Day 21 – Sudbury, Ontario

Day 21 – Sudbury, Ontario

Technically tomorrow’s the last day, but you can’t help but feel as if everything is so…finite. Oh, this is our last dinner together, our last drive on the vehicle, our last (until the next Monticle program, that is!)…you know what I mean, so on and so forth.

We woke up a bit late, so in a rush of activity, we were packed and ready to go (all eight of us plus Hazel…may I mention there was only ONE bathroom), in less than 20 minutes. And that time’s including getting everything packed onto the Sprinter, and driving out of the parking lot!

Goodbye, ever-changing waters of Lake Superior. Lapis Lazuli waves, malachite ripples, the satin sheen of the water under moonlight, seeming ethereal, almost substantial, as if you can let the silken stream run through your fingers. Only the best inspire poetry…x3

It was another one of those long drives. The scenery begins to look the same. Tree after tree after tree after more trees. But…it makes you wonder. What’s it like to be a tree? Oftentimes, people forget that trees are biotic beings. They live. But, it slips people’s minds because they’re immobile. How many lives did we just pass with barely a second thought, other than, ‘oh, it’s boring, the scenery’s all the same’? Think about what it’s like to open your eyes (or whatever sensing parts a tree has...) to the Earth, breaking out of the moist soil, taking root in the same place that you will grow and live in for the rest of your existence? Unable to move, except turn to the warmth of the Sun. With no shelter except for your own leaves and tough bark from the elements. What’s it like to live as a tree? It must be a tragedy when a tree dies; a silent tragedy. Okay, enough anthropomorphization of the foliage!

So, why so in tune with nature today, you ask? Well, we visited the largest science centre in Ontario, Science North. It had four entire floors, not including the tree house level for children. Instead of stairs, they have a spiral ramp going up the building, and hanging from the top is the skeleton of a whale! Hopefully that gives you a better idea of just how big the complex is exactly.

We went into a special exhibit on dinosaurs. There were excavated bones on display, as well as…what I found out the hard, and pee-your-pants (not that I did!) way…that there were animatronics on display as well. Imagine minding your own business, reading those little information boards, admiring a particularly big bone, scrutinizing the statue of a T-Rex, and making faces and taking photos with it. Stare the T-Rex down, make fun of its puny T-Rex arms, then it suddenly lunges towards you, teeth clashing and gnashing down beside you, and rearing its head back while releasing a earth-shaking roar that send birds screaming into the sky, and you screaming out of the exhibit. Okay, that may be a little…well, a lot dramatized, but you get the idea, and the feeling of being caught in the act of making fun of someone’s short arms…

We watched a 4D movie that kept spraying water in our faces, visited the butterfly gallery, and explored the nature exchange area. In the butterfly gallery, there were many butterflies, of many different species, most of which, we were lost for both names as well as words. In the nature exchange area, we filled out a quiz (full marks, everybody!), and won a lot of points, and using those, bought many preserved butterflies for Billy. :D They were all dazzling and vibrantly coloured. There was also a microscope for you to view rocks and fossils. Guess who used it to admire and gross each other out with their trophy cuts and scratches?

We skipped to level 4, up the stairs, and watched a movie about space and dark matter. Did you know that 85% of the universe may very well be made up of this invisible dark matter? We played around with all of these devices simulating curved space, and others of the stars.

We then moved on to the BodyZone area. We took turns throwing baseballs past a speed-o-meter. We got pretty much average speed (plus some, like me, with below average with our wimpy arms…) but Jacky threw it and got…102 km per hour. We all just stared. So…moving on, we saw the grotesque difference between the looks and operation of a healthy lung and a secondhand smoke lung (it wasn’t even a smoking person’s lung!) it was completely blackened and sickly looking.

Did you know that there were things such as dominant traits? Yeah, things like your eye and hair colour, if you clasp your left thumb over your right; you know, genetic things like that. (Apparently I have a thing called a “hitch-hiker’s thumb”…I hope that’s not saying something about me…) Did you know that finger-hair is also a genetic trait? We did sprints (some of us just can’t wait for the starting gun…), and also calculated how tall we would grow (cough, midget, cough, cough.)

We played around with some gadgets, and played a bit of robot soccer, as well as with some dominoes (oh, how easily we are entertained…). We also enjoyed the TechZone. The photo shoot software was awesome! We had so much fun distorting and warping our faces (not that we needed to, much! Ooooooh! Feel free to jeer along with me. Laugh with us! We laughed so hard, even strangers joined in!)

We went back to the third floor not long after. It was mostly filled with animals. There were ants, bees, and many insects. Most of the animals seemed tired, or bored, or both. You’d probably be too, if you had the same tank/cage/exhibit to wander around in for every day of your life. (Enough from the “FREE THE ANIMALS” tree hugger…) They were mostly resting or snuggled up in their sleeping holes. Like the adorable beaver, and the little owl, all the way up in a tree. Science North even had a garden up there on the roof of the second floor! It was a dream garden (at least for me…), it had a clandestine beauty, as it was remote, and if you weren’t looking for it, you’d probably miss the tucked away glass doors that act as a gateway to the sanctum. It was a pretty big garden, with its own stairs that followed the spiral ramp inside the actual building. It had many diverse species of plants, and although none were seen, many different kinds of avians.

We had to leave shortly, as the centre was closing, but that was definitely a fun and interesting learning experience for us all. Science North’s employees were also pretty much the nicest we’ve met just about anywhere; they were friendly and helpful, and even offered us some free rocks that were going to be tossed out. (We couldn’t let such beautiful and shiny things go to waste so easily, so of course we rescued them from their doom. :D)

Well, we’re heading back to Toronto now. And Billy is attempting the insane drive into the night to make sure we get there. Such dedication! Hats off to Billy, people! We’re watching the sky gradually darken, and the moon rise, then it’s high in the sky, veiled by its translucent curtain of clouds…and light pollution…Yes, I’m still quite cynical about global warming and the sort after today’s exhibits…oh wait, I was always like that. :D

Anyway, we unloaded some of the equipment and stuff at Billy’s apartment, where he also showed us some of his professional and military gear. It filled an entire cubicle! The cubicle was huge! It was as big as an extra-large dog kennel. And that was apparently only half of Billy’s equipment! There were many different kinds of air mattresses, sleeping bags, as well as compressors that squeezed a sleeping bag into less than half of its original size! Billy also had about ten different pairs of shoes, all for different purposes and conditions, like hiking shoes, waterproof ones, shoes with better grip, and even covers for those shoes!

It’s now about 2 in the morning, and we just arrived back at the office, and are unloading and unpacking everything; so instead of saying: ‘See everybody tomorrow!’ I’m just going to say: ‘I hope you’re all getting a nice sleep, and we’ll see you a bit later!’ xD