I was born in the
fallout plain of a
smelter. The world's largest
nickel refinery loomed on the edge of my hometown, the axis of radiating arms of
mine headframes and abandoned
open pits. 200 years of
burning rock, pregnant with
sulfur, made the Earth
acid. When I was born, my city was a
man made hell. It left a
mark on me,
body and
soul.
Highway 17E runs through
Sudbury,
Ontario east to west. Like a creeping
cancer, the
INCO industrial complex at
Copper Cliff sprawls. It is a
testament to man's
contempt for nature. We claw deep into the
earth, tear the
silvery veins from solid
rock, and feed the sky
brimstone and
fire.
I was coming back to town after a weekend spent at
big city doctors down south. My body had recently decided that
my skin was not my own and was trying to shed it, like a
snake. "Environmental factors". The fact that I used to play outside when you could
taste and
see the
sulfur dioxide from the stacks at
Falconbridge played some role. We drove all night, and as a boy I never slept in the car. Travel in Ontario is measured in
hours, not miles. We crested the last hill before the
smelter-refinery just as the disk of the sun crawled above the bare black stained hills.
Miles of metal shone in
devilish light. Things at Copper Cliff are on a scale that
awes my mind. Pipes the size of highways, tiny walkways clinging like
remoras on
sharks, rows and rows of blinking aircraft warning lights, stacks and gaslines. It spreads completely across the
valley, like a
cybernetic implant bursting from the skin of the
world. Smoke belching concrete reaches for heaven. A
black slag mountain holds up the sun. The far off tailings ponds
glow an
unnatural aquamarine, so full of acid that the
pH kills. You can see all the way to the
pristine bottom of those
dead ponds. Railroad tracks of impossible complexity spread like
veins. No trees have grown here for years. Grass is all that can survive, and it has trouble. Raw timbers and posts
decay at an unnatural speed, and a wreath of
hydro lines hang in the air like a
web. Yellow Black billboard signs point out separate parts of the
complex. The
copper refinery has green windows, like a rusted
penny. The
acid plant stands over the
rail line like a
sawhorse, filling the black tankers. The chrome
gas leak warning horns sound like air raid sirens, but they are quiet today. The main smelter houses the
Superstack, a
Titan of concrete you can see miles out of town, God's own
cigarette. The road runs right through the belly of the
Beast, lifeblood of the city.
I am
home.