Lena Samson
Undulating hills of somber, blackened rock. Black as pitch. Black as night. Where the rock subsides, modest neighbourhoods of timeworn stucco and wood-siding clad houses slumber quietly, houses seeding modest families living modest lives.
This is the home of my childhood: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, once the nickel capital of the world. It certainly was when I first toddled onto its soil. This city owed its existence to the copper and nickel ore thrust towards the surface, over a billion years ago, by a major meteorite impact. Seas and glaciers subsequently smoothed this rock into the layered surfaces I scrambled over as a child. Then, early mining processes spewing sulphur dioxide into the air blackened the rock into the moonscape that formed my playground, trails and endless imaginative backdrops. INCO (The International Nickel Company) was the builder of smokestacks that defined our skyline, the miner and refiner, where dads toiled in the heat and grime.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, grew on that unyielding crag: no grass, no trees, no moss. Black, black, black. Imagine playing on a surface etched and chiseled by millions of years of natural processes. Unappealing, perhaps, but fertile ground for a child’s blooming imagination. The few manmade playgrounds around were wearied with rusty old swings, aluminum slides and fading teeter totters. So we created our own worlds of imagination. Around the corner from my house loomed the rocky outcrop that I scaled, like a chubby little mountain goat, throughout my early years. It wasn’t terribly high at its peak, maybe equal to a 5-storey building, so it was easily ascended to survey the surrounding neighbourhood blocks (the area was so hilly that the view didn’t extend far). The peak sat atop a smooth, rounded rock that had split into two, earning it the benign nickname of Split Rock to us innocent girls or, as the boys called it, the Elephant’s Ass.
We labelled quirky rock formations that became focal to our playtime routines like the Flintstone house, a stone-age kitchen, or a craggy castle. Countless hours were spent in our granite fantasy world, laughing, singing, and roleplaying. Scars and bloodied knees resulted from all that scrambling, but that was par for the course in a mining town. Sometimes my best friend and I would amble over the rocks on adventurous mornings to school. Of course we could also take the streets, but what fun was that? Winter walks inevitably included abrupt plunges into hip-deep sinkholes, requiring slick maneuvering or a tug from a buddy to free ourselves from snow-filled craters, laughing uproariously, before continuing on our schoolgirl way.
The unforgiving rocks later served as a place of comfort for my anguished teenaged soul. I would climb up the solitary summit to ruminate alone when I grieved for my runaway puppy or for copious adolescent heartbreaks, weeping as the wind caressed my tears while the ancient granite whispered that I, too, would endure. That’s where I was closest to the sky, closest to escaping my small town sorrows, closest to eternity. Somehow, I felt connected to the ancientness of the granite, its never-ending presence resonating deep inside me.
Even romance flourished in the toughened, rocky landscape of this coarse mining town. Molten slag from the refinery processing provided THE most impractical make-out backdrop, dazzling amorous local teenagers. On dark weekend evenings, we would await the slag train chugging across the apex of a blackened rocky hill. Then, the railway cars would tip their volcanic loads to surge down the precipice, providing a hot, fiery crescendo for the eagerly awaiting couples parked in their steamed-up cars (at a safe distance) below. The sudden, intense heat from that molten landslide could be felt blocks away. Many romantic evenings came to a satisfied crescendo after that spectacular climax of fiery slag.
The hard-working and partying inhabitants of this town were even immortalized by the iconic Canadian folk/country singer-songwriter Stompin’ Tom Connors in his unforgettable song, Sudbury Saturday Night (1967).
Tom strummed his guitar while stomping on a wooden board, keeping the beat with his left cowboy boot, as his gravelly voice evoked his anthem to the delight of all Sudburians far and wide. Wherever a Sudburian is in the world and hears that song, they are transported home to rollicking Saturday nights with good friends and copious bottles of local beer.
My gritty hometown was even visited by Apollo astronauts in the early 1970s, who studied the geological formations in preparation for their upcoming trips to the moon. This was to help them identify rocks that were formed from large meteoric impacts. Sudbury is famous for this visit, its previously useless moonscape serving as a foundation for upcoming lunar landings.
The Big Nickel, a gargantuan replica of a 1951 five-cent coin perched atop a rocky hill, was the other tourist draw in town. Along with a big penny and dime, this attraction displayed Sudbury’s pride in its mining industry. Every older Sudburian has faded photographs of themselves and their families posing before these numismatic giants.
In contrast to the rocky terrain, Sudbury is home to more lakes within its boundaries than any other city in North America. Ramsay Lake, smack-dab in town, was open to all for waterside walks, summer swims or boat rides, outdoor concerts and a scenic rock garden to impress visitors. It was, frankly, the only attractive part of town. In fact, its scenic lookouts were another common spot for teenaged make-out sessions in the cars of unsuspecting parents.
On warm summer weekends, my family would load up the station wagon with blankets, towels and food, heading to one of the town-skirting lakes to picnic and swim for the day. My dad tried valiantly to teach me to swim but I never quite got it, being happy to splash about in the shallows, trying to snag minnows and tadpoles or floating for a minute, gazing up at the blueness of a clear sky, before sinking ingloriously. Poor Dad was a good swimmer but a bad teacher.
My mom made my brothers and I carry small wooden baskets up the lakeside rocks to pick delicate, wild blueberries on hot summer days. None of us kids were fans of this backbreaking exercise, but we sure enjoyed the navy blue bounty with ice cream afterwards, as well as the pies, tarts and cakes my mom concocted all year round from the preserves she canned. Vegetation grew on these lakeside rocks, unlike the ones near my home, and we took full advantage of the sweet delicacies harvested from Mother Earth.
Back home, my mom’s immense garden served up crunchy carrots and cucumbers throughout our short summers. I’ve never forgotten the instant gratification of plucking a fresh cucumber off the vine and crunching it right there on the grass. My brothers and I would snap off stalks of bitter pink rhubarb, dip them into small cups of sugar and savour their sour goodness. The garden supplied a healthy abundance, but I wondered, as I grew older, whether the stinking sulphur spewing from the gargantuan refinery smokestacks actually poisoned our soil and its yield. I’ve searched online for cancer studies of Sudburians but haven’t found any. This is surprising when our childish weather descriptions included terms like “it’s sulphury outside”, meaning a hazy, hold-your-nose-from-the-smell kind of day.
We cherished our short summers, my best friend and I slathering ourselves in baby oil to bake our skin to a warm tan on the front lawn. Basking in the sun was considered healthy in those days as skin cancer wasn’t a concern, at least not up north. I recall my mother shooing me into the yard, my long, straight brown hair dripping after its weekly shampoo, as it was good for me to dry it in the sun.
No matter how ugly the wider world saw our gritty hometown, it was a wonderful place to grow up. People were kind and helpful, rough but honest, and life was peaceful and innocent. We played outside until dark with no worries of being abducted. Long, glacial winters meant bundling up in snow suits with scarves muffling our faces, leaving only eager little eyes peeking out. Yet, despite the frigid temperatures, we always played outside, constructing icy forts or jumping off the garage into immense snow piles. Winters were not inconvenient or a pain—they simply were. We knew no other life.
We walked everywhere, sometimes taking the bus downtown, as dads worked and were not expected to spoil their kids with car rides. On long walks to middle school, over a mile away, my best friend and I stopped to pet all the dogs who greeted us, getting to know them by name and some of their humans, too. Before backpacks became commonplace, we protected our schoolbooks from rain and snow in plastic milk bags. Not pretty, but practical in a northern Ontario town.
I rarely visit Sudbury since my parents left the smog and sulfur for a slightly milder climate where my dad planted plum trees, much to his delight. Whenever I do return, I park my car across the street from my old house and indulge in a good cry for the family that once lived there, now mostly gone. Sudbury may be rough and ugly but it retains the heart of my youth, where I dreamed of a bright future replete with career and loving children. Those years have passed now, but my old home town still encapsulates my hopes, my dreams, my innocence.
After I moved away, a substantial ecological program saw the rocks covered in soil and seeded with trees, creating a healthy, lush landscape where once it was bleak and lifeless. Now when I drive north up Highway 17, I am greeted by a horizon strangely painted green instead of black. This is a shining ecological success story for the reclamation of barren terrain. But to me, the landscape of my youth is gone and I miss it. During a high-school reunion visit, I attempted to climb the neighbourhood rocks I had loved so dearly with my young son, but they were thickly forested and impenetrable. I was saddened that I couldn’t share my magical childhood environment with him. The place where imaginings danced on delicate fairy feet over an unforgiving surface.
My home on the rocks is no more. But its memory remains seared into my heart, claiming an irreplaceable time of childhood enchantment.
