DRYDEN / THUNDER BAY – October 18, 2026 – Unifor members held rallies in Dryden and Thunder Bay on Friday as part of a national day of action on forestry. The Dryden event started at noon at Cooper Park. The Thunder Bay rally started at the same hour in the Kraft Mill parking lot on Neebing Avenue. Unifor said workers in the region have faced the closure of the Ear Falls sawmill and the effects of the current climate in the industry on other mills nearby. Events were held in more than 30 forestry communities across Canada on the same day.
The Ear Falls mill shut down earlier this year. The company cited market conditions. Workers and the union have said the closure is part of a longer pattern of mills idling or cutting shifts across Northwestern Ontario. Softwood lumber duties from the United States and weaker demand have been cited by companies in other closures and curtailments this year. The Friday rallies were the local piece of a national push. Unifor has not released a headcount from either event. The Kraft Mill lot and Cooper Park are both public spaces. The rallies were scheduled and publicized in advance.
Northwestern Ontario has lost mill capacity over the past two decades. The remaining operations run on tighter margins and fewer shifts. A national day of action does not change the duties or the demand. It puts the remaining workers and the closed mill on the same list for a day. The Ear Falls site is still closed. The company has not announced a restart date. The union has not said what comes next after Friday’s events. The two rallies were the local record of the day. The rest is whether the national action produces any change in the files that have kept the mill idle.
The Kraft Mill in Thunder Bay is one of the larger remaining operations in the region. It has run through previous downturns. The parking-lot rally put workers from that site and others on the same ground for an hour. Cooper Park in Dryden is a smaller setting. Dryden has its own mill history and its own layoffs in past cycles. Neither event produced a new announcement from the companies or from Ottawa. The national day of action is a calendar item. The closed mill in Ear Falls is not. It sits idle while the duties and the demand stay where they were when the company stopped the lines.
Forestry remains one of the larger private-sector employers in the northwest outside of mining and public services. When a mill closes, the effect runs past the gate. Trucking, parts, and local spending all shrink. The Friday rallies did not reverse that. They marked it. Unifor has held similar days before. The outcomes have varied. Some curtailments have been temporary. Some mills have not restarted. Ear Falls is in the second category so far. The company has not said otherwise. The workers who showed up in Dryden and Thunder Bay know the difference. The next step, if there is one, is not in the park or the parking lot. It is in the files that have kept the mill closed.
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