Wherever You Go, There You Are
In Defense of Thunder Bay
Editorial by Abigail Heron, Photo by Kamryn Woloschuk
They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and there I was, some 1,400-kilometre drive away from the only city I’d ever known, scraping the sky in my concrete pod. I realized it was from this bird’s eye view alone that I could fully appreciate my time in Thunder Bay. I didn’t know how good I had it, but not for the reasons you may think. I was prepared to trade trees for cell towers, to cohabitate with a roommate, and I had braced my bank account for the worst, but I had not taken into consideration a looming paradox: the more people you’re surrounded by, the more you’re on your own.
Speaking from experience in arts and media, some people tend to glorify the move to Toronto as the cure-all solution. “People at home are boring, and our city is artistically uninspiring; if only I wasn’t here, then I’d be successful,” they say. Let me tell you, if you can’t make something work as a one-in-one-hundred-thousand, what makes you think things will just fall into place when you’re a one-in-three-million? That job you’ve been eyeing? Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s going to the president’s incompetent son. Those enlightened, cosmopolitan-minded cityfolk you thought would stimulate your creativity? Try yuppies with a trust fund and a hodgepodge personality of nothing but TikTok trends.
This isn’t to say that rising the professional ranks is impossible, everyone from down south is insufferable, or even that Thunder Bay is “better” than Toronto. I’m just over people being so quick to abandon ship. Yes, Thunder Bay is deeply flawed—who knew? Next, you’re going to tell me that the sky is blue after you finish insisting that the grass is greener on the other side. Drugs, crime, murder: they’re all here, but this is where I grew up and this is the city that generously gave me every opportunity I had to get me to where I am now—being paid to write for you in this very magazine since I was 17. And I know with certainty that if I were to have grown up in a bigger city with “more” opportunities, that this just wouldn’t have been the case.
My family is not from here and is part nerdy recluses, part blue-collar workers, meaning growing up, I had no built-in connections to anything artistic in town. It was only in high school, through an introduction to skateboarding, was I made privy to the side of town nobody talks about: one overflowing with culture and community. From then on out, my entire mid to late teens were defined by this city’s subcultures. I taught skateboarding, planned and promoted concerts, made and sold merch for bands, worked in editorial, and did all forms of media all throughout. I didn’t get those jobs because my father knew a guy who knew a guy or even because I was incredibly talented, but because Thunder Bay has the unique combination of big-city amenities and the culture of small-town mutual support and interdependence.
I am not saying to never leave your hometown—I’m the one studying in Toronto after all—I am just imploring young people to not be so blasé about the gold mine of potential we sit on and not bank all their success and happiness on moving away. Unlike Toronto, the barrier to entry here is so low. Take advantage of it. Become a member at Definitely Superior Art Gallery, start volunteering at festivals, photograph concerts—something! Anything! It is only because of the skills I built and the impressions I made at home that I was then able to do some work in film outside of town and stand out on applications for other ventures. If you seize the opportunities available, Thunder Bay can act as an incubator for your career and craft, no matter the domain.
Everyone loves to criticize the city and very few care to roll up their sleeves and do anything about it themselves. Community, leadership, and progress—everyone’s favourite buzzwords—do not need to be some legislative matter. All these initiatives start at the individual level when people quit passing the buck and take accountability as a citizen themselves and act to shape the Thunder Bay they want to see. Not in spite of, but because of our geographical isolation and shared sense of hardship, does this city has an irreplicable ethos of collaboration, particularly manifest in the arts, that is absent in bigger cities and that I believe people ought not only to give more recognition to, but work to safeguard and expand upon further instead of doing nothing but paying lip service to Thunder Bay’s shortcomings.
