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Sudbury History

Sudbury becomes a major nickel producer – by Ailbhe Goodbody (CIM Magazine – May 22, 2024)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

In this edition of Mining the Archives, we examine the development of Sudbury as a Canadian nickel hub, which later became an example of how pollution-impacted lands can be reclaimed successfully

The Sudbury Basin was formed by a meteorite impact approximately 1.85 billion years ago, which made mineral-rich magmas rise from deeper in the earth to create the valuable mineral resource deposits in the region.

Robert C. Stanley [CIM Bulletin, July 1927] stated that the first authentic discovery of nickel in the Sudbury district was recorded about 1856. “Sudbury was at that time the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, from which point construction was being pushed westward,” he said. “In the course of this work, a cutting was made which passed through an outcrop of copper ore that was later to be the Murray mine. Prospectors after copper immediately flocked into the surrounding country, and a very large number of claims were staked.”

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Memory Lane: When the Inco Club was the heart of the community – by Jason Marcon (Sudbury.com – September 13, 2023)

https://www.sudbury.com/

For nearly five decades, the Inco Employees Club served as a hub for community, entertainment and more in the city’s downtown core

If a person turns off Elm Street onto Frood Road in downtown Sudbury, they will very quickly come across our city’s nod to the Art Deco form. A grey building that appears triangular at first (not unlike the downtown’s other flatiron buildings) but behind that street-level facade lies an expansive facility that served the community’s needs for nearly 50 years.

Let us now step through its front doors and back in time to immerse ourselves in a little bit of the history as well as some of the special events that were held within the hallowed walls of the Inco Employees Club.

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Column: Why tear down the Superstack? Turn it into a tourist attraction – by Judith Van Boxel (Sudbury Star – May 17, 2023)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

We are about to destroy the Superstack. What a wasted opportunity

Some years ago when I was a business owner, I was also a member of the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce. At the time, the chamber was interested in the potential of Sudbury as a tourism destination in Ontario and I was asked to come up with an idea that would explore that possibility.

Together with a few friends who were local lodge operators and with added help from the Sudbury amateur radio operators, local army cadets and others, we attracted several hot air balloon pilots to Sudbury. One weekend in the summer, we hosted the first and only Sudbury Hot Air Balloon Festival that took place from the Lily Creek playing fields .

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Reflections on the Inco Superstack – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – March 14, 2023)

Stan Sudol PhotoStan Sudol Photo

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

Built in 1972 to clean up Sudbury’s environment and decommissioned in 2020, Canada’s onetime tallest freestanding structure is still standing

For Matteo Campagnaro, working on the Inco Superstack — Canada’s tallest structure for a brief time — was a pleasure. Campagnaro, who immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1965, said his time on the Superstack, from 1969 to 1972, made him fall in love with northern Ontario.

“The hunting, the lakes, the fish, the atmosphere, the outdoors, the friendly people — this is the best place in the world,” he said. Thanks to his job as a welder, he met his wife in Sudbury. They have two children and a grandson, and still live in Sudbury’s south end.

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Memory Lane: Old Steelworkers Hall a community gathering spot – by Vicki Gilhula (Sudbury.com – July 13, 2022)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The structure, built by the Legion in the 40s and sold to USW in the 60s, was destroyed in a fire in 2008

For more than 40 years, the handsome Steelworkers Hall on Frood Road was a place where men and women came together for union solidarity and camaraderie. The building was home to Steelworkers Local 6500 and Local 2020. In addition to union offices, it was a centre of union activities and social events.

Union members enjoyed beer, pickled eggs and conversation downstairs in the beer hall. The Steelworkers Hall was also popular with the community at large as a venue for weddings, celebrations, banquets, gala events and trade shows.

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Sudbury Reforestation-Marking an ‘amazing’ makeover – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – July 8, 2022)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Jane Goodall and Justin Trudeau plant 10 millionth tree in Sudbury

Bell Park played host this week to a living legend, and her stuffed monkey friend.Dr. Jane Goodall was in town on Thursday, along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to plant the 10 millionth tree in Greater Sudbury’s 40-year-long regreening campaign.

“For many years I’ve been travelling around the world, talking about the importance of protecting our beautiful environment,” Goodall told the large crowd assembled at the William Bell gazebo.

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Devil Copper: War and the Canadian Nickel Industry, 1883–1970 – by Scott Miller (National Defence Canada – Winter 2019)

http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/

Located in the heart of northeastern Ontario, the city of Sudbury is often referred to as the ‘Nickel Capital’ for its historic relationship with this particular metal. Indeed, by the eve of the First World War, it had become the world’s leading producer of nickel, and by 1950, its share of the global supply peaked at 95 percent.1

Also known as ‘devil copper,’ worldwide demand for nickel remained strong throughout much of the 20th Century, largely as a result of its far-reaching military applications. While the citizens of Sudbury are generally well aware of this mining legacy, others may not be as familiar with the significance of nickel in Canadian political and military history. This is hardly surprising. As renowned historian J.L. Granatstein once asserted, there is a lack of “…serious scholarship on Canada’s industrial [war effort],” including its mineral and mining sectors.2

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Nickel Closest Thing to a True ‘War Metal’ – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Northern Life – February 23, 2007)

Please note that this column is from 2007 – Stan Sudol

The metallic “Achilles heel” for any military and navel production has always been nickel

Sudbury was definitely going to be “nuked” by the Russians. At least that was our conclusion back in 1976 when I worked at CVRD Inco’s Clarabell Mill for a year.

During one graveyard shift, a group of us were talking about Cold War politics and atomic bombs. We all agreed that if there ever was a nuclear war between the Americans and Russians then there must have been one Soviet “nuke” with our community’s name stenciled on it. We all laughed a little nervously, but there was also some pride in knowing Sudbury was important enough to get blown-up in the first round of missiles.

Access to strategic materials has always affected the destinies of nations. The Romans conquered Britain in AD 43 to control valuable tin deposits in Cornwall. Combining tin with copper produces bronze, a more valuable and militarily important alloy. Ancient Chinese metallurgical expertise with iron and steel allowed the Middle Kingdom to become a dominate military and economic force during the prosperous Han dynasty.

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Northern Ontario’s mining memorials tell a tale of hard-fought labour protections – by Bill Steer (Bay Today – January 19, 2022)

 

https://www.baytoday.ca/

Back Roads Bill Steer is the founder and remains the GM of the Canadian Ecology Centre. He teaches part-time at Nipissing University (Schulich School of Education) and Canadore College. His features can be found across Village Media’s Northern Ontario sites.

With the help of the region’s scholars, Back Roads Bill recounts the struggles and horrific working conditions endured by early miners and the reason we should all remember them

It is part of a history lesson we know little about, so perhaps we need a little schooling. Envision hard rock miners, once toiling far underground in dark, cramped and dangerous conditions; it was arduous and risky work.

They emerged tired and dirty at the end of their shifts, walking back to small wood-sided homes and their immigrant families. Mining, along with forestry, created what was then called ‘New Ontario,’ — what we know as Northern Ontario.

Indigenous mining in the north began after the last period of glaciations, people of the Plano culture moved into the area and began quarrying quartzite at Sheguiandah on Manitoulin Island. Mining is an important economic activity in Northern Ontario. It has been since the first copper mines at Bruce Mines in 1846 and Silver Islet in 1868.

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Memory Lane: How Sudbury’s speed-skating miners edged out the competition in the 1930s – by Vicki Gilhula (Sudbury.com – February 9, 2022)

https://www.sudbury.com/

We’re digging into the region’s Olympic history this week in honour of Canada’s athletes currently competing at the Beijing Olympics

Every four years, Sudbury fans ignore the politics to enjoy the Olympics spectacle and cheer on athletic excellence.

With all eyes on the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, China, this month, it is fun to remember homegrown heroes who have competed for Canada with the whole world watching.

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Sudburians recall how the city banded together to weather the 1958 Inco strike – by Vicki Gilhula (Northern Ontario Business – December 24, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Just days before Christmas in 1958, some 14,000 Sudbury miners and their families got the news they had been praying for: the three-month strike at Inco was over. Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Local 598 president Mike Solski announced an agreement had been reached with Inco.

A three-year contract and a six-per-cent wage increase over three years was offered. This amounted to pennies on the hourly wage at the time of less than $3, but union leaders considered the settlement a victory.

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It’s been 50 years since NASA’s Apollo 16 astronauts walked on Sudbury – by Colleen Romaniuk (Sudbury Star – July 9, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

They were here to train for their moon mission

This summer marks 50 years since NASA dispatched the Apollo 16 astronauts to Sudbury for field training ahead of their trip to the moon. Commander John Young and pilot Charles Duke, whose spacecraft would launch from Cape Canaveral less than a year later on April 16, 1972, teamed up with experts from Inco to study Sudbury’s impact crater and its unique geological structures.

NASA hoped that the field training, which took place from July 7 to 9, 1971, would prepare the astronauts for lunar surface experiments. It turns out, the excursion didn’t prepare them as much as they’d hoped.

“We were very interested, at the time, in trying to work up the geology of the moon. The great debate in the literature prior to our first moon landing was how much of the moon was formed by volcanic activity and how much of it was formed by impact structures,” said Michael Dence.

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” THE STORY OF NICKEL ” 1930s INCO MINING PROMO FILM FROOD MINE SUDBURY, ONTARIO, CANADA

This 1930s black & white educational/promotional film tells “The Story of Nickel”. It was produced by INCO, the International Nickel Company, Ltd., now known as Vale Canada, Limited. INCO as founded following the discovery of copper deposits in Sudbury, Ontario. During World War II, Inco’s Frood-Stobie Mine Mine produced 40% of the nickel used in …

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Then and Now: In 1923, Ernest Hemingway called Sudbury’s moonscape ‘the weirdest country I have ever seen’ – by Vicki Gilhula (Sudbury.com – April 22, 2021)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The famed writer came north on assignment for The Toronto Star, hoping to get the scoop on a coal deposit

Ernest Hemingway is a towering figure of 20th century American literature and his celebrated life is the subject of a recent excellent three-part Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary series on PBS.

Before his first novel was published, Hemingway was a reporter and it is often noted by biographers that he perfected his simple, unadorned style of writing during his days at The Toronto Star from 1920 to 1924.

Hemingway was just 20 when he started to freelance for The Star. In 1921, he went to Paris as the paper’s foreign correspondent. Between August and December 1923, he returned to Toronto and worked out of the King Street newsroom.

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‘A life well lived’: Veteran journalist and writer Mick Lowe has passed away at age 73 – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury.com – April 17, 2021)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Award-winning Sudbury journalist and author Mick Lowe passed away peacefully at his home at Pioneer Manor this morning. Lowe, who was 73, died as a result of complications from a fall he suffered about three weeks ago.

He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and immigrated to Canada in 1970 as a Vietnam War draft dodger. Lowe’s journalism has appeared in a range of publications such as Maclean’s, Canadian Business, Canadian Lawyer, the Globe and Mail and on CBC Radio.

Lowe is also a former editor of Northern Life, Sudbury.com’s predecessor publication, and the author of seven books (with another pending publication), as well as a former lecturer in Cambrian College’s now-defunct journalism program.

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