Environmental History of My Family

September 12, 2026 By: Matthew Lynch

My family history spans two continents and multiple cities.  On my mother’s side, her own mother was born in what is now a part of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, while her father was from Hull, Québec.  He later immigrated to Sudbury to work in the city’s mines.  Where my father’s side was concerned, his mother was born in Midland, Ontario and likewise immigrated to Sudbury.  His own father, for his part, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and came to Canada at a young age due to his belief that it was the land of opportunity.  He originally moved to Quebec, where he worked as a farmhand, but later immigrated to Sudbury to work in the mines there as well.  My parents were both born in Sudbury, as I was.  Although I don’t live there anymore, I remain an Ontario resident, currently residing in Parry Sound, a town I chose to remain in partly due to my love of the many outdoor activities its environment allows me to pursue.

My father’s family history is fascinating.  His ancestors once lived in Ireland, but left for Scotland due to the potato famine, along with my other Irish people[1].  His father, my Papa, was born in Edinburgh but moved to Canada at a young age with friends to pursue opportunities there.  He was the only one of his friend group that remained here.  Originally working as a farmhand in Quebec, which would not have been possible without the province’s abundant farmlands[2], he later moved to Sudbury, where he would remain until his passing.  He made his living as a miner, a career made possible by Sudbury’s incredible richness of minerals, including nickel and copper[3].  Therefore, the environment played a huge role in his life story.  Had Sudbury not had such exceptional natural resources, he would likely have never moved there, and thus, I would have never been born.  In fact, I’ll take it a step further and argue that the environment played a large role in his decision to move to Canada in the first place.  A significant part of the reason Canada was viewed as the land of opportunity at the time was due to its own variety of natural resources, including farmland and fisheries[4].  Therefore, if it wasn’t for Canada’s environment, he may never have set foot in the country in the first place.

In addition, the large number of minerals in Sudbury[5] played a role in the family dynamics.  They were able to offer a quite competitive paycheck to their staff.  Even today, the mines in Sudbury are known for providing well-paying jobs and excellent pensions[6].  Therefore, my grandfather was able to provide for himself, his six children, and my grandmother, who, in line with gender roles of the time, did not work outside their home after their marriage[7].  He also helped spur his children’s love of the region’s outdoor environment by building a cottage on a nearby lake, a love that was passed on to me, despite never actually having met him.

My grandfather’s sizable pension[8] became relevant to the family in later years.  He passed away quite young, leaving my grandmother a widow for decades until her own passing at 94 years old.  Thanks to my grandfather’s years in the mines and the pension offered to him, and, by extension, her, she was able to remain in their marital home for years afterwards, before moving into an apartment and later a nursing home, and was never short of money to pay to live in these places.

On my mother’s side, the environment also played a role.  Her father worked on the abundant farms in Quebec[9] as well, before also immigrating to Sudbury for the same reason: To work in the mines.  Likewise, he also owned a cottage on one of the Sudbury area’s abundant lakes, which provided his children with many happy memories.

Both my grandfathers, then, followed similar paths.  They immigrated to Sudbury after working as farm hands in Quebec, and worked in farming in Quebec and, later, mining in Sudbury.  Both jobs are heavy on natural resources, and are traditionally male[10], working-class jobs that required intense physical labor.  In these lines of work, natural resources offered a way to make a living; they were not a source of pleasure.  Their primary relationships with nature were more about survival and livelihood, rather than enjoyment.

That said, on their time off, both enjoyed nature though camping, and, in the case of one of them, hunting.  Owning a cottage, however, would not have been possible had it not been for the generous income[11] provided by their employment in the mines.

My father’s work was also influenced by the region’s environment.  He is a recently-retired construction superintendent who helped build large structures all across Northern Ontario.  He has built places ranging from a church to a hospital to a police station.  These types of projects depend on Canada’s rich variety of natural resources, such as timber and minerals, as they would otherwise needed to be imported from other countries, potentially at a higher price[12].

While my own ethnic heritage and gender don’t particularly affect how I relate the environment, my grandparent’s love of the outdoor environment was passed on to me, and one of the reasons I chose to live in Parry Sound is due to its many outdoor activities, made possible by the distinctive ecosystem and location on the stunning Georgian Bay.[13]

While my own career as a teacher has little direct relationship with the environment, I have taken my students on several field trips that took advantage of the area’s natural resources[14].

The environments in which my family lived were no doubt transformed by European settlers.  My paternal papa’s home was the exception, since he was actually born on that continent and later became a European immigrant to Canada himself.  Sudbury, however, where all my grandparents lived their adult lives and raised their families, has seen much transformation of its natural state after the mines opened, as they caused vegetation loss, soil contamination, and the acidification of multiple lakes[15].  In fact, over a century of mining and smelting took its toll on the ecosystem there, so much so that regreening efforts were necessary in the 70s, after a significant amount of land had been degraded and denuded[16]Therefore, the region actually went through two major human-made transformations: one involved damage to the ecosystem, and one involved retstoring it.

My grandfathers also worked on farms in Quebec, which are distinctly man-made environments, modified to facilitate agriculture[17].  Likewise, the mines transformed Sudbury’s underground.  While the nickel deposits are natural, the mines heavily altered the landscape of the region’s underground via shafts and tunnels that facilitated resource extraction[18].  Therefore, both my grandfathers worked in industries that profoundly altered the region’s natural landscape, although as laborers, they worked in places that had already been modified to extract or take advantage of the resources, rather than themselves making the decision to create industries revolving around this practice.

It is also worth noting that farming as we know it today in Canada (the types of farms my grandfathers worked on) was a practice that was transformed by European settlers.  While Indigenous people had been practicing farming in what is now Canada for centuries, farming practices evolved after the arrival of the Europeans, for example, by growing wheat, barley and rye.[19]

In a generational shift, their children (my parents, aunts, and uncles) have chosen a different path.  While most appreciate nature as a form of recreation, few other than my father and one uncle work or worked in industries that directly involve using natural resources or transforming natural spaces.  In my own generation, I have one cousin who became a third-generation miner, while his brothers worked in construction and oil extraction in Alberta at various times.  Other than them, both I and my cousins (of which I have over a dozen) largely work in the education, human services, or government sectors, none of which involve natural resources.  (I did, however, work for a summer as a construction laborer, a job which, as mentioned above, requires natural resources[20], and several others as a beach lifeguard, a job which of course could not exist without Sudbury’s abundant lakes, of which it has over 300[21]

There is one other exception, though: I have a cousin who works in a nuclear plant, a form of energy supported by natural resources such as uranium[22].  This shows the shift in the role natural the environment played in my family, as even though this family member makes a living in a place that relies on natural resources, it is a form of resources unknown to previous generations[23].

That said, while my economic relationship with nature is different from that of my grandparents, I do share their love of using it as a form of recreation.  I am an avid kayaker, camper, and cross-country skier.  Therefore, my relationship with nature is not entirely dissimilar to theirs.

Footnotes

1. Heather Lumsden, “Edinburgh’s Churches and Communities, 1843–1914” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2012), 126, https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/6440/Lumsden2012.pdf.
2. Environment and Climate Change Canada, Water Quality in Canadian Rivers (Ottawa: Government of Canada, 2025), 10, https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/eccc/documents/pdf/cesindicators/water-quality/2025/Water-quality-canadian-rivers-en_2025.pdf.
3. Natural Resources Canada, “Canada’s First Major Mining Camp (1856),” Government of Canada, modified March 2, 2017, https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/science/en/educational-resources/history-geological-survey-canada-175-objects/14-canadas-first-major-mining-camp-1856.
4. Natural Resources Canada, “Our History,” Government of Canada, accessed September 12, 2026, https://natural-resources.canada.ca/corporate/our-history.
5. Natural Resources Canada, “Canada’s First Major Mining Camp.”
6. Vale, Transforming the Future—Vale in Ontario, accessed September 12, 2026, https://vale.com/documents/d/guest/web-on-factsheet.
7. Statistics Canada, “The Census and the Evolution of Gender Roles in Early 20th Century Canada,” Canadian Social Trends, accessed September 12, 2026, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-008-x/2010001/article/11125-eng.htm.
8. Vale, Transforming the Future.
9. Environment and Climate Change Canada, Water Quality in Canadian Rivers, 10.
10. Statistics Canada, “Numbers and Percentages of the Gainfully Occupied Males and Females 10 Years of Age or Over, by Occupation Groups, Census Years 1891 to 1931,” Historical Statistics of Canada, accessed September 12, 2026, https://www65.statcan.gc.ca/acyb02/1937/acyb02_19370132028-eng.htm.
11. Vale, Transforming the Future.
12. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, “Trade Barrier Removal to Boost Housing Supply and Rentals,” 2025, https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/observer/2025/trade-barrier-removal-increase-housing-supply-help-renters.
13. Town of Parry Sound, “Our Outdoors,” accessed September 12, 2026, https://www.parrysound.ca/explore-play/our-outdoors/.
14. Town of Parry Sound, “Our Outdoors.”
15. Laurentian University, “Global Lessons from the Restoration Story of Sudbury, Canada,” accessed September 12, 2026, https://laurentian.ca/about/office-of-sustainability/cop15.
16. Morrissa Boerchers, Patricia Fitzpatrick, Christopher Storie, and Glen Hostetler, “Reinvention through Regreening: Examining Environmental Change in Sudbury, Ontario,” The Extractive Industries and Society 3, no. 3 (2016): 713–720, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.03.005.
17. Statistics Canada, “Land Use, Census of Agriculture Historical Data,” table 32-10-0153-01, accessed September 12, 2026, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3210015301.
18. Ontario Ministry of Mines, “Northern Ontario GeoTours,” Government of Ontario, accessed September 12, 2026, https://www.ontario.ca/page/northern-ontario-geotours.
19. Parks Canada, “Early Settler Farming,” Rouge National Urban Park, accessed September 12, 2026, https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/on/rouge/culture/agriculture/settler.
20. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, “Trade Barrier Removal to Boost Housing Supply and Rentals.”
21. City of Greater Sudbury, “Lake Health,” accessed September 12, 2026, https://www.greatersudbury.ca/live/environment-and-sustainability1/lake-health/.
22. Natural Resources Canada, “Uranium and Nuclear Power Facts,” Government of Canada, accessed September 12, 2026, https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/uranium-nuclear-power-facts.
23. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, “CNSC History and Milestones,” Government of Canada, accessed September 12, 2026, https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/about-us/history/.

Bibliography

Boerchers, Morrissa, Patricia Fitzpatrick, Christopher Storie, and Glen Hostetler. “Reinvention through Regreening: Examining Environmental Change in Sudbury, Ontario.” The Extractive Industries and Society 3, no. 3 (2016): 713–720. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.03.005.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. “Trade Barrier Removal to Boost Housing Supply and Rentals.” 2025. https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/observer/2025/trade-barrier-removal-increase-housing-supply-help-renters.

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. “CNSC History and Milestones.” Government of Canada. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/about-us/history/.

City of Greater Sudbury. “Lake Health.” Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www.greatersudbury.ca/live/environment-and-sustainability1/lake-health/.

Environment and Climate Change Canada. Water Quality in Canadian Rivers. Ottawa: Government of Canada, 2025. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/eccc/documents/pdf/cesindicators/water-quality/2025/Water-quality-canadian-rivers-en_2025.pdf.

Laurentian University. “Global Lessons from the Restoration Story of Sudbury, Canada.” Accessed September 12, 2026. https://laurentian.ca/about/office-of-sustainability/cop15.

Lumsden, Heather. “Edinburgh’s Churches and Communities, 1843–1914.” PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2012. https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/6440/Lumsden2012.pdf.

Natural Resources Canada. “Canada’s First Major Mining Camp (1856).” Government of Canada. Modified March 2, 2017. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/science/en/educational-resources/history-geological-survey-canada-175-objects/14-canadas-first-major-mining-camp-1856.

Natural Resources Canada. “Our History.” Government of Canada. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://natural-resources.canada.ca/corporate/our-history.

Natural Resources Canada. “Uranium and Nuclear Power Facts.” Government of Canada. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/uranium-nuclear-power-facts.

Ontario Ministry of Mines. “Northern Ontario GeoTours.” Government of Ontario. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www.ontario.ca/page/northern-ontario-geotours.

Parks Canada. “Early Settler Farming.” Rouge National Urban Park. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/on/rouge/culture/agriculture/settler.

Statistics Canada. “Land Use, Census of Agriculture Historical Data.” Table 32-10-0153-01. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3210015301.

Statistics Canada. “Numbers and Percentages of the Gainfully Occupied Males and Females 10 Years of Age or Over, by Occupation Groups, Census Years 1891 to 1931.” Historical Statistics of Canada. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www65.statcan.gc.ca/acyb02/1937/acyb02_19370132028-eng.htm.

Statistics Canada. “The Census and the Evolution of Gender Roles in Early 20th Century Canada.” Canadian Social Trends. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-008-x/2010001/article/11125-eng.htm.

Town of Parry Sound. “Our Outdoors.” Accessed September 12, 2026. https://www.parrysound.ca/explore-play/our-outdoors/.

Vale. Transforming the Future—Vale in Ontario. Accessed September 12, 2026. https://vale.com/documents/d/guest/web-on-factsheet.