Encyclopedia
Greater Sudbury is a city in
Northern Ontario,
Canada. Greater Sudbury was created in 2001 by amalgamating the cities and towns of the
Regional Municipality of Sudbury, along with several previously unincorporated geographic townships.
It is the largest city in Northern Ontario in population, and the 20th largest metropolitan area in Canada. In land area, it is now the largest city in Ontario, the seventh largest municipality in Canada, and the largest municipality in English Canada legally designated as a city.
It is also the only city in Ontario which has two official names -- its name in French is
Grand-Sudbury. Unlike designations such as Greater Toronto or Greater Montreal, the name "Greater Sudbury" refers to a single city, not a conurbation of independent municipalities. However, the name
Sudbury, without its official modifiers, is still the more common name for the city in everyday usage.
The city's Census Metropolitan Area consists of the city proper and the First Nations reserves of Whitefish Lake and Wanapitei.
History
Sudbury was incorporated as a town in 1883, and as a city in 1930. Originally named Sainte-Anne-des-Pins , it started as a lumber camp.
During construction of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, blasting and excavation revealed high concentrations of
nickel-
copper ore at Murray Mine on the edge of the
Sudbury Basin. The community, renamed Sudbury in honour of the CPR commissioner's wife's
hometown in England, grew rapidly as a mining town.
Through the decades that followed, Sudbury's economy went through boom and bust cycles as world demand for nickel rose and fell. Demand was high during the
First World War, then bottomed out when the war ended. It rose again in the mid-1920s, then fell as the
Great Depression hit, and rose again during the
Second World War. After the end of that war, however, Sudbury was in a good position to supply nickel to the
United States government, who chose to stockpile non-
Soviet supplies during the
Cold War.
In 1940, Sudbury became the first city in Canada to install
parking meters.
In the 1950s and 60s, Sudbury was beset by extensive labour unrest, as
Inco and Falconbridge employees not only fought their companies for the right to unionize, but also fought amongst themselves as to what union would represent them.
Both the
Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the
United Steelworkers of America had support among Sudbury miners, and there were often riots in the streets as the rival factions confronted each other. Ultimately, the two unions settled into an uneasy truce, with Mine Mill winning the right to unionize Falconbridge, and the Steelworkers winning the right to unionize Inco.
In February 1956, the Mine Mill held its Canadian convention, which was particularly notable for being the first non-US concert given by
Paul Robeson after the US government instituted its travel ban against him. The same year, the city approved a
natural gas contract with Northern Ontario Natural Gas — the city's mayor at the time, Leo Landreville, was later forced to resign from the Supreme Court of Ontario bench after allegations that he had received stock favours in exchange for the contract.
On August 20, 1970, a
tornado struck the city and its suburbs, killing six people and remaining the eighth deadliest tornado in Canadian history.
Labour issues would continue to be Sudbury's dominant economic challenge. In 1979, Inco workers embarked on a
strike over production and employment cutbacks, which lasted for nine full months. As Inco was by this time Sudbury's largest employer, the strike decimated Sudbury's economy.
When the strike finally ended in 1980, the city's government recognized the urgent need to diversify the city's economy. Through an aggressive strategy, the city tried to attract new employers and industries through the 1980s and 1990s. Today mining remains an important industry, but Sudbury also derives economic strength as a centre of commerce, government, tourism and science and technology research. Although Inco remains the city's largest single
employer, the mining industry is no longer the city's largest
sector of employment.
In 2006, there has been renewed debate on the issue of the municipal amalgamation. The former town of Rayside-Balfour, and many of its residents, are unhappy with their position in the city, and have lobbied for a deamalgamation referendum during the
2006 municipal election. City council has refused to endorse such a referendum, although even with the council's endorsement a vote would still have to be approved by the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Mayor David Courtemanche has, however, appointed former MPP Floyd Laughren to chair an advisory committee to review and make recommendations to improve the quality of city services to the outlying communities.
Government
Prior to 1973, Sudbury comprised portions of the geographic townships of Neelon and McKim.
In 1973, provincially-mandated restructuring of municipal government organized the city of Sudbury and surrounding towns into the
Regional Municipality of Sudbury, which consisted of seven municipalities. The population figures cited next to each are for 1996, the last Canadian
census before the amalgamated city came into effect:
- City of Sudbury
- Town of Valley East
- Town of Rayside-Balfour
- Town of Nickel Centre
- Town of Walden
- Town of Onaping Falls
- Town of Capreol
Municipal responsibilities were distributed between the council of the Regional Municipality and the councils of the individual towns and cities. The region covered 2,607 square kilometres.
In 1979, Sudbury became the first city in Canada to install a
TTY line in the mayor's office to help improve service to deaf citizens.
The five towns and two cities of the region, as well as several unorganized townships, were amalgamated by provincial order on January 1, 2001 to become the city of Greater Sudbury. The city is headed by a council and mayor. The main municipal office is at Tom Davies Square, named for a former chair of the Regional Municipality of Sudbury.
The current mayor of Greater Sudbury is David Courtemanche, who succeeded retiring longtime mayor Jim Gordon in 2003.
The city is represented federally by
Members of Parliament Diane Marleau in the Sudbury riding, and
Ray Bonin in
Nickel Belt. Their counterparts in the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario are Rick Bartolucci in Sudbury and
Shelley Martel in Nickel Belt.
The provincial Ministry of Northern Development and Mines has its head office in the city.
Communities
The name
Greater Sudbury is almost exclusively a political designation. In common usage, the city is still generally referred to as
Sudbury.
Outside of the region, the name "Sudbury" is still commonly understood to refer only to the
former city of Sudbury, with the outlying communities often believed to remain distinct from the city itself. Some of the outlying communities, for example, still retain their own distinct
postal and
telephone exchange codes — as of 2006, these services have still not been fully integrated into a single citywide system.
In local usage, however, the name "Sudbury" refers to the whole city, although the former municipal names of the
Regional Municipality of Sudbury also remain in informal use to designate the different areas of the city.
Communities within the city are listed below. Communities listed in bold are those which are listed as distinct telephone and postal exchanges by
Bell Canada and
Canada Post:
- Former town of Capreol: Capreol - Milnet - Selwood
- Former town of Nickel Centre: Austin - Bailey Corners - Bowland's Bay - Coniston - Falconbridge - Garson - Happy Valley - Skead - Wahnapitae
- Former town of Onaping Falls: Dowling - Levack - Levack Station - Onaping - Phelans
- Former town of Rayside-Balfour: Azilda - Bélanger - Boninville - Chelmsford - Hull - Larchwood - Simard
- Former city of Sudbury: Adamsdale - Barrydowne - Copper Cliff - Frood Mine - Lo-Ellen - Lockerby - McFarlane Lake - Minnow Lake - New Sudbury - Nickeldale - Rheault - Robinson
- Former city of Valley East - Blezard Valley - Elmview - Flake - Guilletville - Hagarty - Hanmer - Laurentian - McCrea Heights - Parkwood - Val Caron - Val Thérèse
- Former town of Walden: Beaver Lake - Crean Hill - Creighton Mine - High Falls - Lively - Mikkola - Milate - Naughton - Turbine - Victoria Mine - Waters - Whitefish - Worthington
- Formerly unorganized communities: St. Cloud - Wanup.
Geography
The ore deposits in Sudbury are part of a large geological structure known as the
Sudbury Basin, believed to be the remnants of a 1.85-billion year old
meteorite impact crater. Sudbury ore contains profitable amounts of many elements, especially
transition metals, including
platinum. It also contains an unusually high concentration of
sulfur.
Sudbury was known for many years as a wasteland. During the
Apollo manned lunar exploration program,
NASA astronauts trained in Sudbury, to become familiar with
shatter cones, a rare rock formation connected with meteorite impacts. However, the popular misconception that they were visiting Sudbury because it resembled the lifeless surface of the
moon dogged the city for years.
When nickel-copper ore is smelted, this sulfur is released into the environment. The sulfur is toxic to vegetation. Carried aloft, it combines with atmospheric water to form
sulfuric acid. This contaminates atmospheric water, resulting in a phenomenon known as
acid rain. Acid rain erodes rocks and masonry, kills plants, and acidifies soil, discouraging regeneration of vegetation. In the Sudbury area, vegetation was devastated, both by acid rain and by
logging to provide fuel for early smelting techniques. The erosion exposed bedrock, which was charred in most places to a pitted, dark black appearance.
In the late 1970s, private, public, and commercial interests combined to establish an unprecedented "regreening" effort.
Lime was spread over the charred soil of the Sudbury region by hand and by aircraft. Seeds of wild
grasses and other vegetation were also spread. In twenty years, over three million trees were planted. The ecology of the Sudbury region has recovered dramatically, due both to the regreening program and improved mining practices, and in 1992 the city was given the "Local Government Honours Award" by the
United Nations, in honour of its innovative community-based strategies in environmental rehabilitation.
Sudbury is on the
Canadian Shield. Over 300 lakes lie within its municipal boundaries, including
Lake Wanapitei, which holds the record for the largest lake in the world completely contained within the boundaries of a single city.
Transportation
Greater Sudbury is served by a number of provincial highways. Highway 17 is the main branch of the
Trans-Canada Highway, connecting the city to points east and west. An approximately 25-kilometre segment of Highway 17, from Mikkola to Whitefish, is
freeway. As of 2006, this segment is one of only two full freeway segments in all of Northern Ontario.
Highway 69 leads south to
Parry Sound, where it connects to the Highway 400 freeway to
Toronto. Highway 400 will eventually be extended to reach Greater Sudbury; although the timetable may be subject to change, this construction is currently scheduled for completion in 2017. Highway 144 leads north to
Timmins.
The provincial Ministry of Transportation has announced tentative plans to extend the Highway 17 freeway east to Coniston in the mid-2010s, near the completion date of the Highway 400 construction. Studies have also been completed on the freeway segment's westerly extension as far as
Espanola, although no construction timetable has been set. In the longer term, the whole highway may eventually be subsumed into Highway 417, although to date no formal project planning has taken place and that is likely decades away.
The Greater Sudbury Airport is served by regional carrier lines such as Bearskin and
Air Canada Jazz. Sudbury is also served by rail and inter-city bus service. The city also maintains a
public transit system, Greater Sudbury Transit.
Education and culture
Greater Sudbury is home to three postsecondary institutions:
Laurentian University, a bilingual university, Cambrian College, an English college of applied arts and technology, and Collège Boréal, a
francophone college with additional campuses throughout Northern Ontario. Laurentian University is also home to the Sudbury campus of the
Northern Ontario School of Medicine . NOSM is the newest medical school to open in Canada, opening its doors in September of 2005.
Almost 30% of the city's population is
Franco-Ontarian, particularly in the former municipalities of Valley East and Rayside-Balfour. The city has, in fact, the largest proportion of francophones to the general population of any city in Ontario. Sudbury is a very important centre in Franco-Ontarian cultural history, and the francophone community of Sudbury has played a central role in developing and maintaining many of the cultural institutions of francophone Ontario. Those institutions include the Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario, La Nuit sur l'étang, La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Le Centre franco-ontarien de folklore and the Prise de parole publishing company. Sudbury is also the birthplace of high school theater troupe Les Draveurs, based in École secondaire Macdonald-Cartier. Over the years, Les Draveurs have put out some well-known members of the franco-ontarian theater community : Robert Marinier, Fernand Rainville, Manon St-Jules, etc.
The Franco-Ontarian flag, as well, calls Sudbury home. It was first flown in 1975, at Laurentian University.
Sudbury has lent its mining heritage to two major tourist attractions:
Science North, which is an interactive science museum built atop an ancient earthquake fault on the shore of Lake Ramsey, and Dynamic Earth, an earth sciences exhibition which is also home to the
Big Nickel, one of Sudbury's most famous landmarks. Another city landmark, the
Inco Superstack, is the world's tallest free standing
chimney. As well, the Creighton Mine site in Sudbury is the site of the
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, a major scientific research facility.
Sudbury is also home to the Sudbury Theatre Centre, the Cinéfest film festival, the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra, the Art Gallery of Sudbury, the annual Northern Lights Festival Boréal folk festival, and numerous community museums. The
CBC Television series
Chilly Beach is a Canadian [i] animated television series, which airs on CBC Television [i] i ...
, an animated comedy, is produced by a Sudbury firm, March Entertainment.
Sudbury hosted the International Physics Olympiad in 1997.
Sudbury was formerly home to four
hospitals: Sudbury General, Sudbury Memorial, Sudbury Algoma and Laurentian. In 1968, the first successful
coronary artery bypass surgery in Canada was performed at Sudbury Memorial Hospital. Under its hospital restructuring agenda, the government of Ontario amalgamated all of the hospitals into one, the Sudbury Regional Hospital.
Sudbury was one of the first Canadian cities to plan and implement its own digital
telecommunications strategy. Beginning in 1996, the city began constructing a
fibre optic network which saw over 400 kilometres of cable laid down to serve the city's business and citizen populations. In November of 2005, the city was named one of the world's "Smart 21 Communities" by the Intelligent Community Forum, a worldwide project to honour technological innovation. Other named cities included
Waterloo,
Ottawa,
Philadelphia,
Dubai,
Seoul,
London,
Manchester and
Melbourne.
Sudbury also has a fairly moderate but active
LGBT community. This community is partially fuelled by local residents, out of town students attending the city's three postsecondary institutions, as well as residents of surrounding Northern Ontario cities. Zig's, the city's prominent gay business, is the only gay bar in all of Northern Ontario. The city also has a
Pride parade, which takes place in August of each year, and was held for the first time in 1997.
Sports
The
Sudbury Wolves of the
Ontario Hockey League play in the city, at the Sudbury Arena.
The city is also home to a
harness racing track located in Azilda called Sudbury Downs. That facility, although not a full
casino, also has
slot machines.
Laurentian University is represented in the
Canadian Interuniversity Sport league by the Laurentian Voyageurs and the Laurentian Lady Vees. Cambrian College is represented in the
Canadian Colleges Athletic Association by the Cambrian Golden Shield, and Collège Boréal is represented by the Boréal Vipères. High school students compete in the Sudbury District Secondary School Athletic Association , which is a division of Northern Ontario Secondary School Athletics .
The city hosted the IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics in 1988. Sudbury also played host to the
Brier, Canada's annual men's
curling championships, in 1953 and 1983, and to the 2001 Scott Tournament of Hearts, the women's curling championship.
The Sudbury Spartans football club have been tearing up the gridiron for over half a century with the team's inaugural season in 1954. However, back then they were known as the Hardrocks, the name honouring the city's miners. The team changed the name in 1967 to the Spartans due to then coach Sid Forester believing that Hardrocks sounded too much like the name of a street gang.
Famous Sudburians
This list includes people from all communities within the
current city boundaries.
- Al Arbour, NHL hockey coach
- Alex Baumann, Olympic gold medalist
- Todd Bertuzzi, NHL hockey player
- Hector "Toe" Blake, NHL hockey player, coached 8 Stanley Cup teams
- Michel Bock, historian and winner of the 2005 Governor General's Award for French language non-fiction
- Andrew Brunette, NHL hockey player
- Daryl Brunt, Canadian Idol is a reality television [i] show on the Canadian [i] television network CTV [i] ...
competitor - Jeffrey Buttle
...
, figure skater
...
band
...
, children's entertainer and former host of
Polka Dot Door was a children's television [i] series produced and broadcast by TVOntario [i] from 1971 [i]...
- Jean-Marc Dalpé, dramatist and two-time winner of the Governor-General's Award
- Paul Desmarais, businessman
- Robert Dickson, poet and winner of the 2002 Governor-General's Award
- Rand Dyck, political scientist and professor at Laurentian University
- Judy Erola, former federal cabinet minister and Member of Parliament
- Robert Esmie, Olympic gold medalist
- Aaron Gavey, hockey player
- Gil Grand, country music singer best known for his song "Famous First Words"
- James Jerome, former federal Member of Parliament and Speaker of the House of Commons
- Gary Kinsman, sociologist and professor at Laurentian University
- Floyd Laughren, former Member of Provincial Parliament and Ontario Minister of Finance
- Dave Lowry, NHL hockey player
- Kate Maki, country rock singer-songwriter
- Bobby McIntosh and Yas Taalat, rappers
- Jake Mathews, country singer / songwriter
- Bruce Mau, designer
- Robert Paquette, singer-songwriter
- Reg Plummer, Olympic field hockey player
- Jamie Rivers, NHL hockey player
- Kimberly Rogers, woman whose death in 2001 while under house arrest for a disputed welfare fraud conviction became a major political issue in Ontario
- Art Ross, NHL hockey player
- John Rutherford, Professor Emeritus, Laurentian University and local business owner
- Brian Savage, NHL hockey player
- Eddie Shack, NHL hockey player
- Sandra Shamas, comedian
- Sonja Smits, television actress
- Pat Travers, rock guitarist
- Alex Trebek, television host
- Michelle Wright, country singer
Media
Television
...
, CH
- Cable 10: "News Channel 10", Persona Cable community channel
Radio
- 790 AM - CIGM
- 90.1 FM - CBBS
- 90.9 FM - CBBX
- 92.7 FM - CJRQ
- 95.5 FM - CJTK
- 96.7 FM - CKLU
- 98.1 FM - CBON
- 98.9 FM - CHYC
- 99.9 FM - CBCS
- 101.1 FM - CKSO
- 103.9 FM - CHNO
- 105.3 FM - CJMX
On July 17, 2006, the
CRTC issued a call for applications for a new radio service in the Sudbury market. It is not yet known what broadcasting companies will apply for a license, or even if any new radio station will be licensed at all.
Newspapers
Sudbury's daily newspaper is the
Sudbury Star. A community newspaper, which publishes twice a week, is
Northern Life. A francophone community paper,
Le Voyageur, is also published weekly. A light, entertaining community newspaper called
South Side Story has become quite popular as well. Local communities within the city are also served by smaller weekly papers such as
The Valley Vision and the
Walden Observer. There are also student newspapers at the city's postsecondary institutions:
Lambda and
L'Orignal déchaîné at Laurentian,
Golden Words at Cambrian College and
L'Étudiant at Collège Boréal.
Sudbury is also, along with
Thunder Bay, one of the major centres of Finnish-Canadian settlement. An important historical Finnish newspaper,
Vapaus, was published from 1917 to 1974.
Demographics
The population of Sudbury continues to decline due mostly to many young Sudburians moving to other parts of Canada, specifically, the southern cities of Ontario. In 2001, the total population of Sudbury was 155,219, a drop of 6.1 percent, comparing to the 1996 population of 165,336. Approximately 18.27 percent of the population is under 14 years of age, while those over 65 number 13.84 percent. The average is 38.9 years of age. Recent anecdotal evidence suggests that after a few years of decline the city's population may have begun to increase again, although this will not be confirmed until the 2006 Canadian census data is released in early 2007.
Sudbury is largely a bilingual city. Sudbury has a large
francophone population, mostly due to the vast amount of inhabitants of French origin. Some 62.3 percent of the population speak
English, followed by
French: 28.2%. Much of the remaining population are
bilingual, as well as Italian and German speakers.
Like many other northern cities, the Christian population is overwhelming. Almost 90 percent of the population claims various Christian denominations, the vast majority being
Roman Catholic: 64.58%, Protestant: 23.09%, and other Christian groups numbering 1.62%. Other religions such as
Islam,
Judaism, and
Hindu consitute less than 1 percent.
References
External links
| North: Sudbury, Unorganized, North Part |
|
West: Nairn and Hyman |
Greater Sudbury
Greater Sudbury completely surrounds Wanapitei 11 |
East: Markstay-Warren |
| South: Whitefish Lake 6, Sudbury, Unorganized, North Part |
|
