Pay what you can · Open daily in summer
Thunder Bay Museum
425 Donald Street East · Thunder Bay, Ontario · A Historical Society since 1908
Your place in history.
- Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society — founded 1908
- Housed in the 1912 Fort William police station & courthouse
- Pay-what-you-can admission · fully accessible
Services offered
Three floors of galleries, an archive of half a million images and school, family and community programs — all in a 1912 heritage landmark.
Six exhibition galleries
Ten thousand years of regional history: Ojibway and Cree beadwork, the fur trade, Silver Islet, a 1910 jail cell, a 1928 theatre and a recreated street with streetcar.
Archives & genealogy
About 410 linear metres of records, 1,900 maps and plans and some 500,000 photographs — open by appointment, Monday to Friday.
School & education programs
In-person and virtual field trips, lesson plans and teacher resources built around Northwestern Ontario history.
Venue rentals
Three rooms — or the whole building — available seven days a week for meetings, receptions and events.
Museum shop
Local history books, gifts and souvenirs in the lobby gift shop and in the online store.
Public programs & events
Free monthly lectures from September to February, historical walking tours, the “A Taste of History” dinner, March Break and summer kids’ programs.
A society, a museum and an archive — since 1908.
The Thunder Bay Museum preserves and tells the story of the city and district of Thunder Bay: over 60,000 objects, half a million photographs and three floors of galleries.
The Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society was founded in 1908 by Peter McKellar to collect, preserve and interpret the history of Northwestern Ontario through lectures, publications and monuments. After decades without a home, it opened its first museum in the basement of the Brodie Street library in 1942, moved to a former registry office on May Street South in 1972 and incorporated that same year.
In the mid-1990s the Society bought and renovated the former Fort William police station and courthouse — an Edwardian Classical landmark built between 1910 and 1912 by architect Robert E. Mason, home to the first automatic elevator in the Lakehead. The main gallery opened in 1997 and the façade was partly restored in 2007.
Today the permanent collection holds more than 60,000 objects, and the archive keeps roughly 410 linear metres of records, some 500,000 images and a 2,200-volume library. The museum runs as museum, archive and historical society at once, with education and community programs guided by its motto: Learning Through History.
— Thunder Bay Historical Museum SocietyServing the city and district since 1908
Society founded
Objects in collection
Google rating
Heritage building
Location, hours & coverage
Find us
Thunder Bay Museum
425 Donald Street East
Thunder Bay, ON P7E 5V1
What you'll find inside
Business hours
Admission is pay-what-you-can — the amounts above are the suggested donation. Groups over 12 get a group rate; tour drivers and guides are free. Archives visits are by appointment, Mon–Fri 9am–5pm.
★ Pay what you can
Everyone gets in — give what you’re able. Fully accessible: ramp, automatic doors and elevator.
Website & booking
Museum, archive and historical society for the city and district of Thunder Bay.
Come stand in Thunder Bay's history.
Six galleries, three floors and 10,000 years of Northwestern Ontario — pay what you can, every day in summer.
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© 2026 Thunder Bay Museum · Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society · 425 Donald Street East · Thunder Bay, Ontario
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