The marker says it all. The nickel discovery site in the now-flooded and defunct Murray Mine is where Sudbury's remarkable mining history begins. When the mine finally closed in 1924, more than half a million tons of ore had been shipped from its depths. The marker sits on a large, paved pull-out along regional highway 35, about five kilometers outside Sudbury city centre. From there visitors can look toward the flooded mine site, or head in the opposite direction down a short path to the rail bed of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Headframes dominate the landscape of mining communities in Northeastern Ontario and Northwestern Quebec. Distinctive structures built to house the apparatus at the head of the mine shaft, headframes tower above their surroundings, reminding every resident that without the mine, there would be no reason for their settlement to exist.
Where else can that well-known phrase be better applied than to a study of the Finns in Sudbury? “Rock” defines the physical reality of the Sudbury setting: rugged hills, mines, farms and forests set in the Precambrian Shield. “Hard” defines the human setting: Finnish immigrants having to contend with the problems and stresses of relocating to a new culture, with livelihoods that required great endurance as well as a tolerance for hazardous conditions.
From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City is a historical geography of the City of Greater Sudbury. The story that began billions of years ago encompasses dramatic physical and human events.
Canadian Shield traces the geologic evolution of the Shield, its first tentative exploration by humans starting 11,000 years ago as the last great ice sheets withdrew, its changing economic fortunes as Europeans penetrated its remote rocky vastnesses for furs and metals, and its transformation in the twentieth century into a national icon to Canadians.
