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travel / great places / explorer / mj04
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Sudbury's centre of science
Added stories, facts and links on CG's travel section
Contributor: Jessa Sinclair
Read an excerpt of the May/June '04 Exploration.
Science North, Sudbury's premier hands-on technology and science centre, leads visitors through a world of shifting
plates, bombing neutrinos and sheepish climate change. Discover what Exploration Online and one of Canada's most innovative
science hubs has to offer to the natural world.
Deep Earth experience
Visitors to Dynamic Earth, a new centre run by Science North, quickly get
a sense of what miners experience on a daily basis. They shuffle into an elevator
and slowly descend past rough, craggy rock walls into a chasm seven storeys
deep. Arriving at the base, they enter the "dry room" and grab a hard hat,
ready to explore the subterranean world.
Opened last spring at the site of Sudbury's famous Big Nickel monument, the attraction showcases the city's history and the science behind its $2-billion-a-year mining industry - one of the world's largest. Sudbury's unique mineral riches, including nickel, copper and gold, were brought to the surface by a meteorite impact 1.8 billion years ago.
Hands-on displays, such as a mock Mining Command Centre and tours where visitors
can examine real mining equipment and experience tremors from a mining blast,
help demonstrate geological processes and mining techniques.
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Mining for neutrinos
Every second, billions of neutrinos stream through your body at close to the speed of light. The Earth is mostly transparent to these tiny particles from the sun, and to study them requires thick buffers of rock to block out cosmic rays. So when physicists from Canada, the United States and England gathered in 1984 to try to solve the Solar Neutrino Problem - which questioned why far fewer neutrinos are detected than are predicted by our model of the sun - they looked deep into Sudbury.
In 1990, excavation began on a cavity the size of a ten-storey building that
reaches two kilometres down into Inco's Creighton nickel mine. Seven years
later, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) began collecting data. Neutrinos
produced tiny flashes of light in the SNO detector as they reacted with 1,000
tonnes of heavy water held in a 12-metre-diameter acrylic vessel.
The neutrino mystery was finally solved in 2001 (solar neutrinos were found
to oscillate between types), but big science will continue in the mine: plans
are now under way for the construction of an international facility for underground
science at the same site.
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Greener pastures
Sudbury is internationally renowned in the field of environmental science
for its groundbreaking efforts to reclaim its once stark vistas. Intensive
logging
in the late 1800s, followed by mining and smelting through the 20th century,
denuded and polluted the landscape. But nearly 30 years of effective and innovative
regreening programs have changed all that ("Green rebirth," CG May/June 2000).
To date, almost 11 million trees have been planted in and around Sudbury, and another 250,000 are slated to take root this summer. "There are still thousands of hectares that need our help," says Stephen Monet, coordinator of the city's environmental initiatives.
In the past, reclamation work centred on simply improving aesthetics, but now Sudbury is looking at the bigger picture - making a more concerted effort to focus on watersheds and biodiversity. With more than 330 lakes dotting the region, Monet says, it is vital to know how past, present and future regreening activities on land could affect adjacent water bodies. The ultimate goal, he says, is to make it a "self-sustaining ecosystem."
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Ten Adventures in Sudbury
If you're in the Greater City of Sudbury to see Science North and Dynamic Earth, featured in our Environment Issue, make the most of your experience and explore Sudbury's unique attractions.
Sudbury Wolves
www.sudburywolves.com
Sudbury's true colours show at a Wolves game. Pride and excitement surround the team, and there's no greater way to break the ice with a stranger than to make small talk about the Sudbury Wolves.
Onaping Falls Geological Tour
705-671-2489
A self-guided nature tour includes A.Y. Jackson Lookout, the view that inspired one of the Group of Seven to paint "Spring on the Onaping River."
Cinéfest International Film Festival
www.cinefest.com
Every year, over 100 nationally and internationally significant films are shown. Northern Ontario talent is supported and recognized by competitions and awards.
Sudbury Theatre Centre
www.sudburytheatre.on.ca
Walking into the Sudbury Theatre Centre, you really get the sense that you are in a much bigger city. Simply put, theatre is something Sudbury does exceptionally well. See for yourself.
Northern Lights Festival Boreal
www.nlfb.on.ca
A rich blend of music, dance, storytelling and art brightens Bell Park every summer in a cultural festival you won't want to miss.
Centre Franco-Ontarien de Folklore
www.cfof.on.ca
The world's largest collection of Franco-Ontarien historical books, documents, songs and tales, this museum can be seen by appointment only.
Anderson Farm
705-692-4448
A family of Finnish immigrants settled here in the early 1900s and established a dairy farm. Their horse drawn machinery and windmill are carefully restored.
Dinosaur Valley Mini Golf
www.dinosaursudbury.ca
Play up to 54 holes of mini golf through a labyrinth of custom built dinosaurs from mammoth skeletons to insects.
Art Gallery of Sudbury
www.artsudbury.org
A turn-of-the-century mansion houses two display spaces where contemporary painting, sculpture, photography and new media meet.
Rocks Sudbury
www.on-biz.com/rockssudbury/
Inspired by the rugged beauty of Sudbury's rocky environment, the monogrammed products in Rocks Sudbury are a hit with tourists and locals alike.
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