
The 2025 Wake the Giant festival lineup is here, and festival organizers have got a feeling that festival goers will have the time of their life. This September 6th at the waterfront, international superstar musical group the Black Eyed Peas will headline this year’s festival.
With a federal election called for April 28, The Walleye Magazine spoke to incumbents and candidates from Thunder Bay-Superior North and Thunder Bay-Rainy River ridings about topics ranging from the rising cost of living, the opioid crisis, and tariffs—topics that we felt would be important to our readers and determine who they vote for. Here’s what they had to say.
For many of us, the future is a path well-worn: we might pursue post-secondary education, search for a career, and take on adult responsibilities. For folks with autism and other exceptionalities, however, that path can look a bit different.
Did you know that the most important meal of the day can also be the best? Bay Village Coffee, located in the heart of Port Arthur, has been slowly perfecting this concept since opening in 2018—and now, it’s fully realized with their own breakfast sandwich.
Nothing hits quite like a homemade sammy with fresh bread. But where to go when the craving hits? Check out Bread & Butter, one of the newer vendors at Goods & Co. Founded by chef Fred Sorrell, the brainchild behind The Neighbours Cooking, the kiosk offers a tantalizing selection of made-from-scratch sandwiches, soups, and sides. The question is, what to try first?
There are some establishments that emanate classic Thunder Bay comfort and revelry. One such place is Madhouse, which has been serving single malts, good eats, and Kerouac quotes since 2001. But just because you’re entrenched in the local pantheon of restaurants doesn’t mean you can’t keep it interesting and delicious. This brings us to the carne asada tacos, available every Tuesday at Madhouse.
Take a moment and imagine this: a horrifying world where the birds cease to sing, and artists refuse to create new works for lack of a muse. That’s the dimension where hot dogs were never invented. Thankfully for all of us, Station 22, located inside Dawson Trail Brewery, is making all of our dreams come true with their Chicago Hot Dog.
The Thunder Bay Art Gallery will host the debut exhibition of local photographer and filmmaker Laura-Lynn Petrick, Hometown Anthems, running until June 8. The show will focus on highlighting Petrick’s experiences growing up in the rural outskirts of Thunder Bay, and provide a behind-the-scenes look at her family traditions and country life, blending her Finnish roots with the unique aspects of life in Northwestern Ontario.
At this year’s edition of Derelicte, the annual fundraiser in support of Definitely Superior Art Gallery and LU Radio, 32 performing acts including wearable art, musical artists, performance art, and local fashion houses graced the stage at Black Pirates Pub to celebrate a fabulous 15 years of immersive art.
In 1987, acclaimed contemporary artist Rebecca Belmore wore a sculpture-like dress in a public performance entitled Twelve Angry Crinolines, which satirized the celebrations going on at Fort William Historical Park to welcome the Duke and Duchess of York to Thunder Bay while calling attention to the effects of colonization on Indigenous women. “I went back to Belmore,” says David Karasiewicz, Definitely Superior Art Gallery’s executive and artistic director. “Which is really what kind of sparked that interest later on when we started doing Derelicte.”
“During the pandemic, I really wanted to take my still photography to another level,” says local photographer and videographer Damien Bouchard. Bouchard, who studied television broadcasting at Confederation College and Indigenous independent filmmaking at Capilano University in Vancouver, began following photography accounts on Instagram and learned more about astrophotography when he became friends with Thunder Bay photographer Kay Lee.
The Lockyer Boys have an exciting summer ahead of them. The musical duo of brothers Will and Charlie Lockyer hit the local pop music scene in 2021 and quickly gained traction. Now, after two years of working on a batch of songs, their new single “306” releases today.
It’ll be a high-energy affair when Calgary band L’omelette makes their first visit to Thunder Bay this month. “We love to rock out and play live rock shows. We’re kind of like a festival dance band, and so live you can expect lots of dancing, lots of jumping around, and lots of energy,” lead singer Meg Thompson says.
“It’s just been such a wild ride,” says Thunder Bay-born musical artist Megan Nadin, who is no stranger to boldly venturing into the unfamiliar. It was a fortuitous encounter that would lead her to open for country legends Pam Tillis and Lorrie Morgan on their Grits and Glamour tour this Sunday April 13 at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium, which will be Nadin’s largest show to date.
On April 26, the Sleeping Giant Folk Music Society presents Juno-nominated Newfoundland folk band Rum Ragged for a show that promises to lift your spirits with a contemporary take on traditional East Coast music.
A new short film has gained international attention after its premiere in New Zealand. My Friend Saabe, directed by Morningstar Derosier and Victoria Anderson-Gardner, was filmed in Migisi Sahgaigan (Eagle Lake First Nation), Derosier says, and screened in late March at the Māoriland Film Festival.
Okay, so you’ve made the big step in your life and decided to finally check out a drag show for the first time. Condragulations! Now, you might be wondering where to start. You’ve heard great things, but it’s your first time attending this kind of event and you have tonnes of questions. Don’t worry, we got you. It should be noted that while there are several options for drag events in Thunder Bay, here we’ll be talking exclusively about Wiggins Productions (WP) drag shows at Black Pirates Pub. It’s our home turf and where we tend to shine the brightest with the most performers.
It's now February, and the big day on a lot of people’s calendars is the 14th—Valentine’s Day. It’s a day of red roses, chocolates, love letters, candlelit dinners, and heart-shaped everything. But what if none of that speaks to you? What if the person you thought was “the one” cheated on you? Or what if the person of your dreams turned out to be a complete nightmare in real life? Or what if you just don’t buy into any Valentine’s Day hype? Well, my friend, do we have one hell of a show for you!
Sometimes, a good book allows us to escape the real world for just a minute. A musical does, too. But what happens when these two things collide? All the Daze’s latest musical Between the Lines will answer just that.
Bon Iver is hard to categorize but easy to recognize, with a distinctly unique sound and immediately identifiable voice. His latest album, SABLE, fABLE, is a 12-track collection of emotive, introspective songs guaranteed to get you in your feels.
My Morning Jacket have come a long way since their debut album, The Tennessee Fire, which was partly recorded in an improvised studio above vocalist/guitarist Jim James’s cousin’s garage. For the Kentucky-bred rock band’s milestone tenth release, they enlisted Grammy Award-winning producer Brendan O’Brien (known for working with Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam).
Charles Wesley Godwin’s new EP, Lonely Mountain Town, explores themes of love—be it loving someone, or loving the simplicity of life.
Since the early 2010s, BANKS has been making moody alternative pop hits to wide acclaim; now, she has released her fifth studio album, Off With Her Head, reuniting with longtime collaborators and producers Lil Silva and Sampha.
The hours are long, the responsibility is huge, and the number of cases in NWO far outnumbers the veterinarians. It’s hard to hold boundaries, but it’s so important to be off the clock. It’s a huge toll on mental health, and people in this profession have a three times higher risk of suicide. To put the stats in perspective; I moved back to Thunder Bay 15 years ago. We have lost three veterinarians here to suicide in that time.
North American conservative politicians continue their ongoing antagonism toward the environment with their “axe the tax” and “drill baby drill” slogans and policies.
Two days before the 2015 federal election, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau marched into a pit of pandemonium at the Thunder Bay airport that looked less like local partisans and more like The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Hundreds of screaming people clamoured for selfies with this dreamboat who would rescue Canada from Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stuffy preference to play by himself.
Seventy-two emergency beds, one case manager, rental costs vastly disproportionate to the rates of social assistance, barriers to entry at every turn—the vicious cycle continues.
Even in this day and age, the topic of youth mental health can still be considered taboo, typically discussed through euphemisms, if at all. So what is unveiled when a snapshot of 10 young people’s mental health and their ways of coping with it is not hushed up or downplayed, but instead proudly displayed for all to bear witness to—unadulterated? In Teenage Mechanisms, Kamryn Woloschuk seeks to answer that question.