Sudbury, Ontario

My brother Ben has been living in Sudbury for about three years, and I finally got up to visit him this spring. It turns out that (in spring, at least) Sudbury is a very pretty town, nestled in the hills around Ramsey Lake.



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According to Ben, a week or so earlier - before all the leaves were out on the trees - the hills were all just black rock, but when I got there on the May long weekend, it was a perfect spring weekend, green leaves on the trees, lilacs in full bloom, blue skies, and possibly most important, pre-mosquitos!

Which was a good thing, because Ben is not one to sit around and relax, and he decided that after my flight from Regina to Toronto on Friday (which incidentally, had transferred through Calgary) and then from Toronto to Sudbury on Saturday I had done enough sitting for at least a week, and so we did a fair amount of walking. And mosquitos are plain and simply drawn to me. Not a trait I'm particularly fond of, really.

Egan Chutes Provincial Park

Part of the series: Bancroft - a destination, not a trip

When I was growing up, Egan Chutes was not a Provincial Park. It was one of those places that our family used to go to on a Sunday afternoon in the spring. Everyone had to wear rubber boots, and jump a creek or two, but the hike was well worth the view.

The Ontario Parks website describes Egan Chutes as:

A bend of the York River has become a wetland with an adjacent sand flat, where poplar, white birch, ash, buffaloberry, and purple flowering raspberry grow. Minerals found here include nepheline, sodalite, biotite, zircon, and blue corundum.

... a short walk along an unmaintained road will take visitors to three picturesque waterfalls within the nature reserve.

Mineral collecting and camping are prohibited.

The last time I was there was in the spring of 2008, with my brother Jonathan and his girlfriend (now wife) Wilma.

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If you plan on visiting Egan Chutes, I recommend going in the spring, just after the snow has melted. Once the runoff is over, the white water disappears, and there is barely a trickle to watch going over the rocks.