VIA SUDBURY TO NORTH BAY

6th – 8th October VIA SUDBURY TO NORTH BAY

The 300 km drive from Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury follows the direction of the north shore of Lake Huron. We by-passed Sudbury and stopped for a late lunch at a rest stop on its eastern edge.

I remember the first time I visited Sudbury in about 1983. We’d been on a camping trip to Manitoulin Island and were spending a few days by a lake in this area before heading home. All the surrounding hills were startlingly and grimly barren, simply bare rock and gravel, a so-called moonscape.

After the discovery of a rich vein of nickel copper ore in the late 1800’s 2 mining companies, Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Ltd., processed and treated its ores in the area and built 3 smelter sites. In the early days an apparent total lack of awareness meant that the very toxic sulphur dioxide gas emissions were spewing straight out into the environment around. The result was the utter devastation of all the natural vegetation over a vast area, affecting places as far away as Killarney where the lakes became dead. Not to mention the affect it had on people’s lungs!
Since the early 1980’s, both companies have made great technological changes and 3 very tall smokestacks with scrubbers were built, which still spew, but thankfully the fumes aren’t as hazardous. Volunteer groups have worked very hard over the last 2 decades treating the extremely acid soil with lime and planting literally millions of trees on the surrounding hills
“Perhaps the best indication of our community's efforts to change its image and mend its landscape is the successful regeneration of trees and plant life in the area. This is due to a concentrated effort at land reclamation that began in the late seventies and which has earned the community worldwide recognition for its environmental efforts.”

At the rest area where we stopped this time I was able to follow a short 1km guided walk to a series of lookouts. From these vantage points it was quite extraordinary to see the affects of the continuing restoration work, with some hills further along in the process than others. There is a plaque now marking the planting of the 4 millionth tree planted in 2004.
After another 150 km directly east we reached North Bay.

North Bay, about 70km from the Quebec border, lies between Lake Nippissing and Trout Lake so there are plenty of options for lakeside property and opportunities for walking, biking and hiking in the good weather. Our campground, Champlain Park, wasn’t far from the larger expanse of water, Lake Nippissing, and a short walk from a small beach. On a bitingly damp, gusty, cold evening we took the stroll and were treated to a beautiful sunset, before promptly retreating to the cosy warmth of our trailer.
The next day we went in search of the Mattawa River Provincial Park.
What we discovered was that the smaller Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park lies inside the long narrow Mattawa River Provincial Park, “a swath of spectacular scenery encompassing the river and the lakes and much of the valley along its path.”

“Stretching between North Bay and the Town of Mattawa on the Quebec border is the historic waterway of the Mattawa River. This was once an important route for voyageurs, trappers and loggers -- and before them for the aboriginals who began inhabiting the region more than 6000 years ago. In 1970, the Ontario government protected a substantial portion of the river -- from the eastern end of Trout Lake downstream to Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park -- by designating it the first waterway park in Ontario. In 1988, the federal government recognized the Mattawa's national historic significance by naming it a Canadian Heritage River.”

It was the Samuel de Champlain park that we visited that day, spending a couple of hours in their Visitor’s Centre trying to absorb some of the long and fascinating history this heritage river in the time we had.