Everything about Greater Sudbury totally explained
Greater Sudbury (2006
census population 157,857) is a city in
Northern Ontario,
Canada. Greater Sudbury was created in 2001 by amalgamating the cities and towns of the former
Regional Municipality of Sudbury, along with several previously unincorporated geographic townships.
It is the largest city in Northern Ontario in population, and the 24
th largest metropolitan area in Canada. In land area, it's the largest city in Ontario, the
seventh largest municipality in Canada and the largest municipality in English Canada legally designated as a city.
Greater Sudbury is one of only five cities in Ontario — the others are
Toronto,
Ottawa,
Hamilton and
Kawartha Lakes — which constitute their own independent
census divisions, and are not part of any
district,
county or
regional municipality.
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
Wahnapitae, and had a population of 158,258 in the 2006 census. Informally, some residents of the area may also consider the metropolitan area to include the towns of
Markstay-Warren,
St. Charles and
French River, a region commonly known as
Sudbury East.
History
Originally named Sainte-Anne-des-Pins ("St. Anne of the Pines"), the community started as a small lumber camp in McKim
township. During construction of the
Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883, blasting and excavation revealed high concentrations of
nickel-
copper ore at
Murray Mine on the edge of the
Sudbury Basin.
Earlier, in 1856, provincial land surveyor
Albert Salter had located magnetic abnormalities in the area that were strongly suggestive of mineral deposits, although his discovery aroused little attention because the area was remote. However, the railway construction made mineral prospecting in the area economically feasible. The community was renamed for
Sudbury, Suffolk in England, the hometown of CPR commissioner
James Worthington's wife, and grew rapidly as a mining town. Sudbury was incorporated as a town in 1893, and as a city in 1930. The town's first mayor was
Stephen Fournier.
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, when Sudbury-mined nickel was used extensively in the manufacture of artillery in
Sheffield,
England. It bottomed out when the war ended, rose again in the mid-1920s, then fell as the
Great Depression hit, and rose again during the
Second World War. The
Frood Mine alone accounted for 40 per cent of all the nickel used in
Allied artillery production during the war. After the end of that war, however, Sudbury was in a good position to supply nickel to the
United States government when it decided 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-U.S. concert given by
Paul Robeson after the United States 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'd 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.
In 1973, the city and its suburban communities were reorganized into the
Regional Municipality of Sudbury.
Labour issues would continue to be Sudbury's dominant economic challenge. In 1978, 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 1979, 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 Vale Inco remains the city's largest single employer, the mining industry is no longer the city's largest
sector of employment, being outranked by education, health care, public administration, retail trade, hospitality services and mining equipment manufacturing.
The city's economic growth has also been hindered at times by
taxation issues: because of federal corporate taxation rules pertaining to
natural resources companies, Sudbury's ability to directly levy municipal taxes on Inco and Falconbridge is severely curtailed, compared to most cities whose major employers operate in other industries. As a result, unlike most cities, fully 75 per cent of Greater Sudbury's tax base comes from residential property taxes. Prior to the creation of the Regional Municipality of Sudbury in 1973, the city couldn't in fact levy
any taxes against the mining companies at all, a fact which sometimes left the city without a sufficient tax base to adequately maintain or improve municipal services. Concurrently with the creation of the Regional Municipality, the city was given the power to levy property taxes on the companies' surface operations, but not on underground facilities. This change improved the city's tax base somewhat, but the ongoing discrepancy has still been cited as a factor in municipal politics as recently as the
2006 municipal election.
The former regional municipality was amalgamated in 2001 into the single-tier city of Greater Sudbury. In 2006, there was renewed debate on the municipal amalgamation. The former town of
Rayside-Balfour, and many of its residents, are unhappy with their position in the city, and lobbied for a deamalgamation
referendum during the 2006 municipal election. City council 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. In 2006, then-Mayor
David Courtemanche 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. Laughren submitted his final report on
January 10,
2007, making 34 recommendations for improvements in the city's municipal ward structure, communications, transportation, recreation and transit services.
Also in 2006, both of the city's major mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge, were taken over by new owners: Inco was acquired by the
Brazilian company
CVRD, while Falconbridge was purchased by the
Swiss company
Xstrata. Xstrata donated the historic
Edison Building, the onetime head office of Falconbridge, to the city in 2007 to serve as the new home of the municipal
archives.
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:
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 city also implemented a new
3-1-1 service in 2007.
The five towns and two cities of the region were amalgamated by provincial order on
January 1,
2001 to become the city of Greater Sudbury. The previously unincorporated
townships of Dill, Cleland, Fraleck, Parkin, Aylmer, Mackelcan, Rathbun and Scadding were also annexed into the new city.
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. Citizen service offices, which provide an access point for public services such as license applications, are also located in some of the suburban communities, often in the libraries or former town halls of the pre-amalgamation municipalities.
The mayor of Greater Sudbury is
John Rodriguez, who defeated
David Courtemanche in the
2006 municipal election.
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
France Gélinas in
Nickel Belt.
The provincial
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines has its head office in the city.
The municipally-owned energy utility Greater Sudbury Hydro serves the city's urban core, while rural areas in the city continue to be served by
Hydro One. An ongoing and controversial proposal that Greater Sudbury Hydro take over responsibility for all electrical power distribution in the entire city has been a significant political issue in the 2000s.
Communities
The name
Greater Sudbury is almost exclusively a political designation. In common usage, the city is still generally referred to as
Sudbury. The usage
Greater City of Sudbury (rather than
City of Greater Sudbury) is also heard on occasion, but is incorrect.
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. Some of the outlying communities, for example, still retain their own distinct
postal and
telephone exchange codes, and for several years after the amalgamation residents in many rural parts of the city still couldn't call other rural parts of the city without incurring
long distance charges —
Bell Canada didn't expand local calling area service in the city until December of 2007.
In local usage, however, the name
Sudbury is more ambiguous — depending on the speaker, it may refer either to the city as a whole or exclusively to the urban core of old Sudbury. However, the names of the former suburban municipalities are still sometimes used to refer to the communities within their boundaries. Several of the city's Community Action Networks, volunteer committees which are responsible for organizing and managing the city's recreational and cultural services in a specific community, retain the names and service boundaries of their pre-2001 municipalities — only the old city and the former town of Nickel Centre are divided into multiple CANs.
For more information on communities within the city, see the articles
Urban neighbourhoods of Sudbury,
Capreol,
Nickel Centre,
Onaping Falls,
Rayside-Balfour,
Valley East,
Walden and
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's
pentlandite,
pyrite and
pyrrhotite ores contain profitable amounts of many elements — primarily
nickel and
copper, but also including smaller amounts of
cobalt,
platinum,
gold,
silver,
selenium and
tellurium. It also contains an unusually high concentration of
sulfur. Local smelting of the ore releases this sulfur into the atmosphere where combines with water vapour to form
sulfuric acid, contributing to
acid rain.
As a result, Sudbury was widely, although not entirely accurately, known for many years as a wasteland. In parts of the city, vegetation was devastated, both by acid rain and by
logging to provide fuel for early
smelting techniques, as well as wood for the reconstruction of
Chicago after the
Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The resulting erosion exposed
bedrock, which was charred in most places to a pitted, dark black appearance. There wasn't a complete lack of vegetation in the region, however.
Paper birch and wild
blueberry are notable examples of plants which thrived in the acidic soils, and even during the worst years of the city's environmental damage, not all parts of the city were equally affected.
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 purportedly resembled the lifeless surface of the
moon dogged the city for years.
However, the construction of the
Inco Superstack in 1972 dispersed the sulfuric acid over a much wider area, reducing the acidity of local precipitation and enabling the city to begin an environmental recovery program. 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. As of 2006, 8.7 million new trees were planted in the city. As well, the city's
Nickel District Conservation Authority also operates a large
conservation area, the
Lake Laurentian Conservation Area, in the city's south end.
The ecology of the Sudbury region has recovered dramatically, due both to the regreening program and improved mining practices. In 1992, Sudbury was one of twelve world cities given the Local Government Honours Award at the
United Nations Earth Summit to honour the city's community-based environmental reclamation strategies. More recently, the city has begun to rehabilitate the
slag heaps that surround the Copper Cliff smelter area, with the planting of grass and trees.
Sudbury is on the
Canadian (Precambrian) Shield. With 330 lakes within its boundaries, Sudbury has more lakes than any other municipality in Canada. Among the most notable are
Lake Wanapitei, the largest lake in the world completely contained within the boundaries of a single city, and
Lake Ramsey, just a few kilometres south of downtown Sudbury, which held the same record before the municipal amalgamation in 2001 brought Lake Wanapitei fully inside the city limits.
Seismic activity
On
November 29,
2006, the city was hit by a minor
earthquake, which registered 4.1 on the
Richter scale and had its
epicentre approximately five kilometres west of Lively. It is believed that the movement began on the 7200 level of
Creighton Mine, as ground stress worked its way through upper and lower levels along what is called the Creighton fault. No major damage was reported, although there were reports of the quake being felt as far away as
Toronto.
Seismologists confirmed in early December that the quake was most likely related to mining activity in the region. Mining-related seismological activity isn't uncommon in the region, although it rarely causes any significant damage — in the most notable such incident, the then-outlying community of
Worthington was destroyed on
October 4,
1927 when a rock shift caused part of the community to collapse into a
mine shaft. No lives were lost in that incident, however, as a mine foreman had noticed the warning signs and successfully evacuated the community the previous evening. Similarly, on
June 20,
1984, four miners at
Falconbridge were killed in a
rock burst which registered 3.4 on the Richter scale.
Small earthquakes were also reported on
March 13 and
September 20,
2005.
Demographics
Multiple responses included. Table source:
Prior to the 2001 amalgamation, the Regional Municipality of Sudbury was the largest
Census Metropolitan Area in Northern Ontario. By itself, however, the city of Sudbury was the
second largest city in the region, behind
Thunder Bay. Since the amalgamation, however, Greater Sudbury is both the region's largest city and its largest CMA.
The population of Sudbury has declined slightly in recent years, due mostly to many young Sudburians moving to other parts of Canada, especially the southern cities of Ontario. In 2001, the total population of Greater Sudbury was 155,219, a drop of 6.1 percent from the Regional Municipality's 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.
In the 2006 census, the city's population increased to 157,857, a growth of 1.7 per cent over 2001 but still down from 1996. Of that population, 106,612 lived in the city's urban core, while the remaining 51,245 lived in more rural communities within the city limits.
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% of the population speak
English as their first language, followed by
French at 28.2%.
The majority of residents in Sudbury are
Christian. 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
Hinduism constitute less than one per cent.
Transportation
Highway 17 is the main branch of the
Trans-Canada Highway, connecting the city to points east and west. An approximately 21-
kilometre (15 mile) segment of Highway 17, from Mikkola to Whitefish, is
freeway. As of 2007, this segment is one of only two full freeway segments (the other being
Highway 11 southeast of
North Bay) in all of Northern Ontario. The provincial
Ministry of Transportation has announced tentative plans to extend the Highway 17 freeway east to Coniston along the
Southwest and Southeast Bypasses 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 to
McKerrow, 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's likely decades away. The former alignment of Highway 17 through the city is now
Municipal Road 55.
Highway 69, also a branch of the Trans-Canada Highway, 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 scheduled for completion in 2017. Highway 69 formerly continued northward to Capreol — this northerly route has also been decommissioned by the province, although portions of it are still referred to locally as "Highway 69 North".
Highway 144 leads north to
Timmins.
Greater Sudbury is the only census division in Northern Ontario that maintains a system of numbered
municipal roads, similar to the
county road system in the southern part of the province.
The
Greater Sudbury Airport is served by regional carrier lines such as
Bearskin and
Air Canada Jazz.
Sunwing Vacations also offers direct flights to
Orlando,
Puerto Plata and
Varadero. The airport is also undergoing talks with
Northwest Airlines to provide service from the city to one or more U.S. destinations directly.
Porter Airlines also foresees offering service between Greater Sudbury and the
Toronto City Centre Airport in the not-so-distant future.
Sudbury is also served by rail (
Via Rail, with
The Canadian between Toronto and
Vancouver and the
Lake Superior between Sudbury and a string of smaller area communities to
White River), and inter-city bus service (
Greyhound Canada and
Ontario Northland). The city also maintains a
public transit system,
Greater Sudbury Transit.
In the
Canadian Automobile Association's annual Ontario's Worst Roads survey for 2007, four roads in Sudbury were ranked in the top 20, including Lansing Avenue, Notre Dame Avenue, Bancroft Drive and
Vermilion Lake Road, which was ranked as the worst road in the province. Sudbury appeared on the list more times than any other city.
Education
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. (Boréal does, however, offer a few trade courses in English.) Laurentian University is also home to the Sudbury campus of the
Northern Ontario School of Medicine. NOSM was the first medical school to open in Canada in 30 years, opening its doors in September 2005. Laurentian is also undergoing the planning process of opening the Northern Ontario School of Architecture, hopefully to be opened in 2010. This school would most likely be located on a separate campus in downtown Sudbury. The school is also eyeing to open a Law School at some point in the future.
English-language public schooling is provided by the
Rainbow District School Board. The board operates 30 elementary and seven secondary schools throughout the city, plus one school for students with special needs and the Cecil Facer Youth Centre for young offenders. The
Sudbury Catholic District School Board offers publicly-funded English-language Catholic schools, with 18 elementary schools, four high schools and an adult education centre. French-language public schools are administered by the
Conseil scolaire de district du Grand Nord de l'Ontario with nine elementary and three secondary schools. Finally, the French-language catholic board is the
Conseil scolaire de district catholique du Nouvel-Ontario, with 18 elementary and four secondary schools.
There are also two Christian private schools in the city (Glad Tidings Academy and King Christian Academy), as well as a
Montessori school.
Culture
Franco-Ontarians
Approximately 30 per cent of the city's population is
Franco-Ontarian, particularly in the former municipalities of Valley East and Rayside-Balfour. The city has the largest proportion of francophones to the general population of any major city in Ontario. Sudbury also has the second largest francophone community of any city in English Canada, ranking behind only
Ottawa.
As a result, 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.
The Franco-Ontarian flag, as well, calls Sudbury home. It was first flown in 1975 at Laurentian University, after being created by a group of teachers at the university. As of 2006, it's now permanently flown at
Tom Davies Square.
Visitor attractions
Sudbury has lent its mining heritage to two major tourist attractions:
Science North, 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. A mining heritage monument also overlooks the city's
Bell Park.
Another city landmark, the
Inco Superstack, is the tallest freestanding
chimney in the Western hemisphere, and the second tallest structure in Canada after the
CN Tower.
The city is also home to the
Greater Sudbury Heritage Museums, a network of historical community museums.
In 2007, the city undertook a community project which saw the downtown Paris Street bridge retrofitted with 72 flagpoles, each of which will permanently display the flag of a world nation demographically represented among the population of Sudbury. In September of 2007, the bridge was officially renamed Bridge of Nations. Although its status hasn't yet been confirmed, organizers of the project submitted it to the
Guinness Book of World Records for consideration as the world's longest span of flags on a bridge.
Science and technology
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 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.. This has allowed the general public to enjoy broadband internet at higher speeds than many other cities. Traditionally, the highest speed on broadband available to the public is 6MBPS. Residents within the urban core can get resident broadband access at 16MBPS.
The Creighton Mine site in Sudbury is the site of the
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, the lowest background radiation particle detector in the world.
Sudbury hosted the
International Physics Olympiad in 1997.
Retail
Sudbury is one of the only cities remaining in Ontario where retail stores are still not permitted to open on
Boxing Day,
December 26. Instead, stores in Sudbury begin their post-Christmas Boxing Day sales on
December 27. In recent years, some major chain retailers in the city have occasionally chosen to disregard the municipal bylaw, opening on December 26 and voluntarily accepting the risk of a fine.
With retail businesses in the city increasingly locating outside of the downtown core, particularly in the Four Corners, Kingsway and Lasalle Boulevard areas, the city has struggled in recent years to maintain a vibrant downtown. Recent projects have included the creation of Market Square, a farmer's and craft market, the redevelopment of the Rainbow Centre mall, streetscape beautification projects, and the creation of the Downtown Village Development Corporation, a committee of business and government representatives responsible for creating and maintaining neighbourhood improvement initiatives in the downtown core. At various times, city councillors and community groups have proposed that the city purchase the
CPR stockyards west of Elgin Street in order to expand the downtown area, although to date this hasn't been pursued.
Arts and theatre
The city is home to two
art galleries, the
Art Gallery of Sudbury and
La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario. Both are dedicated primarily to Canadian art, especially but not exclusively artists from Northern Ontario.
The city has two professional
theatre companies, the anglophone
Sudbury Theatre Centre and the francophone
Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario. The STC has its own theatre venue downtown, while the TNO stages its productions in the auditorium at
Collège Boréal. Theatre productions are also staged by students at
Laurentian University's affiliated
Thornloe faculty, by a community theatre company at
Cambrian College, as well as by high school drama students at
Sudbury Secondary School,
Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School and
École Secondaire Macdonald-Cartier.
An annual film festival,
Cinéfest, is also held in the city each September. The animated
CBC Television series
Chilly Beach is produced at
March Entertainment's Sudbury studio.
The city is investigating the possibility of an 1800-seat performing arts centre, in addition to an arts and entertainment district in the downtown core.
Music
In 2006 and 2007, community discussion has centred on the creation of a performing arts centre. Sudbury has some trouble attracting concert tours, in part because, since the demise of the Grand Theatre in the 1990s, the city lacks a suitable mid-size concert venue for bands that have outgrown the bar circuit but are not yet able to fill venues such as the
Sudbury Community Arena.
Bell Park's outdoor Grace Hartman Amphitheatre and
Laurentian University's Fraser Auditorium are sometimes used for summer bookings, although neither is available year-round. Additionally, the relatively small size of the Northern Ontario market means that major touring artists will appear, if they play any venues in the region at all, at either the Sudbury Community Arena
or Sault Ste. Marie's
Steelback Centre, but not both.
Smaller touring
indie rock bands, as well as some local musicians, are usually booked at The Townehouse Tavern, while local bands play a number of small music venues across the city.
The city is also home to two annual
music festivals, the
Northern Lights Festival Boréal and
La Nuit sur l'étang. The local
Sudbury Symphony Orchestra performs six annual concerts of
classical music, staged at the city's Glad Tidings Tabernacle.
Although local bands in the Sudbury area play music in a variety of genres, from
rock to
punk to
country to
heavy metal to
folk to
hip hop, the city's most nationally and internationally successful artists, such as
Robert Paquette,
Kate Maki,
Nathan Lawr,
Gil Grand,
Kevin Closs,
CANO,
Jake Mathews and
Chuck Labelle, have predominantly been in the country, folk and country-rock genres. Another notable Canadian country rock band,
Ox, includes two musicians from Sudbury,
Ryan Bishops and
Mark Browning, but is based in
Vancouver. The punk rock band Far From Heroes and the
rap metal bands
Project Wyze and
Konflit dramatiK have also had some success.
Rock guitarist
Pat Travers, originally from Toronto, also lived in Sudbury for a number of years during his early career.
LGBT community
The city first held its
Sudbury Pride parade in 1997. The annual event takes place in August. Zig's, the city's prominent gay business, is the only gay bar in all of Northern Ontario.
Sudbury in art and literature
Notable works of fiction set primarily or partially in Sudbury or its former suburbs include
Bruce McDonald's film
Roadkill,
Paul Quarrington's novel
Logan in Overtime,
Robert J. Sawyer's
Neanderthal Parallax trilogy,
Alistair MacLeod's novel
No Great Mischief, and
Jean-Marc Dalpé's play
1932, la ville du nickel and his short story collection
Contes sudburois. The city is also fictionalized as "Chinookville" in several books by American comedy writer
Jack Douglas.
One of
Stompin' Tom Connors' most famous songs, "
Sudbury Saturday Night", is inspired by the city and its hard rock mining image. Quebec musician
Mononc' Serge also wrote a song about the city, titled "Sudbury", on his 2001 album
Mon voyage au Canada.
Artist
A. Y. Jackson's 1953 painting "Spring on the Onaping River" depicts a waterfall on the Onaping River between Dowling and Onaping. A scenic lookout on Highway 144 enables a view of the waterfall. The painting itself hung at
Sudbury Secondary School from 1955 to 1974, when it was stolen from the school grounds shortly after Jackson's death and has never subsequently been recovered.
In 2007, Ontario's French language public broadcaster,
TFO, announced that it would produce a new
comedy series,
Météo+. The series, which premiered in 2008, is both produced and set in Sudbury.
Health care
Greater Sudbury serves as the health care centre for much of northeastern Ontario through the
Sudbury Regional Hospital. The hospital has three sites: St. Joseph's Health Centre (the old Sudbury General Hospital), Sudbury Memorial, and Laurentian. Formerly three separate hospitals, the government of Ontario amalgamated the hospitals in the late 1990s under its health care restructuring agenda. The one-site care facility is still under construction at the site of Laurentian Hospital. Laurentian is also the site of the Regional Cancer Program, which treats cancer patients from across the north. In 1968, the first successful
coronary artery bypass surgery in Canada was performed at Sudbury Memorial Hospital.
Mental health services are also provided to the area through the Northeast Mental Health Centre at the Algoma/Kirkwood Campus.
On
November 1,
2007, a provincewide
Amber Alert was issued after
Kirkland Lake resident Brenda Batisse abducted a newborn baby from the St. Joseph's Health Centre. The baby was found safe, and Batisse was arrested, approximately seven hours later.
Emergency services
Greater Sudbury is served by the
Greater Sudbury Police Service, headquarted in downtown Sudbury. There is also a detachment of the
Ontario Provincial Police located in the McFarlane Lake area of the city's south end. The city also provides ambulance / EMS and fire services. Greater Sudbury Fire Services operates from 25 fire stations located throughout the city, with a combination of full-time and paid part-time firefighters. Prior to the municipal amalgamation of 2001, most of the suburban towns were served by separate
volunteer fire departments, which were amalgamated into the citywide service as part of the municipal restructuring. Police and EMS services, however, were provided by a single region-wide system prior to amalgamation.
Sports
The
Sudbury Wolves of the
Ontario Hockey League play in the city, at the
Sudbury Community 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 (SDSSAA), which is a division of Northern Ontario Secondary School Athletics (NOSSA).
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 played in the
Northern Football Conference since 1954. The team was originally known as the Hardrocks in honour of the city's mining industry. However, then coach Sid Forster believed that the name "Hardrocks" sounded too much like a street gang and the name was changed to the Spartans in 1967.
The city is also investigating the possibility of building a new sports centre, set to include NHL and/or Olympic sized ice pads, indoor pool, multi-use space, tennis dome, gymnastics centre, a restaurant, three multi-use grass fields, one artificial turf field, a multi-use outdoor trail, skate park, basketball court and playground. The estimated cost of the facility is between $46,370,284 and $55,922,464.
Climate
| Temperature |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
Year |
| Daily Average |
-13.6 |
-11.4 |
-5.3 |
3.1 |
11.3 |
16.2 |
19 |
17.7 |
12.3 |
5.8 |
-1.5 |
-9.5 |
3.7 |
| Daily Maximum |
-8.4 |
-6.1 |
-0.1 |
8.5 |
17.2 |
22 |
24.8 |
23.1 |
17.3 |
10 |
2 |
-5.1 |
8.8 |
| Daily Minimum |
-18.6 |
-16.6 |
-10.4 |
-2.2 |
5.3 |
10.4 |
13.3 |
12.3 |
7.2 |
1.5 |
-5.1 |
-13.9 |
-1.4 |
| Precipitation |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
Year |
| Rainfall(mm) |
12.5 |
7.1 |
29.8 |
47 |
75.9 |
77.7 |
76.6 |
90.7 |
101.2 |
76.8 |
47.6 |
13.7 |
656.5 |
| Snowfall(cm) |
63.8 |
50 |
38.9 |
18.3 |
1.5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0.1 |
5.3 |
32.4 |
64.2 |
274.4 |
| Precipitation(mm) |
68.6 |
50.6 |
65.9 |
64.9 |
77.5 |
77.8 |
76.6 |
90.5 |
101.3 |
82.1 |
76.5 |
67.1 |
899.3 |
Weather averages are for the period from 1970 to 2000.
December 2006 was notable for a lack of lasting snow cover from mid-December to mid-January 2007. In 2006, Sudbury experienced a rare "Green Christmas".
Notable people
This list includes people from all communities within the
current city boundaries.
Robert Adetuyi, screenwriter (Stomp the Yard)
Al Arbour, NHL hockey coach
Larry Aurie, former captain of the Detroit Red Wings
Alex Baumann, Olympic gold medalist (1984)
Pat Beatty, NFL football lineman
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
Tessa Bonhomme, member of Team Canada women's hockey
Joe Bowen, Canadian sportscaster "Molson Leafs Hockey"
Andrew Brunette, NHL hockey player
Daryl Brunt, Canadian Idol competitor
Jeffrey Buttle, figure skater
Robert Campeau, financier
Randy Carlyle, NHL hockey player, NHL hockey coach
Judy Feld Carr, humanitarian who rescued over 3,000 Jewish people from wartorn Syria in the 1970s and 1980s
Cindy Cook, children's entertainer and former host of Polka Dot Door
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 for French poetry
Ron Duguay, NHL hockey player
Rand Dyck, political scientist and professor at Laurentian University
Judy Erola, former federal cabinet minister and Member of Parliament
Robert Esmie, Olympic gold medalist (1996)
Mike Foligno, NHL hockey player, OHL Hockey Coach
Nick Foligno, NHL player
Pete Friesen, Guitarist and songwriter with Alice Cooper and The Almighty
Aaron Gavey, hockey player
Frank Giustra, business executive, particularly successful in the mining and filmmaking industries, noted philanthropist
Michael Gillis, former NHLer
Gerald S. Graham, imperial and naval historian; University of London professor
James Jerome, former federal Member of Parliament and Speaker of the House of Commons
Rebecca Johnston, played hockey for Team Canada
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
Ross McLaren, filmmaker and artist
Bruce Mau, designer
Derek MacKenzie, NHL player
Stéphane Paquette, francophone singer-songwriter and actor (Météo+)
Michael Persinger, cognitive neuroscience researcher and professor at Laurentian University
Reg Plummer, Olympic field hockey player
Marie-Paule Poulin, Senator and president of the Liberal Party of Canada
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 (Traders, Street Legal, The Eleventh Hour)
Alex Trebek, television host (Jeopardy!)
Media
Sister cities
Gomel, Belarus
Kokkola/Karleby, FinlandFurther Information
Get more info on 'Greater Sudbury'.
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