[tz] Northern Ontario (Canada)

[Chris Walton]

On January 1, 1970, the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur were
merged to form the City of Thunder Bay.
The TZ database currently shows that Thunder Bay has observed daylight
saving every year from 1970 onwards with the exception of 1973.
Back in July I raised some doubts on this mailing list about the 1973
data.  I now have more proof that it is wrong.
Somebody from the Thunder Bay Public Library was kind enough to send me two
newspaper scans from 1973.  Both scans are from the Chronicle Journal which
has been a local Thunder Bay newspaper since 1972.

*Chronicle Journal - Saturday April 28, 1973 - page 1*
This page contains a slightly corny but very relevant notice titled "*Clocks
Move Ahead Sunday*''. It reads:

> Advancing an hour glass one hour for daylight saving time appears to pose
> a problem for Pat Plachta. She knows DST begins at 2 a.m. Sunday and she'll
> have one less hour to sleep in the morning but she'll make it up in the
> Fall.

Above the article is a picture of a woman holding an hourglass.
Being that this is a Thunder Bay newspaper, the implication is that Thunder
Bay did observe daylight saving in 1973.

For completeness, I will also mention that the same newspaper page also
contains a generic Canadian Press article titled "*Canadians Will Lose Hour
Sleep*".  The article briefly documents daylight saving practices
across the country with no mention of any specific towns or cities. It
starts out with:

> OTTAWA (CP) — 12:01 a.m. becomes 1:01 a.m. in Canada Sunday. ...

Clearly that first line is not entirely correct because most (but not all)
of Canada was doing the switch at 2:00a.m. instead of 12:01a.m. I am not
quoting the entire article here because it is not specific to Thunder Bay
and there is nothing in it that we do not already know.

*Chronicle Journal - Saturday October 27, 1973 - page 1*
This page contains a notice titled "*Extra Sleep*". It reads:

> Tonight city residents can look forward to gaining an extra hour of rest,
> as Thunder Bay goes from Daylight Saving Time to Eastern Standard Time. So
> don't forget to set your clocks back an hour tonight at 12:01 a.m.

I will assume that 12:01 is an error; since most cities and towns in
Ontario switched at 2:00a.m.  Regardless, the notice provides additional
proof that Thunder Bay did observe daylight saving in 1973.

The TZ database entry for *America/Thunder_Bay* should be updated to
include the observance of daylight saving in 1973.
This change will make *America/Thunder_Bay* identical to *America/Toronto* from
October 26, 1969 until present.
Ultimately, *America/Thunder_Bay *could be replaced with a link.  It could
also be maintained in the backzone file using pre-1970 history from either
Port Arthur or Fort William. Both Port Arthur and Fort William started
their first experiments with daylight saving on May 2, 1908 which is not
currently reflected in the *America/Thunder_Bay* data.
Unfortunately I do not have a complete history for Port Arthur or Fort
William however there are a couple of sources to start with:
https://www.thunderbay.ca/en/inc/blog.aspx (scroll to the bottom)
http://www.bayviewmagazine.com/article/2022/03/great-springing-forward-debate

Also, I would also like to see *America/Nipigon *and*
America/Rainy_River* converted
into link entries because I have zero faith in the current Shanks based
data.

America/Nipigon --> America/Toronto
America/Rainy_River --> America/Winnipeg

I am not convinced it is worth saving the data for either of these two
questionable zones inside the backzone file.
As I pointed out in July, the TZ database shows that Nipigon started
daylight saving in 1974, but newspaper evidence shows it was already using
daylight saving at least as far back as 1972.
https://news.ourontario.ca/npl/122271/page/2

And FYI:
The *America/Nipigon* and *America/Rainy_River* boundaries were removed
from OpenStreetMap back in August.  The *America/Toronto* boundary was
restored to include most of Ontario east of 90°W.  I was happy to see it
done.
-chris
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