The world is on fire. And so was the Hoito

THE LAST TIME I went to the Hoito restaurant I was working in Thunder Bay and living in a small room 2300 km. away from the place I now call home. That was three years ago just before Christmas. It was late afternoon, already dark and cold. I walked down the hill, alone, through Waverley Park and down Secord Street. The old brick and frame houses along the way looked depressingly familiar behind the dirty snowbanks. This was my hometown, the town I’d left 15 years earlier. 

It was about 5:30 in the evening when I got to the restaurant. Everything was the same as the last time I’d seen it. The old weigh scale stood in the corner by the door, the terrazzo tile in the enttry looked sickly green under the dull florescent lights. The place was empty, I was still alone. I walked back to a table near the kitchen door and waited. After a while a waitress came out, a young African woman, and gave me a smile. “Coffee,” she said. I nodded as she laid down the white paper placemat with the blue knotted Hoito logo still pretending to look modern. "We're closing soon," she said.

Back in the mid ’60s, before it became a hippie hangout and later a world famous destination, my brother used to drag me down there. That was before it was renovated. I can’t remember the walls, maybe painted green or salmon pink and shiny white. The terrazzo floor was the same. There was a lunch counter along one wall and rows of wooden booths with tall backs that you could hide behind. The waitresses were older, all Finnish, and friendly once you got to know them after a few visits. It wasn’t crowded, it wasn’t popular. It was mostly old men in green work clothes and plaid bush jackets. As young Anglo guys, we were a bit of a novelty, and the waitresses took us under their wings like flirty mother hens.

Like most Thunder Bayers, I spent a lot of time at the Hoito over the years. There were morning-after breakfasts, and late afternoon coffees with new girlfriends, I can’t remember any one specific occasion. It was a timeless place with its own rhythms. The solid-bodied waitresses, strong coffees in white china mugs, Finn pancakes and Karjalan rye piirakkas with egg salad, the bland dinner entrees with over-boiled vegetables. Big enough portions, and cheap. Which made it popular. As its popularity rose its authenticity faded. A lot of us got tired of standing in long lines waiting to get in on a Saturday morning. So we walked across the street to the Kestatuppa, or across Algoma to the Scand Home, or got back in the car and drove over to the Kangas Sauna snack bar.

It’s as if the entire city began to discover its Finnish heritage back in the late 1960s. The newly-built Kangas Sauna may have sparked that renaissance. I remember visiting the old steam bath at the base of Secord Street a few times, but Kangas Sauna made Finnish culture and nakedness cool. Many of us took advantage of the by-the-hour rates to explore intimate relationships without the sigma of renting a cheap hotel room for the night. Finnish culture somehow made sex safe and clean and fun, and fit perfectly into the free love sensibility of the time. That spilled over into the social scene: the Bay Street Blues Band, Murray McCullough, Ken Hamm, Lauri Conger and so many others playing dances at the Finn Hall and various Legion halls across the city.

Hoito Restaurant–Finnish Labour Temple fire, December 22, 2021   (photo © Jon Thompson)

There have been a lot of changes since I’ve been gone. The Bay and Algoma area is a trendy, higher density urban neighbourhood. Meanwhile downtown Fort William continues to decline, and downtown Port Arthur and the Marina Park have become the cultural hub of the city. But the city I once knew is rapidly disappearing. Thunder Bay remains one of the most spread out and unwalkable cities in Canada, and while I love the scenery, I don’t miss the sprawling urban environment. What I do miss are the memories of warm friends and family and good times. Yes, the food in Thunder Bay is better, the restaurants are great, the coffee is fabulous. But the old Hoito, well…

The Hoito didn’t leave us in the fire, we left it a long time ago. And the world I once knew is on fire and rapidly burning down.