Fort William Historical Park — Attraction in Thunder Bay

The personnel and reenactors here are top notch. They answered all our (and our kids') questions in character and made our visit entertaining, enjoyable and educational. Wish I could bring my students from southern Ontario to enjoy this great piece of living history. Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is bigger and has more sights to see & sites to visit, but the characters/employees at the fort make this truly a great experience. Worth visiting and spending a few hours. We got hungry while there and visited the cantina where the pea soup, brisket stew, poutine, and hush puppies were delicious. We fed 4 hungry kids and 2 adults for just over $100, tip included. After traveling coast to coast this was a great amount of delicious food for a great price. *If you are a camper, look for a separate review about the campground as it seems I can't rate it separately. EDITED TO ADD: **Since I can't seem to rate the CAMPGROUND in a separate review, I will share it here. ⭐only. The washrooms were sufficient and reasonably clean as campground washrooms are wont to be. The showers 🚿 the same, although one of the 4 had non-working lights so not usable unless you like to shower in the dark. The sites are basically a grassy parking lot and, unfortunately, alternate so that you are sharing your little bit of "yard" with the people right next to you. While I can't blame the campground for the horribly poor manners of the other campers there who allowed their children to run around all the sites screaming and yelling, or the dog in our neighbours site that bit my son's face, I would NOT recommend staying there as there was no person on duty to ensure irresponsible campers were warned or removed and additional "invitees" who arrived to visit current campers for "a few beers," were asked to leave after hours. The final straw on giving this campground such a poor rating is their dump station which is situated on a high curb so that actually dumping black/grey tanks is superbly difficult as it's impossible to slope your hoses toward the drain. On our way out we had to park in the oncoming traffic lane in order to dump our tanks.

• I generally like to only make positive reviews when I note positive things but this was very disappointing and I would hope other families might avoid this campground despite its convenient location as other camps in the area are much nicer and have better facilities (eg. Kakabeka Falls...

Fort Williams historic park is reconstruction of what the village looked like during the fur trade in 1816. This is a great stop if you like history! The buildings are set up to look like back in time, many of the buildings have staff to explain things and answer questions. You can explore the buildings.

We spent most of the day here on Canada Day

There were lots of special events for the day (canoeing, firing a musket gun 3$ charge, dress up, kids crafts, watch canon be fired, some plays, a farm with sheep, chickens, pig).

They had bread samples, showed us butter churning and let anyone take a try at it.

Food: You are allowed to bring outside food and beverages. We bought lunch here and it was a bit pricy for the portion sizes (to be expected) and they were frequently running out of food. At lunch rush hour they got quite behind and it took a while for some people’s meals. I probably wouldn’t eat here again and next time would pack my own lunch.

Debit was hit or miss from the weather once in the actual park area so good idea to bring cash

You can take a shuttle from the welcome building or walk a short nature walk.

The actors were great, answered lots of questions and good with kids. You can climb to the top of a lookout tower to see a good view of the property.

There were a few other companies inside another building, some selling wood carvings, maple products, a tree educator. My daughter (aged 8) especially enjoyed the exhibit on trees in this building (aging them, identifying ring growth patterns). He gave her white pine seeds in clear orbeez to watch the growing process and then plant at home.

Other info: Pet friendly

May 18 – June 30, 2024 Open 7 days a week 
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last admission is at 4 p.m. Guided tours last approximately 1.5 hours.

Adults...

Absolutely amazing. Would highly recommend the tour and staying in the campground. The tour was an eye opening experience with regards to the treatment of our Canadian Aboriginal people. This experience opened my eyes for a 7 week long journey across the country and back learning about Indigenous people, culture and how disgustingly horrible the “white men from England, France and Scotland” and how the Canadian government treated them, took advantage, made treaties and then did not keep their end of the agreement. This is history that should be taught in every Canadian school, not to hide it, deny it, or try to cover it up. So what if it’s embarrassing… deal with it and make things right. Its shameful that there are still clean water issues on Reserves ( dirty boil only water for more than 25 years!)… what human being doesn’t have a right to clean water?? The White man took their land, cheated and killed the Bison and Aboriginal people and stole their children…. Raped and pillaged the land and got the Aboriginal men hooked on alcohol to specifically take advantage of them during the fur trading times …Shameful, disgusting, deplorable… unforgivable…. There should be no end to repairing, supporting and giving back…. basic human rights, and land… to the people who cared for it, depended on it for survival… making treaties right, the government should be held accountable !! All Canadians need to be educated, and do their part in making things right, not taking more from them or dumping nuclear waste back on the pieces of land they were given back. Every Aboriginal...