Sudbury Ontario has been an active and important nickel (and other minerals) mining town for well over 100 years. The extent of past and present mining is easily seen from the huge piles of spoil piled up around the town, in some cases they look like mountain ridges. In more recent times Sudbury has made an effort to diversify and increase tourism and to this end has built a mining/geological exhibition called Dynamic Earth (also known as the Big Nickel) and a general science exhibition known as ScienceNorth. The Big Nickel is a bit of a pun. There was a mine here at one time called the Big Nickel but now there is in fact a large (that is a very large) replica of a Canadian Nickel on a pedestal out front of the Dynamic Earth building. While observing this wonder we met a Danish lady named Barbara standing on her head in front of the nickel (her friend, also a Dane, named, Anne Marie was taking her photo). Seems being photographed head standing in front of sights around the world is her thing.
The main attraction at Dynamic Earth was an underground tour to see how hard-rock mining was done in 1900, 1950 and 2000. Those early miners had a hard life. For example early miners had to provide all their own equipment including dynamite and they had to buy it from the mining company. As an interesting addition to this tour we got to see a replica of the rescue capsule used to rescue the Chilean miners who were trapped in 2010. Got a good photo of Nina pretending to be a trapped miner even down to the fear on her face. Of course Barbara was in there on her head.
The NorthScience exhibition was a hands on affair with all kinds of things for young and old kids to try their hand at from puzzles, to bed-of-nails to a live butterfly display. The highlight however was a special exhibition of the human body. The exhibits were all real human bodies laid open to display various bodily systems. Unfortunately no photos - to respect the individuals who donated their bodies to this exhibition.