I’ve talked several times about Sudbury and the urban myth of it being the moonscape where they trained NASA scientists. I’m pleased to find out that this year is actually the 50th year of re-greening our city.

My life seems to have charted the course of the re-greening of Sudbury. The Superstack was finished in 1971, the year that I was born. In 1973, VETAC was formed. That was the Vegetation Enhancement and Technical Advisory Committee, which we now just call the re-greening advisory committee. In 1978, that’s when the real work happened. I was seven years old. I remember watching out the window as helicopters—it was the first time I ever saw a helicopter in real life—were bringing lime to the rocks. I’ve talked many times in the past about the rocks in Sudbury being scarred black and growing up thinking that rocks naturally just turn black if they’re exposed to the air, the same way that a pop can would rust if it was exposed to the air. I didn’t know it was because of pollution. I didn’t know it was because of acid rain. So I would watch these workers all around MCTV, the new CTV station, spreading lime on the rocks, planting small shrubs. I have photos of my family and me going out to plant little seedlings that are now taller than I am.

It’s an interesting experience, when you think that when I was trained at Bell Canada to run drop lines, they told me not to worry about running through trees because in Sudbury trees don’t grow fast enough; the line would wear out before the tree grew. But now, 50 years forward, 10 million trees and shrubs have been planted, and we’ve received over 40 awards.

So the re-greening of Sudbury is near and dear to my heart.