September 11 - Volksmarch in Sudbury, Ontario

Our goal for the day was to walk a Volksmarch in Sudbury, Ontario. Although there was a year round event listed for Sudbury, I had also checked the Canadian Volkssport Association website and found a special event there on September 11, so we drove over to the Science North building shortly before 9:00 a.m. I was assuming some kind of start interval like 8-10 or something like that, but we were fortunate that we arrived when we did because this club walked the event as a group starting right about 9 o'clock. First, though, we all gathered for a group picture on the steps of the Science north building, which is located right on Lake Ramsey and houses some kind of science museum.

The first segment of the walk was over to the Laurentian University on the top of a nearby hill. The campus was quite pretty; one of our group informed us that the enrollment was about 5,000 and the main concentration was earth sciences. From the university we curled around back up a steep hill to an extensive conservation area. Essentially we were walking in the woods and past small lakes or ponds for the next couple of kilometers. It was beautiful and really hard to believe that we were technically still in the city of Sudbury. One of the walkers claimed that Sudbury has over 60 small and medium sized likes, and I could well believe it as the landscape is part of the Canadian shield geological zone that consists of forests, rocks, and lakes.

The forests that we were seeing were all, however, a part of a fairly recent reclamation process, according to the folks we walked with. The huge nickel and copper smelter in Sudbury, which produces about 8% of the world's nickel supply, emitted acid rain and pollution to such an extent that all the trees in the local area had died by the 1960s. However, the government helped build a huge smokestack for the smelter that dispersed the pollutants in the upper atmosphere and many thousands of trees were replanted in the last several decades, so the woods in the conservation area were all relatively new growth.

We stopped for lunch at Moonlight Beach, roughly at the eastern end of Lake Ramsey, and there we were quite surprised to find a big potluck buffet lunch set up for us. Goodness, we had not expected to be fed a lunch! The folks were so friendly about inviting everyone on the walk to partake in the lunch that we just couldn't say no. In fact, in addition to salad, a piece of watermelon, and a slice of pork I also had a piece of what looked like beef but turned out to be moose meat! For those of you who have never had moose, and I certainly never had before this, the taste is somewhat similar to beef but the flavor is a bit stronger. John, the club's outgoing president, had actually hunted the critter and also fixed the meat and I think he was justifiably proud of how good it tasted. Let's put it this way, there wasn't any moose left after we had all served ourselves! Or, to put it another way, we ate ourselves mooseless!

Did I mention the homemade desserts? Cupcakes, brownies, cakes, and "butter tarts". I was desperately trying not to make a pig out of myself, after all, I really liked these people and we hadn't contributed to the meal, but after watching Monika eat one of those butter tarts I just couldn't stand it and found another one for myself. I hasten to add that this club only does a potluck meal like this on one of the walks that they hold each month during the summer, so you can't just drop in on them and expect to be fed like royalty like we were. But, for us, serendipity struck again and in a particularly pleasant way.

At the end of the meal the group gave presents to their outgoing officers, and it was a lot of fun to see the gifts. John received a nice set of copper or brass wind chimes for use when living in Florida during the winter, and Henrietta, the outgoing vice-president, received a nice pocket computer/PDA type of thing only slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes--very cute. After packing up John's car with the few remaining leftovers, we split up for the walk back. About half the folks road back in a caravan of cars, another 1/4 walked back the route we had walked out, and the final 1/4 walked further on to complete the huge loop around Lake Ramsey. We felt good enough so walked with the latter group, which included Henrietta and Brenda, who walked about our speed, and a slighter faster foursome.

Our route back traversed many of the newer and older neighborhoods of Sudbury before finally following a brick walk along the shore of Lake Ramsey back to the Science North building. The newer subdivisions were, as usual, further out, and the older ones, as you might expect, closer in to the downtown area. Correspondingly the homes ranged from the larger 4 or more bedroom homes that are typical in new developments in the U.S. down to the smaller Cape Cod type of cottages from the 1950s or thereabouts. I was impressed that all the houses we saw were in very good repair, the yards were neat and the dogs were friendly, all of which combined to make the walk pleasant. We were, however, getting tired and footsore during the last few kilometer or two along the lakeshore. So although the lake was beautiful and had sailboats, sailboards, and even some brave swimmers in it, we were a little too tired to really enjoy it and more focused on getting to the finish line, so to speak.

Several members of the club had told me how attentive John was for the welfare of the participants, and true to form he was at the finish point with cans of fruit juice for we weary walkers. We chatted with the club members a bit before prying ourselves up off the picnic table and walking gingerly over to the truck for the drive to our campsite, but before we left we promised to take part in the club's regular Sunday walk of the Sudbury year round event which they start from the Travelodge starting point at 9:30 a.m. All in all, this was a very pleasant, albeit long, walk around a lake and through a conservation area and a park in the middle of a major city, but what made it really special was the warm welcome we received from the club members. The club apparently puts on a walk each month in May, June, July, August, and September, so if you are in the area you might want to check on the Canadian Volkssport Association website to see if you can make one. Just remember to be there by 9 a.m.!

Monika suggested shopping at a Costco that afternoon, but I just laughed because I knew I didn't have many steps left in my legs that day and I didn't think she really did either. After a moment's reflection she agreed with my assessment of the situation and we drove the truck back out to the trailer and put our feet up for the rest of the afternoon. Fortunately with laptop computers we could work with our feet up, so I wrote down the day's activities in the journal while Monika worked on selecting pictures for the first part of the trip. For our evening reading afterwards, I started in on a book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" about the inaccuracy in textbooks on American (U.S.) history. The author, James Loewen, reviewed 12 standard American History textbooks in excruciating detail and found most accounts given of historical persons like Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson as well as historical events such Columbus's 1492 voyage to the Western Hemisphere, to be wildly inaccurate, incomplete, or both. Since I remember accounts of Columbus's 1492 voyage that are the same as the distorted accounts cited by Loewen, learning about the inaccuracies was very distressing, and reading about them was a real eye opener. At least Loewen gave the citations for each of his claims, which was more than any of the High School textbooks did. And so, somewhat perturbed, to bed.