Reconnect with your inner child at Science North

Sudbury has obviously been on the school-vacation radar of southern Ontario parents since at least the 1990s — both Jason and I, who grew up in Niagara and Mississauga, respectively, have distinct memories of visiting Science North as children. He remembers the flying squirrels in the nocturnal room, while I remember spinning myself around and upside-down in the museum’s working gyroscope. (Sadly, the gyroscope was decommissioned last year but has been replaced with a harness and pulley situation that allows guests to simulate moonwalking). The sudden, shocking closure of the Ontario Science Centre last year meant we were even more excited to share its northern counterpart with Marcus.

There’s something to satisfy almost any childhood special interest at Science North. Snakes? You can learn about and meet several snake species found around Ontario. Bugs? They’ve got ‘em; you can even eat one! Space? Much of the fourth floor is dedicated to helping aspiring astronauts understand the upcoming Artemis lunar missions. The flying squirrels are still there, and there’s a live butterfly house, plus one very chill porcupine who slept in the branches of a tree in its enclosure, oblivious to the kid chaos below. We spent most of our time building race cars out of K’Nex, testing them on a circular track and watching Marcus gleefully crash a float plane into Ramsey Lake in the flight simulator — the stuff core memories are made of. 

Savour the last days of winter 

I’m proud of my family: this was the winteriest winter we’ve experienced in years, and we made the most of it. I finally got Jason onto a ski hill, and Marcus, out of the blue, announced in February that he wanted to learn how to cross-country ski. Of course, there was zero chance of any of that happening by March, but baby steps. 

The most I could get them to agree to in Sudbury was a morning of hiking and exploring at Lake Laurentian Conservation Area. This 950-hectare protected green space located just a 10-minute drive from downtown features 45 kilometres of year-round, multi-use trails surrounding the eponymous lake. On the day we visited, conditions hovered on that tantalizing margin between winter and spring; the sun in the cloudless blue sky actually offered some warmth, but the packed-down snow on the trails had not yet turned slushy and slippery. We ventured out onto the frozen lake, and Marcus did his best bear cub impression, scrambling up and down the snow-crusted rocks along the shore. 

If your family is up for a more active experience, Sudbury is a Nordic skier’s paradise, with six different ski clubs offering their own trail networks and onsite rentals. 

Eat, swim and be merry

Our only requirement for accommodation on this trip was that the hotel have a pool, and we took full advantage of the Microtel Inn and Suites by Wyndham facilities, logging at least two hours a day in the water. All that swimming meant we worked up an appetite, and fortunately, Sudbury has plenty of options to cater to sophisticated palates and picky eaters alike.