At 381 metres, the Vale Base Metals—formerly Inco—Superstack, which is part of the company’s Copper Cliff smelter complex, was Canada’s tallest freestanding structure when it was completed in1972. It later lost that distinction to the CN tower, but today it still stands as the tallest chimney in the Western Hemisphere.
After Vale announced in September that work will begin to bring down the Superstack once it finishes dismantling its smaller Copperstack in 2025, people sent in stories to Vale about family members who were part of the construction for the behemoth structure. Locals who feel attached to it are asking: won’t the horizon of Sudbury, a place known to the global mining industry as Nickel City, feel empty once its iconic Superstack comes down?