Lakeheadologists

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Lakeheadology is the study of the history of Thunder Bay and the surrounding area, especially since the creation of Port Arthur and Fort William in the mid-19th century. The term encompasses the work of academic historians, independent scholars, community archivists, and amateur enthusiasts who have documented the region's development from its Indigenous roots and fur trade origins through to the modern era. The Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, founded in 1908, has served as a central institution for this field, publishing the peer-reviewed journal Papers & Records and presenting annual publication awards in five categories named after notable regional historians.

Professional historians and academics

This section lists university-affiliated researchers, museum professionals, and credentialed historians who have contributed to the scholarly study of Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario history.

Lakehead University, Department of History

  • Dr. M. Elizabeth Arthur — Founding member of the Department of History at Lakehead University and former department chair. Author of Thunder Bay District, 1821–1892: A Collection of Documents (Champlain Society, 1973), a monumental work on the documentary history of the region. She also served on the Council of the Champlain Society and guided the revival of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society's Papers & Records in the 1970s. The Society's award for best full-length scholarly work is named in her honour.
  • Dr. Michel S. Beaulieu, FRHistS — Professor of History (now Provost and Vice-President Academic at the University of Northern British Columbia). Lakehead alumnus (BA, BEd, MA) with a PhD from Queen's University. Author/co-author of Labour at the Lakehead: Ethnicity, Socialism, and Politics, 1900–1935 (UBC Press, 2011), Celluloid Dreams: An Illustrated History of Early Film at the Lakehead, 1900–1931 (2012), and co-author of North of Superior: An Illustrated History of Northwestern Ontario (with Chris Southcott, 2010) and Thunder Bay and the First World War, 1914–1919 (with David Ratz, Thorold Tronrud, and Jenna Kirker, 2018). Past president of both the Ontario Historical Society and the Champlain Society, and recipient of the OHS Cruikshank Gold Medal (2024), the Society's highest honour. Also holds academic appointments at the University of Helsinki and University of Oulu. Lakehead profile
  • Dr. Ernest R. Zimmermann (1931–2008) — Professor of History at Lakehead University from 1967 until retirement; former Chair of the Department of History and Dean of Arts. Born in Germany, he survived World War II bombing campaigns before emigrating to Canada. His posthumous work The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R (University of Alberta Press, 2015), completed by Beaulieu and Ratz, is the definitive account of the WWII prisoner-of-war camp at Red Rock, Ontario. The Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society's first-publication award is named in his honour.
  • Dr. Peter Raffo — Adjunct Professor and Professor Emeritus, Lakehead University Department of History, serving since 1967. Specialist in the history of the amalgamation of Port Arthur and Fort William into Thunder Bay. Author of Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital: From Institution to Community (2005) and "Saul Laskin and the Making of Thunder Bay" (Papers & Records XLVIII, 2020). Recipient of the City of Thunder Bay Heritage Award (2012). Has also produced radio documentaries for CBC. Globe and Mail op-ed on amalgamation
  • Dr. Ronald Harpelle — Professor of History at Lakehead University. Specialist in Latin American/Caribbean history and Finnish immigration to Canada. Director of a media lab focused on documentary films; produced Under the Red Star (with filmmaker Kelly Saxberg), a docu-drama about Finnish immigration and radicalism in Thunder Bay, and Where the Poppies Blow: The Lakehead at War. Past Vice-President of the Finlandia Association of Thunder Bay. Co-editor of Hard Work Conquers All: Building the Finnish Community in Canada (UBC Press, 2018). Personal website
  • Dr. David K. Ratz — Adjunct Professor at Lakehead University and Lieutenant-Colonel (retired), formerly Commanding Officer of the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment. PhD from the University of Oulu, Finland. Co-editor of The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior and co-author of Thunder Bay and the First World War, 1914–1919. Specialist in military history of Northwestern Ontario and Finnish-Canadian relations. Selected publications
  • Dr. Patricia Jasen — Professor Emeritus at Lakehead University (History, later English). PhD from the University of Manitoba. Author of Wild Things: Nature, Culture, and Tourism in Ontario, 1790–1914 (University of Toronto Press, 1995), which includes significant discussion of the Thunder Bay District. Taught at Lakehead for over 25 years and served as graduate coordinator for the history program.
  • Dr. C. Nathan Hatton — Faculty member, Department of History, Lakehead University. Reviewed Scollie's Biographical Dictionary and History of Victorian Thunder Bay for the Canadian Historical Review.
  • Dr. Steven Jobbitt — Faculty member, Department of History, Lakehead University. Recipient of a Lakehead University Contribution to Teaching Award.
  • Dr. Thomas W. Dunk (later at Brock University) — Sociologist/anthropologist who studied Thunder Bay's working-class culture; author of It's a Working Man's Town: Male Working-Class Culture in Northwestern Ontario (McGill-Queen's, 1991).

Other university-affiliated researchers

  • Samira Saramo who has researched Finnish people's experience from a feminist perspective.
  • Dr. Chris Southcott — Lakehead University sociologist and co-author (with Michel Beaulieu) of North of Superior: An Illustrated History of Northwestern Ontario (Lorimer, 2010).
  • Dr. A. Ernest Epp — Co-editor (with Thorold Tronrud) of Thunder Bay: From Rivalry to Unity (Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 1995), a key multi-author volume on the city's history.
  • Dr. K.C.A. Dawson — Lakehead University archaeologist; author of Original People and Euro Canadians in Northwestern Ontario: The Road West, the Hinge of a Developing State (2004).
  • Harold S. Braun — Author of A Northern Vision: The Development of Lakehead University (Lakehead University, 1987).
  • W. Robert Wightman and Nancy M. Wightman — Authors of The Land Between: Northwestern Ontario Resource Development, 1800 to the 1990s (University of Toronto Press), a comprehensive resource development history.
  • Dr. Jane Nicholas, a professor at St. Jerome's University, who wrote an article on Sylvia Horn, a local dance teacher

Museum and archives professionals

  • Dr. Thorold "Tory" Tronrud — Long-serving director/curator of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum. Author of Guardians of Progress: Boosters and Boosterism in Thunder Bay, 1870–1914 (1993) and numerous popular articles, including 101 Fascinating Questions about our History series. Co-editor of Thunder Bay: From Rivalry to Unity and co-editor of Papers & Records. Recipient of the Ontario Historical Society Cruikshank Gold Medal (2019). OHS Gold Medal citation (PDF)
  • Christina Wakefield — City Archivist, City of Thunder Bay Archives. Oversees the city's archival collections and curates the annual Women's History Month Exhibit (established 2013), which celebrates the contributions of women to the community.
  • Jean Morrison (1927–2014) — Research historian at Fort William Historical Park (1975–1990). First woman to receive an MA in History from Lakehead University (1974). Author of Superior Rendezvous-Place: Fort William in the Canadian Fur Trade (Natural Heritage Books, 2007), Labour Pains: Thunder Bay's Working Class in Canada's Wheat Boom Era (TBHMS, 2009; winner of the OHS J.J. Talman Award), and Lake Superior to Rainy Lake: Three Centuries of Fur Trade History (TBHMS, 2003/2023). The library at Fort William Historical Park is named in her honour. City of Thunder Bay tribute
  • Kelly Saxberg — Filmmaker and instructor at Lakehead University's Department of History. Director/editor of Under the Red Star and Where the Poppies Blow. Co-founder of the Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple. Partner in ShebaFilms Ltd.
  • Beverly Soloway — Instructor, Lakehead University Department of History. Author of articles on fur trade domestic history, including "The Fur Traders' Garden: Horticultural Imperialism in Rupert's Land, 1670–1770" (winner of the J.P. Bertrand Award). Also contributed "The History of the Current River Neighbourhood" to Papers & Records.

Historical figures in Lakeheadology

  • J.P. Bertrand — Arrived at the Lakehead in 1900 and established himself as a leading expert on regional history through numerous talks, articles, and books, including Highway of Destiny and Timber Wolves (TBHMS, 1997). The Society's scholarly article award is named in his honour.
  • Gertrude H. Dyke — The Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society's popular full-length work award is named after her.
  • George B. Macgillivray — Author of A History of Fort William and Port Arthur Newspapers (1987). The Society's popular article award bears his name.

Independent scholars and published authors

This section lists non-university-affiliated researchers, independent scholars, and published authors who have made significant contributions to the study of Thunder Bay history.

  • Frederick Brent Scollie — Ottawa-based scholar and longtime member of the editorial board of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society. Contributor of biographies to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Author of Thunder Bay Mayors & Councillors, 1873–1945 (TBHMS, 2000), a comprehensive biographical and genealogical dictionary covering all 414 individuals who served in municipal public office, and Biographical Dictionary and History of Victorian Thunder Bay (1850–1901) (TBHMS, 2020). Also compiled the complete Subject Index for Papers & Records Volumes I–XLVI. TBHMS listing
  • Elinor Barr (HBA 1989) — Research associate of the Lakehead Social History Institute. Raised in Ignace by Swedish parents. Author of Swedes in Canada: Invisible Immigrants (University of Toronto Press, 2015), Thunder Bay to Gunflint: The Port Arthur, Duluth, & Western Railway (TBHMS, 1999), and articles on Swedish immigrant families in Northwestern Ontario.
  • John Potestio (MA 1982, HBA 1970) — Retired high school teacher and contract lecturer in Italian culture at Lakehead University. Author of The Italians of Thunder Bay (2005), In Search of a Better Life: Emigration to Thunder Bay from a Small Town in Calabria (1999), The Memoirs of Giovanni Veltri (1987), and The History of the Port Arthur Italian Mutual Benefit Society (1985). Co-editor (with Antonio Pucci) of The Italian Immigrant Experience (1988) and Thunder Bay's People (1987).
  • Antonio Pucci (MA 1977) — High school teacher with the Lakehead District Catholic School Board. Author and editor of works exploring the history of the Italian community in Thunder Bay.
  • Roy H. Piovesana (MA 1969, BA 1965) — Historian at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Thunder Bay. Author of Hope and Charity: An Illustrated History of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Thunder Bay (2002), Robert J. Manion: Member of Parliament for Fort William, 1917–1935, and co-author of Paper and People: An Illustrated History of Great Lakes Paper and Its Successors. Past president of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society and the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Served as a trustee with the Canadian Museum of Nature.
  • Joseph M. Mauro — Author of Thunder Bay: A History: The Golden Gateway of the Great Northwest (City of Thunder Bay, 1981) and Thunder Bay: A City's Story (c. 1990).
  • Diane Grant — Author of The Street Names of Thunder Bay (Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 1999).
  • Peter B. Worrell — Author of Policing the Lakehead (Board of Commissioners of Police, 1989).
  • James R. Stevens — Author of multiple works published by TBHMS, including material on Indigenous history.
  • Wayne Pettit — Author of works on transportation history in the Thunder Bay area, published by TBHMS.
  • John Pateman — Author of multiple Thunder Bay WWI-related publications, including Canadian General Hospital (2020), Port Arthur to Orpington Hospital: Tom Stanworth Goes To War (2020), and Thunder Bay and World War One: 1917 (2020).
  • David W. Tarbet — Author of Grain Dust Dreams (SUNY, 2015), winner of the Ernest R. Zimmermann First Publication Award.
  • Elinor Barr — (See above under Independent Scholars.)
  • Diane Grant (1933 - 1922) who published "The Street Names of Thunder Bay" and donated the rights to it in 1999 to the Thunder Bay Museum
  • Tania L. Saj and Elle Andra-Warner, who in 2007 published a book with the awesome title, Life in a Thundering Bay [1]
    • Dr. Tania L. Saj is an anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Calgary. She is the author of numerous publications in biological and anthropological journals; this is her first book. Thunder Bay is her hometown.
    • Elle Andra-Warner is a journalist and author of several non-fiction books, including Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Robert Service, Hudson’s Bay Company and The Mounties. She is a long-time resident of Thunder Bay.

Amateur historians and community enthusiasts

This section lists individuals who pursue Lakehead history as a personal passion, hobby, or community project, typically without formal academic affiliation.

  • Michael B. Currie — Canadian entrepreneur and CFA charterholder based in Bangkok, Thailand. Creator of Curriepedia, a personal wiki project documenting the genealogical and social history of Thunder Bay families with connections to the region. Curriepedia
  • Brian G. Spare, PhD (d. 2024) — Local author, freelance copywriter, and regular contributor to Bayview Magazine in Thunder Bay. Wrote extensively on local history topics including the evolution of the city, the Outlaw Bridge to Duluth, Rotary's century of service, Thunder Bay's breakwater, and the Eaton's building. His Evolution of a City series was nominated for the George B. MacGillivray Publication Award. Originally from Sudbury. Personal blog
  • Harold Alanen — Retired elementary school teacher and principal; officially recognized by the Ontario government as an "amateur archaeologist." Author of They Came From All Around: A History of the 1,200 Square Mile Area From Nolalu to Northern Light Lake, a best-selling work covering the area from its first inhabitants 9,000 years ago to Finnish immigrants in the 1900s. Part of a network of metal detectorists specializing in fur trade and raw copper artifacts across the Lake Superior region. Northern Wilds Magazine profile
  • David Battistel (BA/BEd 1996) — History teacher, curriculum chair, and football coach at St. Patrick High School in Thunder Bay. President of the Silver Mountain and Area Historical Society, dedicated to preserving the history of the railway and surrounding area.
  • Conner Kilgour — Author of "The Secret Tunnels of Port Arthur" (Bayview Magazine, June 2019), winner of the George B. MacGillivray Award for popular articles.
  • Greg Johnsen — Author of "'Bats and Balls Have Been Sent For': The Beginnings of Baseball in Thunder Bay, 1875–1889" (Papers & Records XLVII, 2019), winner of the Ernest R. Zimmermann First Publication Award.
  • Art Gunnell — Author of Five Miles and All Uphill (2001) and compiler of the City of Port Arthur's Book of Remembrance.
  • Martti Kajorinne — Author of History of Finnish Businesses in the Thunder Bay Area (Finnish-Canadian Historical Society, 2006).
  • Carl H. Westerback — Author of "Tee Harbour: A Memoir of a Life in a Fishing Village in the 1930s" (Papers & Records XLIII, 2015).
  • Jim Lyzun — Author of Aviation in Thunder Bay (TBHMS, 2007), co-winner of the Gertrude H. Dyke Award.
  • Edgar J. Lavoie — Author of "Pioneering a Great Circle Route in Northern Ontario: Von Grounau's 'Greenland Whale' Overnight in Longlac" (Papers & Records XLVII, 2019).
  • Bob Ingraham — Author of "Sgt. Joe Hicks' War" (Papers & Records XXXVII, 2007).

Key institutions

  • Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society — Founded in 1908. Maintains archives of approximately 410 linear metres of textual records, 1,900 maps and plans, and 500,000 photographic images. Publishes the peer-reviewed journal Papers & Records (ISSN available) and hosts a monthly lecture series from September to April. Presents annual publication awards in five categories. Website
  • Lakehead University, Department of History — The primary academic centre for the study of Northwestern Ontario history, offering undergraduate and graduate programs. Website

Key publications

  • Papers & Records — Peer-reviewed journal of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, published annually since 1973 (revived from earlier series).
  • Thunder Bay: From Rivalry to Unity — Edited by Thorold Tronrud and A. Ernest Epp (TBHMS, 1995).
  • Thunder Bay District, 1821–1892: A Collection of Documents — Compiled by Elizabeth Arthur (Champlain Society, 1973).
  • North of Superior: An Illustrated History of Northwestern Ontario — By Michel Beaulieu and Chris Southcott (Lorimer, 2010).
  • Thunder Bay and the First World War, 1914–1919 — By Beaulieu, Ratz, Tronrud, and Kirker (TBHMS, 2018).
  • The Land Between: Northwestern Ontario Resource Development, 1800 to the 1990s — By W. Robert Wightman and Nancy M. Wightman (University of Toronto Press).
  • Biographical Dictionary and History of Victorian Thunder Bay (1850–1901) — By Frederick Brent Scollie (TBHMS, 2020).
  • Gateway to Northwestern Ontario History — Digital database managed by the Thunder Bay Public Library. Online portal

Toward a formal methodology: history as verified, accumulative knowledge

Michael B. Currie, one of the contributors to Lakeheadology and the creator of Curriepedia, has advocated for a methodological shift in how local history is recorded, structured, and built upon. Drawing on his background in mathematical sciences (University of Waterloo) and his interest in Mathematical Eternalism, Currie argues that historical knowledge should aspire to the same standards of rigour, traceability, and composability as formal mathematics.

The analogy to formal proof systems

In mathematics, the Lean proof assistant and related projects such as Mathlib are engaged in a long-term effort to formalize the entirety of known mathematics into machine-verifiable proofs. Each new theorem must be built upon previously verified lemmas and definitions; nothing is accepted on authority alone. The result is a growing, interlinked edifice of knowledge where every claim can be traced back to its foundations and independently verified.

Currie proposes that Lakeheadology — and local history more broadly — should adopt an analogous structure:

  • Every historical claim should be a "proof" grounded in cited primary sources — just as a Lean theorem rests on axioms and previously proven lemmas, a historical assertion (a date, a biographical fact, a causal claim) should rest on identifiable evidence: archival documents, newspaper articles, census records, photographs, or oral testimony with provenance.
  • New articles and publications should explicitly build on and reference prior verified work — rather than each author starting from scratch or relying on received tradition, the field should function as an accumulation where each new contribution extends and cross-links the existing body of knowledge. A new article about a Fort William councillor, for example, should reference and extend Scollie's Biographical Dictionary (2020), not merely repeat facts from it without attribution.
  • Contradictions and gaps should be surfaced, not papered over — in a formal proof system, a contradiction immediately signals an error. In a formalized historical practice, conflicting accounts (differing dates, disputed attributions, variant spellings) should be explicitly flagged and resolved through source analysis, not silently ignored. This is particularly important in Thunder Bay's history, where the region's shifting place names (Prince Arthur's Landing, Port Arthur, Fort William, Shuniah, Neebing, the Lakehead, Thunder Bay) have long caused confusion in the historical record.
  • The knowledge base should be machine-readable and semantically linked — projects like the Thunder Bay Public Library's Gateway to Northwestern Ontario History and the City of Thunder Bay Archives represent steps in this direction, but Currie envisions going further: a structured, wiki-like or graph-database approach where individual historical facts are discrete, citable nodes that can be queried, cross-referenced, and built upon — much as Lean's Mathlib allows mathematicians to search for and reuse existing formalizations.

Practical implications

This approach has several practical consequences for the practice of Lakeheadology:

  1. Genealogical and biographical dictionaries like those by Scollie and the Gateway database become foundational "libraries" (in the Lean/Mathlib sense) upon which all subsequent work depends.
  2. The Papers & Records journal and the TBHMS lecture series function as the equivalent of new theorems being proposed and peer-reviewed before being added to the corpus.
  3. Community-contributed knowledge — from amateur historians, family researchers, blog authors, and oral history participants — is not excluded but is tagged with its evidentiary basis, allowing it to be incorporated at an appropriate confidence level.
  4. Digital tools — wikis, structured databases, linked open data, and potentially AI-assisted verification — become essential infrastructure, not optional supplements.

Currie notes that the Curriepedia project is an early experiment in this direction: a personal wiki that attempts to interlink genealogical records, historical documents, and narrative accounts into a single, cross-referenced structure where each fact can be traced to its source.

This vision aligns with broader movements in digital humanities and computational history, but applies them specifically to the challenge of regional history, where the knowledge base is finite enough to aspire to near-completeness yet rich enough to benefit from formal structuring.

The problem with the current information is that almost all of it is siloed into paper books or materials which are available only by paying or physically visiting. As a consequence, it is nearly impossible to cross-check, synthesize, or build upon the other work that has already been done in a systematic way, and it is especially difficult to use modern techniques like LLMs to crawl the data to extract insights. For instance, a woman passionate about local history, Diane Grant (1933 - 2022) wrote a book called "The Street Names of Thunder Bay", which would be a great thing to be searchable and which could add context to anyone looking up a specific street. But as it stands, a person would have to purchase the entire book and flip through it to find the particular street. This is a high-friction way of receiving information that makes it impractical to synthesize and integrate information contextually in the moment (for instance, as a hyperlink on an article about each street of the city).

See also

External links

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