Movers and Mavericks  of Thunder Bay
Volume 2
Published by Northern Scribes Collective 2026
Contributors: Elle Andra-Warner, Ross Brewitt, Ron Chepesiuk, Peter Fergus-Moore,
William Hryb, Maureen Nadin, Albert Nuttall, Lorna Olson, Margie Taylor and Devon Teeple
Softcover   127 pages   $26.00

A Review by Michael Sobota

When this book launch was announced, I was unaware there had been a Movers and Mavericks of Thunder Bay – Volume 1.  In a brief exchange with one of the current contributors, she indicated this volume had been “in the works” for the past decade.  Readers can be proud that it is here.
This volume presents some dozen and a half “movers and mavericks” with eclectic, wide ranging backgrounds and local contributions that brought them fame, and occasional infamy.
While I had had known a few of these individuals, most of them I was meeting for the first time in these pages.  We get to meet athletes, artists, an aviator, politicians, musicians, a historian, an international model and a deep lake diver.  We also meet three female mayors – from the cities of Fort William, Port Arthur and eventually Thunder Bay.  This is a rich and wide-ranging assembly of prominent Thunder Bayans.
As is the collection of contributors.  The writing is uneven although always engaging. Some of the writers treat their subjects with straight forward focus, almost academically.  Others push  and prod their at their subject’s lives and accomplishments.  This gives usdeeper insights and individual characteristics that elevate the person in focus and heighten our literary appreciation.
There are so many significant people in this volume.  Here is a sampling to tease your literary appetite.  William Hyrb launches the collection with his examination of Manfred “Fred” Broennle.  He starts with Broennle’s birth in Germany in 1933, follows him and his family through the war years and his immigration to Canada where he worked at various labour jobs.  Eventually landing in Thunder Bay, Broennle would establish his claim to fame as a deep lake diver in his unsuccessful efforts to resurface the famed Gunilda, an elegant yacht that sank in 1911, off the coast of Rossport in Lake Superior. Hyrb’s treatment of Broennle is riveting, handling the adventurers’ life with both respect and a sort of reverence.
Margie Taylor has two contributions in this volume.  Her treatment of Margaret Alberta Phillips is equal to the exemplary life Phillips led.  Perhaps best known for her establishment of the Northern Women’s Bookstore, Phillips, in Taylor’s introduction, was so much more.  She was “a mentor, a pioneer, a promoter of women’s writing, an activist, an educator.”  She adds that Phillips was “an exceptional student and athlete.”  Taylor tracks Phillips life from her birth in Ottawa to an eventual arrival in the Lakehead where, in 1971, she led the Lakehead Social Planning Council as its Executive Director for a decade of significant social development.  That is where I first came to know Margaret.  But it is as a champion for women’s issues and in particularly women’s writing and the establishment of the Northern Women’s Bookstore that Taylor tells us was Phillips important legacy. Taylor gives us a taste of that in recalling Phillips words when she received an Honourary Doctor of Letters from Lakehead University in 2015, the year she died.  In her acceptance speech, Taylor tells us “Margaret urged the graduating students to read – a real book, she said, ‘that you can hold, feel, smell and which will become a friend.”
Elle Andra-Warner gives us four contributions.  Her closing examination of the life of Eunice Marian (Knight) Wishart is one of the finest pieces of writing in the volume.  Wishart was the first Mayor of the City of Port Arthur.  Andra-Warner labels Wishart a “Classy Trailblazer”.  Born in New York in 1898, Wishart would, a half-century later, be sitting on the Municipal Council of Port Arthur.  She ran in the Municipal election for Mayor in 1952 and lost, coming in last.  She didn’t give up.  Three years later, in December of 1955 she ran again.  And won. Andra-Warner narrates Wishart’s several campaigns with enthusiasm and sharp details (she was the first campaign candidate to purchase local radio time, and in subsequent campaigns the first candidate to purchase television time).  Her political life was rich in controversy and righteousness, her community contributions were pioneering and long lasting, including the establishment of the Library at Lakehead University.  Andra-Warner shines literary light in ways that keeps the reader moving forward, utilizing humour and witty quotations.  This is an exemplary biographical piece.
The book concludes with selected references about the subjects as well as brief biographies about the contributors.
Movers and Mavericks of Thunder Bay – Volume 2 has been given a plain, rudimentary printing.  There are small black and white photos scattered through-out the text, and one colour photo.  But it is the content that is important.  The lives of these individuals deserve attention and remembrance.
The volume is available at Entershine Bookshop.  Highly recommended.