The Road to Sudbury
Meteor Capital of the World -- 2 Billion Years of History

Sudbury Tourism

Sudbury - Ontario - Weather

 
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A Miriah Media Production

   >>>    >>>>
 
Sudbury Basin  (Sudbury Meteor)
 
  Location:
  Meteor's name:
  Meteor size:
  Date of hit:
  Crater size:
  Crater depth:
  Crater size today:
  Crater depth today:
 
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
Miriah
10 x 15 miles (super class meteor)
2.25 billion years ago
350 miles in diameter
25 miles (imploded within minutes)
20 x 40 miles
broad valley (only visible by aerial
radar imagery

Most distinguishing feature:       
     The Sudbury Basin is the richest and largest integrated mining complex in the world. There are numerous mines nestled along the ancient hills, that make up the crater rim. The deepest operating mine in the western hemisphere is located here, at 1.5 miles deep. The Basin has been pegged as a two trillion dollar asset. Yet, for all this talk about mines and craters, Sudbury and its surrounding landscape are a crown jewel, nestled in the beautiful forests, rivers and lakes of the pre-Cambrian Shield.
     Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Nickel Mines were the two companies involved in mining the Sudbury Basin, since day one. In the autumn of 2006, Xstrata a diversified mining group with headqua rters in Switzerland took over 100 percent ownership of Falconbridge. In that same time period CVRD of Brazil took over
control of Inco.
      As Sudbury enters 2007, we wish both new owners the very best in the years ahead.

 

  



Headframe of Falconbridge 's
Nickel R

  Page Index
 
Website Homepage
 
Page 2  More claim to fame, must see tourist attractions.
  Page 3  Records held by Sudbury, An epic poem about the
  Sudbury Basin and intriguing Sudbury mysteries

Breaking News Update
Canada has an opportunity to bring a
new province into our country.
Click here to go to the new province webpage.

    

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  Lake Wanapitei  (Wanapitei Meteor)

  Location:
  Meteor name:
  Meteor size:
  Date of hit:
  Crater size:
  Crater depth:
  Crater size today:
  Crater depth today:
20 miles NE. of downtown Sudbury
Ali (Miriah's sister)
1/2 mile in diameter
38 million years ago
4 miles in diameter
1 mile
5 - 6 miles in dia. (sides eroded over time
1 mile estimated

Most distinguishing feature:       
   
The lake is considered bottomless, because modern technology has not been able to confirm its depth. Lake Wanapitei  has a gravitational anomaly below it surface, which attracted the attention of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. He made plans to explore the depths of this lake, but died before the expedition could be started.


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Inco Ltd.
 
  Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

        Inco started mining operations in the Sudbury Basin in 1902. The company was a leading producer of nickel, copper, cobalt and precious metals. The company was purchased by CVRD in 2006. Today it is called Vale Inco.


   >>>    >>>>
  Falconbridge Nickel Mines

 
  Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

        Falconbridge started mining operations in the Sudbury Basin in 1928. The company is a leading producer of nickel, copper, cobalt and precious metals. The company was purchased by Xstrata in 2006. Today it is called Xstrata Nickel.

 
 
  >>>    >>>>
 
Inco's Super Stack

 
Location:    Sudbury, Ontario

        The giant mining company called Inco, built the Super Stack in 1972 at a cost of 25 million dollars. The stack rises 1250 feet into the Sudbury skyline. It is the tallest structure of its kind in the western hemisphere and the second tallest stack in the world. It is also the second tallest freestanding structure in Canada, surpassed only by the CN Tower in Toronto.
       From the top of Silver Peak in Killarney Provincial Park located to the south of Sudbury, one can clearly see the Super Stack, which is 30 miles away.

 
 
>>>    >>>>
 
Molten Rock (slag) Being Poured

   Location:   Sudbury, Ontario

       Molten rock (slag) is poured after the metals have been extracted from the mining and smelting process. This unique tourist attraction can only be seen in Sudbury. The spectacle ranks up there with a good fireworks display and is best viewed at night. There are some viewing locations in Sudbury, where one can definitely feel the heat when the molten rock is poured. This strange, dazzling, volcanic experience leaves a lasting impression on visitors, who say there is nothing else quite like it in the
  world.


 
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NASA Astronauts Visit Sudbury

       
In the early 1970s, NASA sent several of their astronauts to Sudbury to study the Astrobleme Theory, which was theorized in 1962 and means "Star Wound". The theory stated the Sudbury Basin was formed by a massive meteor impact. One important reason the astronauts were here was to visually recognize and study shatter cones.
        However, the news media decided, there was a more colorful angle to the story. They theorized, the astronauts had really come to Sudbury for training exercises, because the barren rocks resembled the moonscape. Well,  that's what they reported and Sudbury was haunted by a false image problem, which still lingers to this day some 40 years later.
        Nasa actually sent some of their astronauts to the Meteor Crater and the Sunset Crater in Arizona for training, because that area closely resembles what the astronauts were going to encounter on the moon.
 

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U.S. Military Will Defend Sudbury

        How important was the Sudbury Basin to the United States during WW II? The U.S. declassified a lot of documents from WW II in recent years. The following information received no media attention.
        The U.S. military had plans in place, to invade Canada and defend a large area of northeastern Ontario during WW II, if the enemy landed on Canadian soil. More precisely, the U.S. military was ready and willing to secure and defend the Sudbury Basin, because of its nickel mines and the importance that this metal played during the war.

 
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 CHNO 900 and later 550
 Location: Sudbury, Ontario      

       Radio Stations have the power to be a branding iron and a force to be reckoned with. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s CHNO was a Power House that forged the Top 40 in Sudbury and through out Northern Ontario. The radio station began broadcasting on June 24, 1947 at 1440 on the AM dial. The station moved to AM 900 in November 1954. However, it  wasn't until 1957 that CHNO started to build its legacy. If you follow the history of Ontario radio stations CHNO was a smaller copy of the grand daddy of them all, 1050 CHUM in Toronto. The call letters of CHUM  stand for "Friend". One of radio's best kept secrets could be that CHNO
 stands for "Little Friend in Northern Ontario". It seems, CHNO was the little ghost sister of its big sister station in Toronto.

     As I write this, it comes with a heavy heart  to learn that on March 26/ 2009, CTV globemedia, the owner of 1050 CHUM have killed its oldies format and changed the station into a 24 hour simulcast of CablePlus24 hour news. If there is any comfort in this, its knowing that in 2001-2 the owner turned the station into an all day night sports station, which only lasted a few months. It would seem the golden age of Rock and Roll refuses to die.

 

 

 

 

 

  



Aerial view of Lake Wanapitei
looking south.


300 million years before Inco and
Falconbridge started mining operations
in Sudbury, the Sudbury Basin was
located next to the great inland sea, which
cover much of North America.



Early transportation used by Inco
on their rail lines.
 


The Super Stack located in the town of
Copper Cliff just outside of Sudbury.

 
Molten rock (slag)
being poured in Sudbury

 

 
Nasa astronauts visit Sudbury.

 


If an attack was imminent by enemy
forces during WW 2, long convoys of
U.S military vehicles, like the one pictured
above, would be converging on Sudbury

 

 


 

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  Hardy Boys Series of Books

 

 
Location:     Sudbury's Lake Ramsey
  Author:         Leslie McFarlane    Wrote Under the Pen Name:     
                         Franklin W. Dixon
  

  
Most Distinguishing Feature:   
 

       
In 1927 Leslie McFarlane was hired as a freelance writer, by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, to write three books based on plots they supplied. The three books were called breeder volumes and they would be published as a group. If these books received buyer support, then more volumes would follow. The plots they
  gave McFarlane were simple. The books would chronicle the adventures of two teenage detectives, Frank and Joe Hardy. The boys would solve mysteries at home and abroad with humor and smarts.

       McFarland decided to return to a small cabin, located on Lake Ramsey, just outside of Sudbury, Ontario. Years earlier, he had used the peace and tranquility of this cabin, for inspiration in writing other books. Within weeks, McFarlane had the three books completed. The Stratemeyer Syndicate approved them, they went
to press and the rest is history. The titles of these three volumes were "The Tower Treasure", "The House on the Cliff" and "The Secret of the Old Mill." McFarlane wrote these books under the pen name F. W. Dixon. The three books blazed the trail for the other volumes that followed. In that small cabin just outside of Sudbury, McFarlane shaped the characters of the Hardy Boys. His writing style was electrifying and these books would become one of the best selling series in the world, racking up sales in the millions. After 80 years, these books still capture the imagination of our young people.

      
McFarlane used the plots and equated them to his surroundings in writing the first three books. He used the following real places for his inspiration of the fictional places:
Sudbury represented Bayport. Sudbury's train station represented the station in Bayport. Bayport was three miles from Sudbury's Lake Ramsey, which represented the ocean. Sudbury's Flour Mill Silos were the inspiration for The Tower Treasure and The Secret of the Old Mill, while The House on the Cliff was represented by the cliffs overlooking Lake Ramsey at Lily Creek. In retrospect, Sudbury was the birth place for the Hardy Boys series of books.

 
 
  Epilog:                                      
     
Leslie McFarlane in future years would go on to become a script writer for the television series Bonanza under the name F.W. Dixon.
 

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Flour Mill Silos
 
Location:    Sudbury, Ontario

        The silos were built in 1910 with four foot thick concrete walls. They were used for agricultural purposes by the Ontario & Manitoba Flour Milling Co. In the 1950s, area residents wanted to have them demolished, but in the mid 70s they were classified as an historical landmark, thus assuring their survival.

 

 

 

 

 

 





Lake Ramsey Sudbury



Bonanza TV Series



Sudbury's Flour Mill Silos

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Sudbury Blueberry Capital of Ontario
  
Location:     Sudbury Basin

  
Most Distinguishing Feature:     
       
The Sudbury Basin by natural evolution was not a hot spot for blueberries. So the question is what happened? The answer is Inco and Falconbridge, the giant mining companies located in Sudbury. In the early years, sulphur was released into the air in vast amounts, through the ore smelting process. Rain mixed with the sulphur and fell as acid rain. This combination was deadly to
lakes, forests and plant life. However, blueberry plants thrive in high acidic soil and the acid rain process led to these plants, taking over the Sudbury Basin. The plants started spreading in the early 20th century and by the 1930s, the basin was a hot spot for these berries.  
 
However, Sudbury's status of being the Blueberry Capital of Ontario, could be in jeopardy. The acid rain led to the Sudbury landscape becoming bare, because the trees and vegetation died. In the mid 1970s, Inco built a super stack that removed about 90 percent of the sulphur going up the stack and within a few years, the soil and the lakes were coming back to life. Inco and the City of Sudbury, then went on a reforestation project and today the Sudbury landscape is returning to being a forest again. When the forest returns, the blueberry plants are pushed out. There are still vast areas of these plants around, but each year there numbers dwindle. The Sudbury Basin is rich in organic soil, because of the meteor and this led to the blueberries growing there, to be among the tastiest found in the world. Each summer, the demand for Sudbury blueberries is strong especially in southern Ontario.

  
The Sudbury land reclamation timeline can be viewed here.

  
During the summer months of July and August, roadside vendors selling blueberries can be found on all major highways, leading out of Sudbury. The berries can also be purchased from fruit stands within the city. However, a word of caution, as some vendors try to sell the berries at very inflated prices. Your best deal usually comes, if you can locate berry pickers coming out of the bush, who pick and sell to area wholesalers. These people are the backbone of Sudbury's blueberry industry and most would welcome selling direct to the end user. As a price guide, a four liter or four quart level basket of blueberries should retail for about $30 to $35 Canadian.
 

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   The song "Sudbury Saturday Night"

  
Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

  
Most Distinguishing Feature:       
       
Inco, the giant Sudbury mining company, certainly has a special relationship with the the residents of Sudbury. Canadian folk singer Stompin Tom Connors, wrote the international hit Sudbury Saturday Night. This was a first in music history, where a song has propelled its artist to stardom and immortalized a
   company (Inco) and city (Sudbury).  
Watch the Video. 


  
>>>    >>>>
   Sudbury, Ontario:  The Birthplace of Earth History

  
Location:   Sudbury, Ontario

   Most Distinguishing Feature:   
      
 
From a time in the distant past, long before the dinosaurs and back before time itself, Earth had a visitor. This visitor came from a distant land, looking for a new home and a new beginning. Today, over two billion years later, the remnants of her encounter with our planet, can still be seen in Sudbury.
 
         Her encounter with our planet was not by chance. She was sent by a civilization that had technology, so far beyond our understanding that even today they remain silent. However, their silence is only as we perceive it, for they have been interacting with Earth for two billion years. In 1884, a major discovery concealed in the ancient rocks of the Sudbury Basin has led to the writing of a book titled, "2 Billion Years Ago, A Heavily Armed Warship Went Into Earth Orbit."

         This book is about the historical legacy of the Sudbury Basin. It is an exciting and riveting story based on historical events. The book will challenge or complement the bible depending on how you view religion. The book's release date has not been finalized yet. You Tube video ad for this book on page 2
 

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Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO)
 
Location:    Sudbury, Ontario

        The neutrino observatory is located 6,800 feet underground at Inco's Creighton Mine, located in Sudbury, Ontario. The neutrino detector, detects solar neutrinos from our sun through their interaction with a tank of heavy water. The detector started operations in 1999 and was shut off at the end of 2006.
        In the book "2 Billion Years Ago, A Heavily Armed Warship Went Into Earth Orbit, Miriah, who is the guardian of our solar system indicated, the Sudbury Observatory has detected a phenomenon near the outer fringes of Earth's solar system. The scientists have not figured out what it is but Miriah tells us, every time she turns Paradise's cloaking veil on and off,  it causes a massive disturbance in the neutrinos striking the Earth. This is what they are detecting. Paradise is her residence, which is a huge space docking station.


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  Sudbury Trees, Used to Rebuild Chicago

        The Sudbury area prior to 1872 was the home to a thriving forest, of the largest population of Red Pine and White Pine trees in the world. Then in the autumn of 1871, about five square miles of Chicago went up in flames. The call went out, Chicago need lumber and plenty of it. Sawmills were built virtually overnight in key locations through out the Sudbury district. Trees were cut at an alarming rate and when the dust settled, huge tracks of land were almost treeless. It was the first strike of several that would send the Sudbury landscape, to the edge of death. But the Earth is resilient and with a little help from Sudburians, the trees are making a come back.


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 The Big Nickel

  Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

       The Big Nickel is a 30 foot high replica of a 1951, Canadian coin and it is located on the grounds of Dynamic Earth. It is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest coin.


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  HMCS Sudbury

  World War II  Corvette warship

       HMCS Sudbury was a small, maneuverable, lightly armed corvette class warship that served the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. Her chief duty was to protect convoys in the North Atlantic. Sudbury was laid down at Kingston Shipbuilding Ltd on January 25, 1941 and launched on May 31, 1941. She was commissioned into the RCN on October 15, 1941 and declared surplus and decommissioned by the RCN on August 28, 1945.
      Sudbury entered civilian service as the S.S. Sudbury and underwent several ownership changes. In 1954, the Island Tug and Barge of Victoria, B.C. purchased her. She was converted to an ocean-going tugboat and retained her original name. Her most daring rescue took place in Nov./Dec. 1955. She saved the Greek freighter Makeconoia in the North Pacific. Sudbury towed the disabled vessel for 40 days through some of the roughest weather imaginable before arriving safely at Vancouver. That incident made headlines around the world and for the next decade Sudbury was one of the most famous deep sea tugs on the Pacific coast.
     Unlike most of her sister ships, Sudbury proudly retained her original name until the very end. In 1967 she was saluted one last time before going to the ship graveyard in Victoria. She was named after the city of Sudbury, Ontario.

 S.S. Sudbury 11

     In researching the HMCS Sudbury, new information surfaced that she had a twin sister ship named S.S. Sudbury 11. The only information found states this ship remained in service until 1979, when she was converted into a fishing ship by her new owners. This ship sank in Hecate Strait in 1982. This website would appreciate any information about her early life. Contact information is at the bottom of this page.

     

   >>>    >>>>
  Eddie Shack, NHL Hockey Player

  Born in Sudbury in 1937
 
       Eddie Shack (Jersey # 23) rose to fame in the golden era of the NHL. He was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1961 and remained there until the autumn of 1967. It was during these years, the fans and his team mates labeled him with the title, "The Entertainer". One writer described Shack as a big puppy let loose on the ice. He was a fierce fighter and a force to be reckoned with. He became a legend in his own time, when Doug Rankine and the Secrets recorded the song, "Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack" in his honor. The song rose to #1 on the Canadianpop charts and remained there for 3 months.


   >>>    >>>>
  Hwy 400, Ontario's North South Corridor

  
       The Ontario government is currently in the process, of extending Hwy 400 from Barrie, Ontario to Sudbury, along the existing Highway 69 corridor. It is scheduled for completion by 2017.
       Once completed, Sudbury will be linked to Toronto by a 4 lane expressway. As of this date 2008, it is 100 miles from Sudbury.


   >>>    >>>>
  Science North

   Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

        This world class science centre, has several levels full of science education and family fun. Also featuring an IMAX Theatre, Virtual Voyages Motion Simulator Ride, the Butterfly Gallery and the 4D bush plane adventure, Wings Over the North. 


   >>>    >>>>
  IMAX Theatre Sudbury

   Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

        The only Imax Theatre in Northern Ontario is located in Sudbury.


  >>>    >>>>
  Dynamic Earth Sudbury

 
  Location:     Sudbury, Ontario

        Dynamic Earth tells the stories that have been unearthed from the 1.8 billion year old rock that surrounds the City of Greater Sudbury,  the mining capital of Canada.

   >>>    >>>>
  GBC Video

 
GBC Productions

 
  Location:     Sudbury, Ontario 

  
     
GBC Productions was founded in 1980 by a local Sudburian. The companies direction at that time was video taping weddings,
  graduations, dances, concerts, real estate, etc. By the summer of 1982, the company was poised to phase itself, out of video taping and into a new media called video movie and vcr rentals.

       In September 1982, GBC Productions opened a small video store at the west end of Lasalle Blvd. It advertised itself as the store, which had the lowest movie rental prices in Sudbury. Within six months, the video store had used up all available space for displaying the movie boxes. In September 1983, GBC Productions moved to a larger facility at the Sudbury Supermall in the same building as the liquor store. The name was changed to GBC Video and a year later the growth of the store had been so great that all the available space was again used up.

      In 1984, GBC Video won an award for being the number one independent video store in Ontario. The criteria was customer satisfaction, store design, sales, extent of movie selection, location and customer service. In 1984, GBC Video opened a second store called GBC Productions. It was located in Hanmer, Ontario about twelve miles north of Sudbury.

     By the summer of 1985, GBC Video was making plans to open Sudbury’s first mega video store. It would be an 8,000 square foot facility that would be stocked with not only movie and vcr rentals, but would retail the latest in vcrs, televisions and video cameras. This super store was going to open in the summer of 1986. However, GBC Video’s computer tracking clearly indicated a slowdown in movie rentals from 1985 to 1986. The store opening was delayed and finally cancelled, when the slow down continued into 1987. GBC Video closed both its stores in the spring of 1987. The feeding frenzy of renting movies had clearly run its course.

     After closing the stores in 1987, GBC Video put most of its movie inventory into corner stores outside of Sudbury. The territory ranged from North Bay in the east to Blind River in the west. It took another three years before the inventory was low enough that a purchaser emerged. By 1990, GBC Video was no longer an entity. During the years GBC Video was open there was much speculation as to what GBC stood for. The three letters stood for Georgian Bay Country.

 

 

 

 

 

The Sudbury Blueberry Bear




 

 

Above ebook is
available from Kindle

 

 

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Much of the lumber needed to
rebuild the city, came from the
Sudbury region.

         

Creighton Mine, located in
 Sudbury. Almost a mile and a
 half underneath this head
 frame is the Sudbury
Neutrino Observatory.


 

 


The Big Nickel located on the grounds
of Dynamic Earth in Sudbury.

 


HMCS Sudbury as she proudly escorts a
convoy of ships in the North Atlantic 1943

 


S.S. Sudbury after she was converted
to a deep sea tugboat on Canada's west coast.

 


FYI  If  HMCS Sudbury was being built today
(2009), her design would be very similar to the
corvette ship pictured above.



The Entertainer, Eddie Shack


Hwy 400 Expressway as it
moves ever closer to Sudbury.

 


Science North located on Lake Ramsey


Dynamic Earth located in Sudbury

A Sudbury, Ontario Survey
Free Website Survey

Part 2
  Free Web Poll

 
 

 

 

The illusive google car sitting on the Nickel Mine Rd. in Sudbury


 


 


 

 

 

 

 
   
Time Machine -- Do You Remember
   A nostalgic look back to the years 1957 to 1967

      In 1968, several high school students from Sudbury formed a
    committee, for the purpose of preparing a questionnaire.
    This survey had ten multiple choice questions on it, covering
    a time period from 1957 to 1967. The questionnaire was
    randomly distributed to 500 Sudbury high school students.
    Below are the results of that survey.

    1     Sudbury’s number one radio station --- CHNO
   2     Sudbury top three car choices --- 1957 Chevrolet Belair,
          1964 Ford Galaxy 500 and the 1962 Chevrolet Impala.
   3     Sudbury’s two best high schools --- Lasalle Secondary
          and Sudbury High
   4     Five best songs from that time period --- Venus in Blue
          Jeans – Jimmy Clanton, So Much in Love – The Tymes,
         
Make it Easy on Yourself – Jerry Bulter, See You in
          September – The Happenings, I’ll be There – Jerry & the
          Pacemakers
   5     Top two TV shows --- Twilight Zone and Beverly Hillbillies
   6     Best two Sudbury activities -- Friday and Saturday night
          car cruising and the CHNO Curbside Show
   7     Favorite high school activity – High School Sock Hop
   8     Top dance – The Jive
   9     Top summer treat – Dairy Queen Sunday
  10    Top Sudbury retail store --- Woolworth's

  In 1970, the same committee mentioned above, sent out a
  survey to over 3,000 young adults in Sudbury. The survey
  was very simple, list your top 5 songs from 1955 to 1970.

  Criteria was song's message, dance ability, tune and human
  emotion. (does it move your inner feelings)

  Below are the results of that survey. Click on the song's
  title to listen to it.

  1     The Cheater -- Bob Kuban and the Inmen -- 1966
  2     Never Throw Your Dreams Away
-- Joanie Sommers -- 1966
  3     See You in September -- The Happenings -- 1966
  4     Cherish -- The Association -- 1966
  5     Color Him Father-- The Winstons -- 1969

  From the above survey, there is little doubt that 1966 was the
  year that moved a lot of young people.


 


Woolworth's in downtown Sudbury 1960s

 

                         

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