Big Thunder Ski Jumping Center was a twin ski jumping hill

Ski jumping hill

A ski jumping hill is a sports venue used for ski jumping. They vary in size from temporary hand-made snow structures to permanent competition venues. At the top is an in-run where the jumper runs down to generate sufficient speed, before reaching the jump. The skier is then airborne until landing...

 located in Thunder Bay

Thunder Bay

-In Canada:Thunder Bay is the name of three places in the province of Ontario, Canada along Lake Superior:*Thunder Bay District, Ontario, a district in Northwestern Ontario*Thunder Bay, a city in Thunder Bay District*Thunder Bay, Unorganized, Ontario...

 in Northwestern

Northwestern Ontario

Northwestern Ontario is the region within the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior, and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Its western boundary is the Canadian province of Manitoba, which disputed Ontario's claim to the...

 Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It hosted 29 FIS Ski Jumping World Cup and 50 Canadian Ski Jumping Championships tournaments between 1975 and 1995, climaxing with the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1995. Since then, the venue has been closed and unmaintained.

History

The location was first identified by Knute Hansen, a ski jumper, who felt that a location in Mount McRae in Lakehead would be ideal for a ski jumping hill. He and Thor Hansen built the first jumps, which opened in 1963 as Lille Norway Ski Area. In 1969, after the Hansens had fallen into economic problems, the venue was sold and renamed Mt. Norway Ski Area. Additional land for the complex was also leased, and the provincial government provided funding to construct the main twin hill, with a K-120 and K-90 jump. Construction of the 70 meter and 90 meter (current K-90 and K-120) hills was completed in 1974. The following year, the venue hosted the first Canadian Ski Jumping Championships. Three years later, the venue was again sold, this time being named Sundance Northwest Resort. In 1981, the Provincial Government of Ontario started redeveloping the site to transform it into a national training center. In 1985, the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Recreation bought the site. In the course of five years, they built a K-64 hill, as well as Little Thunder, which consisted of K-10, K-20 and K-37 hills. The two largest of these were equipped with porcelain in-runs and plastic landing slops, allowing for their use during summer.

In 1990, the venue was awarded to host the Nordic World Ski Championships 1995. This required a major upgrade to the infrastructure, including lighting of the hills. After not having hosted a World Cup tournament since 1991, the venue hosted the Pre-World Championships, part of the World Cup, in 1994. The last jump was Tommy Ingebrigtsen's 137 meter jump in the final jumping event in the 1995 World Championships. It was nine meters beyond the existing hill record.

During the campaigning for the Ontario general election, 1995

Ontario general election, 1995

The Ontario general election of 1995 was held on June 8, 1995, to elect members of the 36th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada...

, Conservative Party leader Mike Harris

Mike Harris

Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...

 deemed Big Thunder a "cash cow

Cash cow

In business, a cash cow is a product or a business unit that generates unusually high profit margins: so high that it is responsible for a large amount of a company's operating profit...

" as part of his Common Sense Revolution

Common Sense Revolution

The phrase Common Sense Revolution has been used as a political slogan to describe common sense conservative platforms in Australia and the U.S. state of New Jersey in the 1990s. Based on the Singapore Model of economics, its main goal is to reduce taxes while balancing the budget by reducing the...

. Following the party's victory in the election, the venue was closed. Even though the venue closed, it sill costs the province several hundred thousand dollars per year. In 2010, the citizens group Friends of Big Thunder Bay, announced on 1 March 2010, following the 2010 Winter Olympics

2010 Winter Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University...

, that they had sent a letter of intent to the provincial government where they stated that they wished to re-open the sports park. They intend to not only reopen the hill, but also the associated sports area and provide year-round training of ski jumping, freestyle skiing, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, event hosting and hiking. Ski Jumping Canada

Ski Jumping Canada

Ski Jumping Canada is the governing federation for ski jumping in Canada....

 has asked the province to establish a training facility for ski jumping in Ontario, stating that lack a facilities make it difficult for Canada to produce ski jumpers for the world scene, and that this among other things will result in poor performances in the Olympics.

Events

Big Thunder was a regular site for the FIS Nordic Ski Jumping World Cup, and arranged a world cup round, typically with two jumps, every season from 1980 through 1991. The last World Cup tournament was held in 1994 as a Pre-World Championship tournament, which also for the first time saw Nordic combined

Nordic combined

The Nordic combined is a winter sport in which athletes compete in both cross-country skiing and ski jumping.- History :While Norwegian soldiers are known to have been competing in Nordic skiing since the 19th century, the first major competition in Nordic combined was held in 1892 in Oslo at the...

 be contested in the hill.

Contested between 9 and 19 March 1995, the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships is the hallmark of the venue, and the only major world championship to be contested in Northern Ontario

Northern Ontario

Northern Ontario is a region of the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron , the French River and Lake Nipissing. The region has a land area of 802,000 km2 and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it contains only about 6% of the population...

. The Nordic combined individual took place on 9 March, and was won by Fred Børre Lundberg

Fred Børre Lundberg

Fred Børre Lundberg is a former Nordic combined skier from Bardu, Norway...

 ahead of Jari Mantila

Jari Mantila

Jari Mantila is a Finnish nordic combined athlete who competed from 1992 to 2003. He won a gold medal in the 4 x 5 km team event at the 2002 Winter Olympics and a silver medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics...

. The following day saw Japan win ahead of Norway and Finland in the Nordic combined team event. In ski jumping, the individual normal hill event took place on 12 March, which saw a double Japanese victory with Takanobu Okabe

Takanobu Okabe

is a Japanese ski jumper who has competed in the ski jumping World Cup since 1990.His debut World Cup performance was on December 16, 1989 in Sapporo and at the moment he is the oldest ski jumper in a world of ski jumping...

 winning ahead of Hiroya Saito

Hiroya Saito

is a former Japanese ski jumper.He competed from 1991 to 2002. He won a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano in the Team large hill event. Saito is a three-time FIS Nordic World Ski Championships medalist with two silvers and one bronze .-Victories:-External links:...

. The team event in the large hill on 16 March saw Finland win ahead of Germany and Japan. In the large hill individual event on 18 March, Tommy Ingebrigtsen

Tommy Ingebrigtsen

Tommy "Tiger'n" Ingebrigtsen is a former Norwegian ski jumper who represented Byåsen in Trondheim. He won the large hill competition at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1995 in Thunder Bay, Ontario at only 17 years of age...

 set a new hill record and won ahead of Andreas Goldberger

Andreas Goldberger

Andreas Goldberger is a former ski jumper.He was one of the best in his sport during the 1990s...

.

Results

The following is a list of all FIS Ski Jumping World Cup and FIS Nordic World Ski Championship tournaments held at Big Thunder, with the date, hill and top three finishing athletes or teams.

Date	Hill	Gold	Silver	Bronze	| Ref
	K-120
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-90
	K-120
	K-120	Germany	Norway	Japan
	K-90
	K-90
	K-90
	K-120	Finland	Germany	Japan
	K-120