Despite urban sprawl and the destruction of many historic buildings considered obsolete, Thunder Bay's contours are basically those of the past. As seen by the elevators and industrial installations, the lakefront and the river together form one harbour. Federal legislation in 1958 gave formal recognition to the harbour's essential unity with the creation of the Lakehead Harbour combining the ports of the two cities. And in 1970 an end to the situation of two rival municipalities sharing one national harbour came when Port Arthur and Fort William were amalgamated by the Province of Ontario. Although the two cities had been known as the "Lakehead" or the "Canadian Lakehead" since the 1920s, a plebiscite on the name for the new city restored the vivid and historic term which the British had taken from the French, Baie du Tonnerre. The local Ojibwa name, Animikie Wekwed, also expressed the loud noise of the storms in the bay. With a population of some 115,000, the city can be seen spread along its twenty-seven miles of shoreline.
