Fort William Historical Park
Bringing Life to History for 50 Years STORY & PHOTOS By Chris Pascone Louis Felix has an incredible talent for making you feel like you’re right there on the bank of Kaministiquia River in 1815, even though it’s currently 2023. He mocks me as I take photos left and right with my cell phone. “We don’t know what those picture boxes are that you all carry around,” he says.
“Bonjour, my name is Louis Felix, I’m a Montreal Voyageur with the North West Company. Mr. Taitt has asked me to take you around the Fort, and see if I have the making of a wintering voyageur,” our intrepid historical interpreter tells me and my daughters as we begin our tour of Fort William Historical Park, a sprawling “living” park in Thunder Bay. 22
JULY 2023
NORTHERN WILDS
He goes deep into the lifestyle of the Montrealers and the winterers. “The winterers like to consider themselves a cut above us Montrealers. And although I’m a Montreal voyageur, I do have to give it to the wintering voyageurs. The winterers have a three-toseven-year contract with the company. And during that time, they will only be living in the interior of British North America, which is a brutal frozen wasteland at this point.” This interpretive play of the guides at Fort William is just one of the many ways the historical park delivers you 200 years back in time. Another way is the striking period dress worn by all staff at Fort William: it’s colorful, flamboyant, and amazingly detailed. The fort itself, with dozens of period buildings reconstructed within its palisades, is a stunner as well. So how did this living history museum re-enacting the rich legacy of the voyageurs and their Anishinaabe allies in our region come to be? Fort William Historical Park is celebrating its 50year anniversary this year. The original fort was built at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River on Lake Superior. This original site is now in the CP rail yard
Louis Felix has an incredible talent for making you feel like you’re right there on the bank of Kaministiquia River in 1815, even though its currently 2023.
in modern day Thunder Bay’s east end. The plan to rebuild Fort William gained momentum in 1967 as part of Canada’s Centennial. Early excavations by a team of archaeologists from Lakehead University in the 1960s uncovered the foundations of the Great Hall, palisade posts, and other North West Company remnants. That discovery launched a process of reconstructing the fort, but at the new location of Pointe du Meuron, 14 kilometers upriver on the Kam. On July 3, 1973, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip officially opened Old Fort William (named Fort William Historical Park today). The new historical park was moved from the original fort’s site in Thunder Bay’s east end because Pointe du Meuron’s location and natural landscape offered a break from modern distractions and noise,