A once-thriving Northern Ontario town’s economic pivot fails to bring prosperity

Lefty Kamenawatamin was 15 years old when he went on his first train ride in 1979.The former chief from Bearskin Lake First Nation says he was on his way to Winnipeg to visit his sister when he stopped in Sioux Lookout, a small rural railway town in Northwestern Ontario. He recalls construction workers hammering away on the new Sioux Hotel just across the street. It would later house The Whistle Stop for train passengers passing through, a coffee shop, a dining room and the infamous bar in the basement, known as the Zoo, where locals and visitors danced the night away to live music.