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Kelsey’s Restaurant in Thunder Bay is renovating, and getting rid of everything in a silent auction on May 5, 6 and 7. Collectors and bargain hunters alike are finding the auction a unique place to shop for essentials and mementos, including a giant hippo head, carousel horse, and vintage neon Miller Lite sign.
The restaurant, which has been on Memorial Avenue for 19 years, is doing a complete overhaul to adopt new brand standards, said owner Claudio Foresta.
The auction has more than 500 items listed, including countless pieces of memorabilia that have lined the walls of the restaurant.
“It’s all got to go,” said Monique Crago, who has worked at Kelsey’s for 13 years and is organizing the auction.
Rob Cain, Pastor at Slate River Baptist Church, said the auction was a unique opportunity to shop with his four-year old daughter Ellie.
Cain is opening up a coffee shop at the church and was on the market for some chairs, tables and bar stools, almost 100 of which are being auctioned off by Kelsey’s. Ellie, on the other hand, was drawn to the carousel horse.
“There’s a lot of good stuff here on offer,” he said, but the variety of items is tempting.
“Once you start looking around at things you kind of want things you didn’t think you wanted when you first came in. It’s difficult to control yourself.”

For the first summer in years, residents of Thunder Bay, Ont. won’t see new additions to the city’s 40 km of bike lanes.
“This year is a different year,” said Adam Krupper, mobility coordinator for the City of Thunder Bay. “The work we’re doing is really behind the scenes.”
The focus for this summer he said, is investing in long-term strategies to more effectively gather data and reduce the maintenance effort required for bike lanes.
Every spring the roads crew sweeps salt and dirt off of all 40 km of the lanes, and repaint the lines and symbols; a process which can, and often does, take all summer, said Krupper.
This summer Active Transportation Thunder Bay is looking into permanent pavement markings, using a thermo-plastic paint that is melted into fresh asphalt.
The paint is a mixture of glass beads, pigments, binder and filler materials that become liquid when they’re heated.

They are “much less labour intensive in the long run, and they don’t peel off,” said Krupper. “All they have to do is get washed off in the spring.”
It’s part of their plan to switch from building a larger network of lanes to streamlining the maintenance for that network.
The city also plans to gather more usage data for existing bike lanes.
This summer the City is purchasing long term counters that are automated, cutting down on the manpower associated with collecting data manually.
“We don’t have to have a person sitting by the road ticking off a box every time someone comes by, and they allow us to do longer term counts like month long counts,” said Krupper.
He said measuring use over a month is more effective than the usual 12 hour recording period.
“What’ll happen is if it’s cold and rainy that day, the numbers get skewed based on the weather. A longer term count, those types of variances will be captured but we’ll also see longer term trends.”
Even with new technology and plans in place, Krupper said that ongoing education remains top priority for the city to promote road safety for cyclists and motorists.
“Most people who ride a bike also drive, where we find frustration and confusion is when people just aren’t obeying the law,” he said.

Paramedics in Thunder Bay, Ont. are the first in Canada to take part in a wellness program that aims to help them reduce their stress load.
Called “Yoga for First Responders“, the city-sponsored program was introduced in December of last year, said Marika Listenmaa, acting superintendent of professional standards at Superior North EMS.
Each week, two classes offer breathing and stress relief exercises to help paramedics deal with stress on the job — and in the office.
“[It’s] helping us to deal with a lot of the traumas that come with the workplace, as well as the political problems that we’re having with call volume, labour disputes, and issues like that,” Listenmaa said, adding it’s proving to be “a wellness program that’s well rounded.”

Paramedics in Thunder Bay will be in a legal strike position as of April 28. They recently voted 100 per cent in favour of going on strike.
“Nobody wants to have that sort of labour dispute,” said Listenmaa.
As discussions continue, she said it’s important to have a positive space for paramedics to meet outside of work and engage in healthy activities. But for shift workers, it’s often hard to find the time to do so.
The program offers “a nice place to work together in wellness with people you don’t often see,” she added.
This is a positive step for first responders like paramedics, who are all too often associated with negative news.
Listenmaa said it’s important to recognize the positive work going on in Ontario for these crises workers.
“Paramedics are often times not in the news when there are good things happening,” she said.
“This is a good thing for paramedics. We are trying to move forward in a proactive approach, and yoga for first responders is one of those approaches.”
On May16, Superior North EMS will be kicking off EMS Appreciation Week with yoga class led by acting chief Wayne Gates.
Check out this video of Yoga for First Responders at the Los Angeles, CA Fire Department