicholas
You know, Canada is a massive country with many different cultures. Thunder Bay is in the same province as Toronto, and yet it is a 14 hour car drive or an expensive plane ticket from Toronto. There are many cultural and regional groups in this country, and they are as far apart from each other in distance as they are in attributes.

It is understandably hard for someone from one part of Canada to identify with or understand the values and history and culture of someone from a different region in Canada. The maratimes, the different parts of Quebec, southern Ontario, Toronto, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, the prairies, BC, the Metis, the Native communities, the fly-in reserves all have unique identities that make up a diverse nation.


Thunder Bay once again
I always have the opportunity to explore and discover new things from my country. I hope that many of you have that same opportunity to see both yours and other countries with wonder, with an understanding historical-geographic-cultural perspective, and with a critical eye.

I learned something from my own province that I never knew about. This summer there were tons of forest fires in northern Ontario because it had been quite dry. Within the span of 5 days, 287 forest fires broke out, and many fly-in reserves (communities) had to be evacuated.

This is the thing that blew me away- the communities that were evacuated were allowed back to their homes, but they are very concerned that the fires will re-ignite next year. 'Re-ignite? What does that mean?' I thought. I was always under the impression that when a fire is out and the winter comes, the fire is extinguished for sure, 100%, no questions asked.

It turns out that despite the minus 30 celsius temperature and tons of snow that falls during the winter time, the fires can remain brewing, smoldering underground in the roots during the cold winter months and then start up again when spring arrives and it gets warmer. The reason why it could smoulder is because the snow insulates the ground and the frost cannot get deep. If it gets warmer in the spring, the snow will evaporate rather than melt and go into the ground.

I am proud to say that I didn't know any of that; You might have known about this, but this reminds me that there are still a lot of things for me to discover in this world. I might have had wonderful opportunities to explore parts of the world thanks to skating, but at the same time, I have a lot to discover and learn at home and beyond.