On the night of September 15, 1885, a freight train rounded a curve just outside St. Thomas, Ontario, and changed history in ways nobody standing on those tracks could have imagined. The elephant that died there that night was already world-famous. What nobody knew yet was that his name was about to outlive him by centuries.
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You already know Jumbo’s story. If you want the full account of his life, his years at the London Zoo, his arrival in Barnum’s circus, and the strange and disputed circumstances of his death right here in Railway City, Railway City Tourism has you covered. What we want to talk about is what happened next. Not just in St. Thomas. Not just in North America. Everywhere.

Avi Silver will tell you, pretty cheerfully, that they never want to write a trilogy again.

Then they'll tell you how proud they are of this one. Both things are true, and it seems to me that’s likely a pretty common emotion for an author to feel.

Avi, a speculative fiction author and self-described "noted menace," moved to St. Thomas in January 2025 with their partner, fellow author Sienna Tristen. Not long after, they finished One Morning Sun, the final book of the Sãoni Cycle trilogy.

Four years in the making, written through a pandemic, grief, and a whole lot of doubt, the book is out in the world now and has been nominated for the 2026 Aurora Awards. 

The City of St. Thomas has issued a Request for Information (RFI) with an Expression of Interest (EOI) document to invite qualified developers, investors, and community partners to submit proposals for the potential purchase and adaptive reuse of the former Wellington Street Public School property, located at 50 Wellington Street.

Known as the Wellington Block, this City-owned site includes a designated heritage building constructed in 1898 and occupies a prominent corner at Wellington and Elgin Streets. The City is seeking visionary and innovative proposals that respect the site’s heritage character while contributing to economic growth, housing supply, cultural vitality, and long-term community revitalization.

There’s a mural in the front office at Cole Munro Foods that stops you in your tracks. Commissioned as a gift from a long-time supplier, it tells the full life cycle of a trout in rich, sweeping detail from a fingerling hatching in a cold-water stream all the way to harvest. Look closely enough, and you’ll spot easter eggs worked in by the artist: one of the company’s boats, a basketball player, a yin and yang symbol tucked in for the twins, Andrew and Harrison. A company that has built a close enough connection with a supplier that they would commission something that personal, that specific, is telling you something about itself before you’ve even asked a question.