
Minnow Lake
This area surrounds a lake and is just about the geographical centre of Greater Sudbury. That's right, a lake in the middle of the city! It has more public shoreline than any other area lake. Minnow Lake has an extensive website for interested readers.
Two community centres, tennis courts, two ball fields and an arena are right on the lake as well as other outdoor activity lots, including a skateboard park. There are a few homes on the lakeshore as well. We can consider this community "active." In other active news, the Minnow Lake Restoration Group has been very busy working on water quality improvements and have placed a lovely fountain in the lake.
How serious are lake residents about the environment? Just try to wade through the extensive minutes of the CAN meetings. Vegetation around the lake has been restored, thanks to the great efforts of the Restoration Group, and the water quality has improved. Along with that, outdoor recreation is comprehensive, in spite of the winters, and includes biking, hiking, boating and fishing.
Restaurants, shopping, banking and general business are part of daily life here as well, and several schools educate the many school-aged children in town. There are several big-box stores to serve the roughly 20,000 residents of this section of Sudbury.
Nickel Centre
This area started out as a small town separate from Sudbury in 1973 and was incorporated in 2001. Smaller towns within Nickel Centre make up this section of Sudbury, and the population is about 13,000.
Greater Sudbury Airport is located in Nickel Centre, providing jobs for this eastern part of the city and its surrounding area. The other towns grouped within Nickel Centre include Conniston, Falconbridge, Garson, Skead, Wahnapitae and the ironically-named ghost town, Happy Valley.
Access to the Trans - Canada Highway is nearby, running through Conniston and Wahnapitae. There are plans to expand Highway 17, the same road, through Nickel Centre toward Markstay.
A notable ore vein was discovered in Falconbridge by none other than Thomas Edison in 1902, but the mining company did not fare well. Other mining companies took it on later and recovered the ore and it continues to this day, now under the name of Xstrata. The Vale Inco mine is in Garson.
Valley East
A central part of Greater Sudbury, Valley East has a population of about 21,000. It makes up the eastern half of the Sudbury Basin, an impact crater. It's the second-largest impact crater on Earth and a significant geological structure. Look it up, people.
Made up of smaller communities, Valley East includes Blezard Valley (from the 1880s), Hanmer, Val-Caron and Val-Therese. Four secondary schools provide education for French and English Catholic students and French and English public school students.
The Valley East Community Theatre, established 1998, has more than 15 productions in its history. This section of Sudbury also has its own full-colour newspaper since 2010.
Rayside-Balfour
Two townships merged to become Rayside - Balfour and were incorporated into Greater Sudbury in 2001.This area has a majority francophone residential population and French schools, Catholic and Protestant.
Azilda and Chelmsford are two smaller communities within this part of the city of west-central Sudbury. Azilda lies on the eastern side of Whitewater Lake. Sudbury Downs, for harness racing, sits between these two communities. The track also has slots, a full bar, a snack-bar and a fine dining restaurant. Famous Canadians hail from this community as well as all the other communities in this article.
Walden
This southwestern area of Sudbury has about 7,000 residents and is in the Nickel Belt provincial constituency. It is most of Ward 2 on the Greater Sudbury City Council.
Walden's name derives from the towns of Waters, Lively and Dennison. Tom Davies was the first mayor of Walden; the Sudbury City Hall is named in his honour, called Tom Davies Square. Whitefish and Beaver Lake are also part of Walden. Many Finnish settlers came to Beaver Lake to work in the nickel mines.
Naughten, a smaller area of Walden, is the home of Boston Bruin Art Ross, of NHL trophy fame. The town of Lively is the home of the Anderson Farm Museum which provides a comprehensive look at farm life from about 1914-1930. A Finnish loom more than 100 years old has a rug in progress that visitors can help create.
These five areas of Sudbury have their own unique appeal. There is much more history available on each area that could we just didn't have the room to include here. Have a look at these parts of Sudbury and the opportunities they offer for residential living.
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