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Sudbury, made of history

Sudbury, feita de história
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I was born in Sudbury, anyone I said that outside of Canada would have to explain, it's more or less close to Toronto. Well, it's four hours from Toronto, but for Canadians it's pretty close.

I think I inherited this from Canada, I always walked from Viana to Braga, Porto, as if it were a short journey and not the end of the world that many paint. But what did I know about Sudbury?

My father immigrated here when he was still very young, 16 years old, he came to live with a sister. I know you spent some of the best years of your life here. Unlike Portugal before 1974, here there was freedom, it was the 70s in a country so young, so new, so liberal. I don't even want to imagine the parties. He ended up setting up a company here with a friend - Douro Roofing. He got married, my sister and I were born, and we decided to go to Portugal. But the memories stayed, and my imagination was filled with stories. I met some friends, heard more stories, but I knew very little about the city.

We ended up here because my father's old partner, and current great friend, helped us with the van, which we needed to continue our journey.
Before arriving, my cousins who live in Toronto but were born in Sudbury told me that according to a recent study it was the city with the happiest people in Canada. Wow, couldn't wait.

We drove from Toronto to Sudbury on a gray day and found a gloomy, dark city with big chimneys. It couldn't be this. The happiest people in Canada here? We had the privilege of staying here for 10 days while we prepared the van. And discover this amazing city.



Its history goes back more years than we can count. 1,850 million years ago, one of the greatest cataclysms recorded on Earth's surface took place here. A meteorite hit the earth and left here a heritage rich in nickel and copper ores. The collision left a crater approximately 160 to 280 km in diameter, and the asteroid should have been approximately 10 km, says geologist Cannon in one of his articles. The crater was discovered by accident when engineers were building the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. This is the second largest on planet Earth, behind Vredefort Crater in South Africa. In the Sudbury rocks nickel, copper, platinum, palladium, gold and iride are found in high concentrations. This is, therefore, a city of miners, of simple people, of work.


According to a friend, when some of the first Portuguese arrived here, there was nothing green in the city, it looked like the moon, the chimneys that served to extract the smoke from the mines were not high enough and what came out of them killed everything. Today Sudbury has the second tallest chimney in the world and I would never say it was the arid place of yesteryear.

In Sudbury, a nickel (5 cent coin) is worth much more than 5 cents.


But why in Sudbury we have the happiest people in Canada? According to the website Buzzfeed, there is no shortage of reasons. But here are the top 5:

1 - it has some of the most incredible landscapes in Ontario, with an incredible skyline;
2 - they are home to more than 330 lakes, so having a house with access to the lake is normal;
3 - there are so many lakes that you can fish all year round;
4 - street art inspires confidence;
5 - really know how to celebrate the little things, celebrating the power of a nickel;


And to everyone we asked, the answer was: the great sense of community and mutual help.

We also realized that it is a city where the cost of living is lower and the salaries are good. According to our friend: they are the happiest city because they know how to make money and save money.
We around here are happy to have started here.

All photos taken with Fujifilm X-T2.

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