Here's the cleaned-up History section for Candy Mountain:

In 1985, Thunder Bay, Ontario had five operating ski areas surrounding the city. By 2005, just 20 years later, that number was down to two. Big Thunder, Mount McKay, and Candy Mountain had all been permanently closed. Featuring Ontario's longest chairlift and ski run, Candy Mountain had really good terrain and a unique layout.

Candy Mountain is located 20 minutes west of the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

The story of Candy Mountain begins in the early 1970s. Ernie Smith was the general manager of Cedar Springs, a ski area near Orangeville, Ontario. In 1969, Smith left his job at Cedar Springs to accept a new general management role at Loch Lomond in Thunder Bay. Two years after that, in 1971, Smith formed his own company and purchased a section of land west of Thunder Bay. Ernie Smith subsequently announced the development of Thunder Bay's newest ski area, Candy Mountain.

Although it took Ernie Smith a few years to sort out financing, cut trails, and install lifts and buildings, by January of 1972 Candy Mountain was fully operating. The ski area featured a long Poma double chairlift and a Skyway T-bar that ran halfway up the mountain. A handful of beginner and expert trails extended from these two lifts. The ski lodge had a very whimsical feel to it, and it included a solarium, indoor fire pit, a sun deck, and a cocktail bar.

Although its first year of operations was a success, an unexpectedly warm winter the next year spelled disaster for the resort. This prompted Candy Mountain to begin developing its own snowmaking system, which was continually improved upon year after year. The hill distinguished itself from the competition in quite a few ways. For example, every spring Candy Mountain hosted a winter carnival, which culminated in a canoe race down the steep Cracker Jack trail.

Starting in 1976, Candy Mountain came under the ownership of Bill Irwin, who also owned Loch Lomond. Under this deal, both mountains began offering a joint lift ticket. Under the new ownership, Candy Mountain continued to expand their snowmaking system, which helped it open early during the abysmal 1976-77 winter.

Despite all the improvements at Candy Mountain, the ski area struggled to attract skiers. This was not a struggle unique to Candy Mountain, as the Thunder Bay mountains faced the same issue. The broader Thunder Bay area with a population of less than 120,000 people was too small to support all five mountains, especially considering that only 5% of this population skied. This problem led to an aggressive marketing push of Thunder Bay as a winter destination, especially directed towards the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the US Midwest. While these efforts were somewhat successful in bringing in new skiers, Thunder Bay never truly became a regional skiing destination.

In 1979, Ward Bond, a young Manitoban professional, purchased Loch Lomond and Candy Mountain from Bill Irwin. Candy Mountain would remain under the ownership of Ward Bond until its closure. In 1984, the Big Thunder ski area was acquired by the provincial government to be a training centre for provincial ski teams, closing it to the public. Mount McKay closed in 1988.

Also in 1988, Ward Bond upgraded Loch Lomond's north chairlift with a brand new Leitner-Poma quad. Instead of scrapping the double, Bond moved it over to Candy Mountain to service a new intermediate terrain pod featuring several rolling intermediate cruisers. It appears that the new double chair may have only operated on weekends. Downhill mountain bike trails were also cut on Candy Mountain, although the lifts were never used in the summer to haul bikes up.

While many resorts shunned early snowboarders, both Loch Lomond and Candy Mountain embraced the sport with open arms, allowing snowboarding by 1990. In 1993, Candy Mountain installed a halfpipe on one of its runs.

Unfortunately, during the mid-1990s, Candy Mountain started to see a significant drop in skier visitation. This prompted Ward Bond to lease Candy Mountain to a local businessman named Abe Buckle in the mid-1990s. Arbuckle operated Candy Mountain for a couple of years, although he made several operational cutbacks. By 1997, Candy Mountain was only open from Thursday to Sunday. Following the poor winter of 1998, Abe Buckle defaulted on several lease payments to Ward Bond, which forced the closure of Candy Mountain by 1999. Bond took back operation of the resort, opening it only on weekends for the 2000 and 2001 ski seasons.

In October of 2002, Bond announced that Candy Mountain was for sale and that if it didn't sell, it might permanently close. This prompted a group of local investors named Lake Superior Division Alpine to put together a proposal that would have seen Candy Mountain become a private resort. This proposal fell short as the group could not raise all the funds necessary to purchase the mountain. Candy Mountain never operated following the 2001-02 ski season. All snowmaking and grooming equipment were moved over to Loch Lomond. Ward Bond leased Candy Mountain to the Thunder Bay Police in 2004.

By 2005, the land was sold to Charlie Clare, who turned the original A-frame ski shop into a new home. As part of this sale, the ski hill land was rezoned to residential, a move which made it unlikely for the mountain to ever return to operating as a ski resort. Since then, the lifts have slowly been removed from the property and the trails have continued to grow in more and more every year. Ward Bond sold Loch Lomond in 2014 and since then the mountain has seemingly been thriving. Candy Mountain, on the other hand, continues to sit overgrown and forgotten, a rich part of Thunder Bay's downhill skiing legacy. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be a downhill ski area again.