Shuniah () is a municipal
township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...
bordering the city of
Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its populatio ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
on the east. Shuniah was incorporated by an act of the Ontario
legislature
A legislature is an deliberative assembly, assembly with the authority to make laws for a Polity, political entity such as a Sovereign state, country or city. They are often contrasted with the Executive (government), executive and Judiciary, ...
in 1873, and at that time included much of present-day Thunder Bay and its predecessor and surrounding municipalities. It gradually shrunk in size until by 1936 it included only three wards, the geographic townships of McIntyre, McGregor, and McTavish. That year it had the Ontario Legislative Assembly remove a number of islands in Lake Superior that had formed the Island Ward since 1873. In 1970 McIntyre Township was amalgamated into the city of Thunder Bay. Shuniah, named after the Ojibwa word "''zhooniyaa''" for "money" or "silver" (see the
French ''
argent
In heraldry, argent () is the tincture of silver, and belongs to the class of light tinctures called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white and usually considered interchangeable with it. In engravings and line drawings, regions t ...
''), was settled largely due to silver mining potential identified in the mid-19th century.
The township is part of Thunder Bay's
Census Metropolitan Area
The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of st ...
, and consists of the communities of Amethyst Harbour, Ancliff, Bowker, Ishkibibble, Loon, Mackenzie, Navilus, Pass Lake, Pearl, Silver Harbour and Wild Goose.
Serving today primarily as a rural bedroom community to Thunder Bay, Shuniah is also a popular cottaging locale with 40 kilometres of
Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh w ...
's northern shoreline. The township was home to the Lake Superior Trout Hunt during the 1970s and 1980s.
From 1994 to 2014, the township
reeve was Maria Harding. On October 27, 2014, Wendy Landry was elected as Reeve and as of January 26, 2015 the title of the Head of Council was changed from Reeve to
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...
. Landry was re-elected in 2018.
Demographics
In the
2021 Census of Population
The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...
conducted by
Statistics Canada, Shuniah had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
See also
*
List of townships in Ontario
This is a list of townships in the Canadian province of Ontario. Townships are listed by census division.
Northern Ontario Northeastern Ontario Algoma District
Historical/Geographic Townships
*Abbott
*Aberdeen Additional
*Abigo
*Abotoss ...
References
External links
*
{{Thunder Bay District
Municipalities in Thunder Bay District
Single-tier municipalities in Ontario
Populated places on Lake Superior in Canada