The light is different in Thunder Bay. That’s someone from Toronto—a southerner—talking. I’m used to the moderate light of Toronto’s gentler seasonal variations. In Thunder Bay, during the summer, the evening light lingers and casts long shadows down to the lake.
But let’s put things in perspective here. While we from down south tend to think of Thunder Bay as somewhere way up in the north, viewed on a globe, it’s apparent that Thunder Bay sits at a latitude between Paris and London. Meanwhile Toronto, way down in the south, is in line with Cannes on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. All of which is to say that although places like Toronto and Thunder Bay are in Canada, that fact alone doesn’t place them particularly north of anywhere.
Even so, the light is different in Thunder Bay. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with latitude. But I feel it. Me and my camera know that it’s true. We step outside after dinner and the light blazes down from the northwest. It tears straight down Red River Road and throws shadows over everything.
