Lake Superior Paranormal Convention expands for 2025
Second annual event scheduled for October at Delta Hotels Thunder Bay
The stories of spooks, spectres and legendary beasts — and the people who chase them — will once again descend on Thunder Bay this fall.
The second annual Lake Superior Paranormal Convention, taking place in October at Delta Hotels Thunder Bay, will be a step-up in scale.
While last year's inaugural convention took place over one day, the event has been expanded to two days, with some other special events happening outside of the convention itself, said organizer Gail Willis.
Those include, she said, a sasquatch expedition on Thursday, Oct. 16.
"It's an undisclosed location, so you won't know where you're going until that day," Willis said. "You'll get your expedition package and you'll drive to the location and meet Jason Kenzie, who's a sasquatch researcher and a wildlife photographer."
"He will take you on a tour of the forest and teach you all different techniques on how to look for a sasquatch," she said.
Kenzie — who's also a filmmaker, and producer of the Searching for Sasquatch series — said he's been sasquatch-hunting for several years now.
"I was an animal photojournalist, so I would travel all over north America and into some international places to interview and photograph people who live with exotic animals.
"I was fascinated with just hearing the love that people have for their animals," he said. "Why do you have a a tiger as a pet? Or why do you have a pack of wolves as your friends?"
But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Kenzie found himself unable to do his usual wildlife photography expeditions.
"I didn't have a purpose anymore," he said. "I was lost."
A friend of Kenzie, who's based in British Columbia, suggested he look into legendary sasquatch.
"We laughed at it at first," he said. "And then I took a step back and thought, you know what, you might be on to something."
Kenzie spoke to some contacts who claimed they had encountered the legendary cryptid, and that led Kenzie to an area in the British Columbia backcountry, where says he discovered hundreds of large footprints.
"I found trees that were ripped out of the ground, turned upside down and jammed into the ground," he said. "I found some more footprints on the ground."
"I have some incredible audio of ... screaming and and roaring," Kenzie said. "I put this documentary out titled Searching for Sasquatch: the Crossing. It kind of went viral."
These days, Kenzie travels throughout North America searching for sasquatch sightings, and speaking at events like the Lake Superior Paranormal Convention.
"I also research paranormal stuff as well, ghosts and shadow people and all that stuff," Kenzie said. "I'm going to be talking about some of the paranormal stuff that happens around what I've come in contact with, at the same time as researching Bigfoot."
Kenzie is one of more than a dozen speakers lined up for this year's convention. The others include:
- Canadian unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) researcher and author Chris Rutkowski;
- Researcher Mike Ricksecker, author of Travels Through Time, A Walk in the Shadows and Alaska's Mysterious Triangle;
- Corine Carey, Leanne Sallenback, and Kelly Ireland of Beyond the Haunting Investigations;
- Six Nations Investigating Paranormal Encounters (SNIPE) members Artie Martin, Jay Smith, Trevor Thomas and Todd Thomas Sr.;
- Psychic medium Kerrilynn Shellhorn;
- Parapsychologist Elliot Van Dusen, and
- Spirit talker Shawn Leonard.
Other special events scheduled for this year include an outing to Fort William Historical Park on Friday, Oct. 17.
"We're having ghost stories around the fire," organizer Gail Willis said.
And the after-hours investigation of the Thunder Bay Museum will also return this year on Saturday, Oct. 18.
For more information, and a complete schedule, visit the Lake Superior Paranormal Convention website.