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Paws for a Cause raising funds to train more vets

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Lakehead University is asking the public to help complete fundraising efforts to build a new large animal education facility for its veterinary program.

To donate online, click here. All three Pet Valu locations in Thunder Bay have opened their doors to host donation centres for the program as well. Donations to this Paws for a Cause initiative will be accepted until the end of April.

“I think many people across the north are aware of the vet shortage,” said Todd Randall, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Environmental Studies at Lakehead and interim Chair of the Department of Veterinary Science. “The importance of this program is to address that shortage.”

Last year, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association reported that the vet shortage in northwestern Ontario was severe and could continue until 2031. Many pets in the region are on a wait list for treatment that can last from months to years.

“We need vets very, very badly,” said Jeff Palmer, Lakehead alumni and owner of all three Pet Valus in Thunder Bay. “Probably for the last 15 years we’ve been dealing with this where vets are just not taking new clients.”

Lakehead interim Chair of the Department of Veterinary Science Todd Randall (left) shakes hands with Pet Valu franchisee Jeff Palmer (right). Jasper, Randall’s furry friend in the middle, is currently on a long wait list to get vaccinated (Jacob Henriksen-Willis, April 8 2026)

The new education facility will house large animals. It will have the capacity for 24 cows, 14 sheep and 6 horses. Funds will also go towards a communication skills lab, clinical skills lab and an anatomy lab for the vet program.

According to Randall, students will learn the anatomy of these animals, how to assess their overall health, and then how to prescribe a treatment plan for them.

There are only two large animal vets in northwestern Ontario.

“The idea that someone can go to school here and stay here, continue to practice here and maybe have their own vet clinic here is exciting,” Palmer said. “I think it’s needed.”

Lakehead’s new collaborative Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program is a partnership between Lakehead University and the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College. 20 northern students are accepted each term. They spend two years at Guelph then two years at Lakehead to complete their degree.

The program started in September of 2025. The students are currently completing the Guelph portion of their degree, and Lakehead expects its new facilities to be ready when they arrive in Thunder Bay in 2027.

“Our first 20 students are from all over northern Ontario,” Randall said. “They feel very prepared.”

Anyone who donates more than $5 at Pet Valu will have their name displayed on a paw on the community bulletin board at the store.

“I’ve been around town and when people realize I’m connected to the vet program, they get really excited about what it means for the city and the wider region of the north,” Randall said.

Sexual Activism

Student-led exhibit amplifies sexual activism at Lakehead

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Sexuality, identity, and human rights are being explored at Lakehead University’s inaugural student-led Sexual Activism and Politics exhibit.

The four-day exhibition is the culmination of a semester of study in the Gender and Women’s Studies program. Students have turned the university’s Agora into a space for dialogue, using artworks to spark creative engagement on topics that affect many communities in our society.

The artists behind the Sexual Activism and Politics exhibit (Jacob Henriksen-Willis/March 25 2026)

“Stories often lack dignified spaces where they can be told,” said Kyra Brimmell, exhibit co-curator and a student in the program. “I wanted to help create a dignified and aesthetic place where people could tell their stories.”

Brimmell said engaging in meaningful conversations and activism through the program was very fulfilling for her.

“We all just happened to sign up for the same class together, and now we’re all friends and we get to work together and share our stories,” she said. “Everybody was very passionate and it was infectious.”

Students say the exhibit aims to amplify marginalized voices and inspire viewers to take action.

“A big thing to me is acknowledging specifically women and queer individuals who were left out of history,” said student and co-curator Kaylea Conway. “I’m honoured to have people tell me so much about their lived experiences and then give me the chance to portray it in a respectful light. This is all very complex art that we’re working with.”

Exhibit co-curators Kyra Brimmell and Kaylea Conway (Jacob Henriksen-Willis/March 25 2026)

Course instructor Mohit Dudeja said the exhibit emerged through a democratic decision‑making process among students.

“We are so proud of it,” Dudeja said. “This aims to create awareness, to let people know about things that have happened throughout history but also the things that are happening now. People from the 2SLGBTQ+ community, women, gender and sexual minorities, they’re still oppressed in Canada. Even though it apparently has an image of being more open and friendly to minorities. We want to bring these issues to the forefront.”

Artworks on display at the inaugural Sexual Activism and Politics exhibit at Lakehead.

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Lakehead celebrating Indigenous community with weekend powwow

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Lakehead University’s Indigenous Students’ Association (ISA) will be hosting their 36th annual powwow this weekend at the university’s Hangar.

The ISA says the event will display talent and entertainment while reinforcing traditional aspects of Indigenous culture such as drumming, dancing, singing, and giving thanks.

Walking Bear of Ginoogaming First Nation will be the Host Drum. Attendees will also have the opportunity to explore Indigenous arts and crafts vendors throughout the weekend.

The event is 100% free and all peoples are encouraged to attend.

Here’s the main itinerary:

Friday, March 13:
Warm-ups – 6 to 8 p.m.

Saturday, March 14:
Grand Entry – 12 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Traditional Feast – 5 p.m.

Sunday, March 15:

Grand Entry at 12 p.m. and Closing Ceremonies until 5 p.m. 

Guttman and Salem

Lakehead honours two professors with Distinguished Researcher awards

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An English professor and Civil Engineering professor are the two newest recipients of Lakehead University’s Distinguished Researcher award.

Dr. Anna Guttman has worked with Lakehead for over 20 years. She specializes in postcolonial literature, especially within the South Asian diaspora.

She is the author of Writing Indians and Jews: Metaphorics of Jewishness in South Asian Literature and The Nation of India in Contemporary Indian Literature.

“I’m honoured to be named Lakehead’s 2026 Distinguished Researcher,” Guttman said. “It’s been a privilege to work with colleagues in the Department of English, and with students in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.”

Guttman is currently researching housing and collective living in contemporary South Asian culture.

“I’m interested in the ways housing can be a site of hope, but also a site of fear,” she said. “The aspiration of having a home to be proud of is something that a lot of people can really relate to. But if you look at genre fiction, there’s also a lot of stories about home as a site of nightmares. So I’m really interested in that tension.”

Dr. Sam Salem’s research focuses on sustainable fire engineering, particularly using wooden infrastructure.

“I’m deeply honoured to receive this award,” Salem said. “It’s a reflection of the incredible real-world impact of the research we conduct, and the success of the highly qualified people I have had the privilege to mentor, whose enhanced research skills and hands-on experiences are shaping the future of our discipline.”

Salem has two patents in Canada and the USA on beam-end connecting mechanism for mass timber buildings. He has also authored/co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in international journals.

One of his latest innovations features fastened metal rods inside timber connections.

“Metal connectors in a fire can absorb heat and accelerate charring around them, and that will lead to failure,” Salem said. “So we created a totally new connection that is basically based on mechanically fastened threaded rods, where the rods are totally embedded inside the glue lump sections. In a fire, the mass timber section would start to burn and char, but at the end these connectors will be hidden inside the lump glue section.”

“So without any additional fire protections, we achieved a one-hour fire resistance rating using the smallest cross-section available in the market.”

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Lakehead Research and Innovation Week kicks off Saturday

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Students and community members alike are invited to explore the future of study during Lakehead University’s annual Research and Innovation Week.

The university is planning a week of keynote speakers, activities and guided tours for all ages. This year’s theme is “Shaping the EvoLUtion” of Lakehead University, showcasing change-making projects that will strengthen community engagement, advance sustainable solutions, foster equity and reconciliation, and drive economic and social innovation.

“We want people to see and experience how Lakehead University is making an impact in their community,” said Dr. Langis Roy, Vice-President Research and Innovation. “Every project, experiment, and study completed by our students and faculty leads to a real-world impact–locally or globally.”

The university says the week of programming has three main goals: facilitate research collaborations, showcase research excellence and raise public awareness about research and its benefits to society.

Here are some dates and events to remember:

  • Saturday, Feb. 21: Science Carnival @ Intercity Shopping Centre. First event of the week. Explore science, technology, engineering, health, and social sciences through hands-on activities, interactive booths, and live entertainment.
  • Monday, Feb. 23: “Printing the Future” Keynote speech @ Lakehead. Dr. Atif Shamim, tech entrepreneur and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia, shares a keynote talk on how eco-friendly advances in printable electronics are changing the way we design and use technology in everyday life. Click here to register.
  • Thursday, Feb. 26: Open discussion on Indigenous mental health and addiction research @ CASES Atrium. Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction Dr. Chris Mushquash will lead a discussion on how Indigenous community-based research in mental health and addiction can support improvements to systems and services. Click here to attend virtually.
  • Friday, Feb. 27: Guided tour of Centennial Botanical Conservatory. Final event of the week. CityStudio will provide the tour in collaboration with the City of Thunder Bay. Staff, faculty, and students share stories of collaboration that helped to shape the vibrant civic space.

There are multiple events planned for each day. To view the full schedule, click here.

NWMO microscope

$200,000 microscope donated to Lakehead University

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Rock lovers rejoice: the Lakehead University geology program is getting a major boost from a brand new $200,000 Keyence digital petrographic microscope.

A petrographic microscope (or polarizing microscope) uses polarized light to identify minerals and rocks in thin slices by analyzing their unique optical properties. The state-of-the-art microscope is one of only two available at any university in Canada.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced the donation Tuesday. The NWMO has been working with Lakehead’s geology program for over seven years.

“This is a really cool piece of equipment,” said Alec Blythe, Manager of Geoscience Research and Development at the NWMO. “It’s got an elemental analyzer built into it, so it goes down just a fraction of a millimeter and it vaporizes that rock and can tell you the main ion chemistry of that sample.”

“It’s amazing to be able to do that on a very, very fine scale.”

Blythe said the NWMO chose to donate this equipment to Lakehead in large part because of the work of Dr. Shannon Zurevinski, Lakehead Associate Professor of Geology.

Dr. Shannon Zurevinski stands by geology samples at Lakehead University (Jacob Henriksen-Willis, February 17 2026)

“There’s no strings attached,” Blythe said. “Shannon does with it as she pleases.”

Zurevinski says the new equipment will allow for vital research about the unique geology of northwestern Ontario.

“We have a lot of collaboration with industry and government at Lakehead in the geology program,” Zurevinski said. “These kinds of tools just add to the wealth of the collaboration.”

She said three Lakehead students — one honours, one masters and one postdoctoral — are already using the machine for their thesis projects.

“Students will be able to analyze their samples, and instead of just a basic imaging that can be done with a microscope, they’ll be able to perform elemental analysis on those minerals. That will provide them with some semi-quantitative measurements on their samples,” she said.

The honours student is working on a lithium exploration project analyzing concentrations of lithium across different grains. The masters’ student is working on a mineralogical-based assessment using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). The postdoctoral student is investigating grain boundaries between the minerals on highly metamorphic rocks around Thunder Bay.

Geologists aren’t the only students who will benefit from the microscope, as Zurevinski says it will be used in the biology and engineering programs as well.

forest

Lakehead project studying forest drought earns provincial grant

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A Lakehead University research project studying how climate change-induced drought affects conifer pine trees will receive $60,000 over the next four years from the Ontario government’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR).

The project is headed by Dr. Qing-Lai Dang, a Lakehead Professor in the Faculty of Natural Resources Management.

As climate change makes droughts more frequent and severe, Dang hopes understand the stress mechanisms which cause Ontario’s conifer pines to die.

“What we do not know is how dry is too dry for the trees, and how much the drought actually reduces their growth and productivity,” Dang explains.

The research project will also provide information to the MNR to help the body update its forestry management guidelines, with future-proofed policies that account for climate change.

Through studying how pine trees die from drought, Dang also hopes to make forests more resilient.

In drought, trees tend to die either from “carbon starvation” or “hydraulic failure”.

Dang hopes to determine which tree species are dying from which mechanism.

“That mechanism of identification can be used by tree breeders to breed trees for the future that will be more drought resilient,” he says.

The professor believes his research has environmental and economic implications.

Drought will hurt forestry industries and the communities which rely on them, and diminish the biodiversity of forest ecosystems.

In addition to the provincial grant, the project is also receiving $120,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

The grant money will help the project pay for graduate and postdoctoral students to assist with research.

Dang says the focus of his research for more than two decades has been to understand how boreal forests will respond to climate change, to see “what kind of forests we will have by the end of the century.”

Lakehead University.

Lakehead hosting lecture on Black identity and representation

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CBC broadcaster and cultural commentator Elamin Abdelmahmoud will headline a lecture for Black History Month at Lakehead on February 12.

The theme of the event is Black identity in Canada and what it means for young people in an ever-radicalized world. Abdelmahmoud, who moved to Canada from Sudan at age 12, will reflect on his experience as a newcomer in Canada and his work in media.

There will also be a fireside chat between Abdelmahmoud and Lakehead Chancellor Dr. Rita Shelton Deverell, an award-winning broadcaster and journalist.

Deverell is among the first Black women in Canada to be a television host and network executive, and the first woman to lead a journalism program at a Canadian university. She is a co-founder of Vision TV.

Abdelmahmoud and Deverell will examine how culture, media and storytelling shape identity and influence how young people see themselves. The discussion will also address representation and the role of Black voices in Canadian public life.

The event is co-presented with and sponsored by the Lakehead University Student Union. It will be held at the Outpost pub on the Lakehead campus from 3 to 5 pm.

To attend this lecture, register here.

Windsor Lancers vs Lakehead - Alex Binaei- Thunderwolves

Thunderwolves aim to build on early season success this weekend

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Lakehead University’s hockey squad aims to build on a five-game win streak this weekend.

The Thunderwolves will be heading to Southern Ontario to tackle the Toronto Metropolitan Bold on Friday night before going to Waterloo on Saturday to face off against the Laurier Golden Hawks.

Coming off a two-week break, the Thunderwolves head coach says the team is well-rested and will be ready for the ice heading into the weekend.

“I thought the timing of the buy was okay,” admits Andrew Wilkins about the two weeks off. “At the end of the day, we’ve been working hard and I think our mindset is, come out of the break being faster and stronger and we’ll try and do our best to pick up where we left off.”

The last game the Wolves played was on November 8 that saw the Lakehead squad edge out the Windsor Lancers in overtime by a tight score of 2-1.

While Friday’s game against Toronto is sure to shake the rust of the skates, it is Saturday’s match-up versus Laurier that the Wolves might be focused on.

After all, the Wolves currently sit two points behind the OUA Western Conference-leading Golden Hawks.

“Laurier’s a good team,” says Wilkins. “I think we have to worry about what we do, play our style and get to that as quickly as possible (but) we feel if we play our game and execute what we are trying to do, we give ourselves a chance to win.”

Following this weekend, the Wolves continue on the road with two more games in 2025 against the Toronto Varsity Blues (November 29) and the Brock Badgers (November 30).

The team’s next home game will be Friday, January 2 against the SIJHL All-Stars.

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Thunder Bay post-secondary institutions receiving funding to train more students

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Both Confederation College and Lakehead University (LU) have received money from the provincial government to help the organizations train more students.

The college is receiving the bulk of the funding, a total of $2,238,925, to train up to 267 additional students in construction programs.

“Between the multiple (construction) programs, the demand is huge. There’s obviously major construction that’s happening in northwestern Ontario, and these programs help to support that work,” said Confederation College President Michelle Salo.

“There’s definitely domestic student demand. That’s what we saw this past fall with the intake, so we’re hoping it will continue.”

The programs are also available to eligible international students.

According to the college, most of the students stay in the north to continue their careers.

An additional $800,320 is being delivered to Lakehead to expand enrollment in nursing programs at the university.

“Absolutely wonderful news for Lakehead and for our nursing program, but more importantly for the city of Thunder Bay in the region of Northwestern,” said the President and Vice Chancellor of Lakehead University, Dr. Gillian Siddall.

“Nurses are the backbone of our healthcare system, and I think particularly so in the north and in more rural and remote regions of the north, so it’s just fantastic news.”

LU was unable to provide information on how many more students will be able to enter a nursing program with the funding.

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