Thunder Bay’s Green Underbelly
Since my arrival here, way back in the year 2023, I’ve been fascinated by the nuance and character of this city’s “invisible” urban design. If you’re ever walking through a residential neighbourhood, it may dawn on you that there are a number of shaded alleyways rich with vegetation— beckoning you off the sidewalk.
To residents, they are a buffer between backyards, and seemingly serve as an alternative access for many. I’m not entirely sure what their original designation could have been. Perhaps they serve firefighting functions, allowing emergency services to access the back of someone’s house if it’s on fire— especially in neighborhoods where some houses are so close together one can’t even squeeze between them to access the backyard from the front.
Given their prevalence in pretty much every neighborhood across Thunder Bay, city planners must have had a good reason to chisel them out of the private property grid.
I have always referred to these alleys as “Greenways.” Of all the short-hand terms in my vernacular, this one seems to be something of a Mandela Effect. I always just figured someone of local cultural esteem put me on the term. It wasn’t until people started asking me,
“Is that really what they’re called?”
I began to question whether or not I had simply dreamed the whole thing up. In city archives, I cannot find any record of the term “greenway” outside of its occasional use to describe the robust recreational trails around the city’s asphalt limits. So, I’m not sure how I came to use the term, but I think I’ll stick with it for now. Seems fitting, right? Greenway. A peaceful botanical hideaway. Pedestrian’s delight.
In my extensive experience mapping these spaces over the past 4 years, I’ve found it interesting to examine the approaches different homeowners have adopted in ‘protecting’ their property’s rear access. In working-class neighborhoods, the most common recourse for curmugeonly residents is to pin up “NO TRESPASSING” signs, and erecting gates in an almost medieval fashion.
In some of the city’s more deep-pocketed neighbourhoods, after traversing enough greenways, eventually you might come across instances in which, over time, homeowners have illegally re-settled the alleys, either hoping there aren’t enough people using them to notice, or simply ready to deny the fact that they were ever through-access to begin with. This phenomenon is different from cases where residents simply keep stuff back there, like the chairs and couches featured on the previous page. No, some greenways simply… end. It’s most suspicious when the abruptly halted laneways are also adorned with private property signage, and excessive warning of surveillance.
It’s this kind of desire to privatize public land that is present in the roots of many social issues plaguing Thunder Bay today. Some homeowners seem to hold the greenways to a similar regard to private community laneways, and look at me, puzzled, thorough their back window when I come strolling through.
Living downtown, I’ve also observed certain trucks frequenting the greenways as a place to go “mudding.” If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it describes the act of taking your vehicle to a place with rutted-out roads and big puddles, then driving through really quickly so as to get really muddy. Often, these trucks— paired with being heavily modified— are also really loud, and when they become stuck, spinning in place and trapped by the slick mud, their engines belch out clouds of smoke. It can be quite the spectacle.
The greenways are also frequented by birdwatchers, urban explorers, rogue gardeners, and artists of all sorts. These spaces are something of an underworld for the City of Thunder Bay, and as I watch new development slowly encroach on them year after year, I can’t help but consider what we’re losing with each alley we build over. Regardless, I will continue to make use of them, and I might encourage all readers to ‘take the path less travelled’ next time you stumble upon one.