Science North celebrates its 40th anniversary

More than 40 years ago, Mike Franklyn was working in the Gulf of the Saint Lawrence harvesting the skeleton of a beached fin whale.

It was a dirty job and he was paid $3.35 an hour to do it.

"The carcass was bloated," Franklyn said.

"We had to stab it with a 40-inch machete and run down the beach to let it de-gas for about an hour before we could even approach it."

Once the skeleton was cleaned and preserved, it was eventually put on display in what would become Science North.

The science centre in Sudbury, Ont., celebrates its 40th anniversary this week.

Franklyn was one of the original "bluecoats," the science communicators at the centre, who wear their now iconic blue lab coats.

There's still a picture of Franklyn on display when he was collecting the fin whale skeleton. He was studying geology at McMaster University at the time, and eventually became the lead physician at Sudbury's Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinic.

While collecting whale bones was often unpleasant, Franklyn says he still fondly remembers his time as a bluecoat.

"One of the most gratifying things for me to see is young kids inspired to study science based on their experiences at Science North," he said.

Sudbury's new poet laureate, Alex Tétreault, was also a bluecoat — from 2011 to 2016 — and said he made lasting friendships during his time at Science North.

One of his favourite memories was when a staff scientist gave the younger bluecoats an assortment of fruit, including a watermelon.

Tétreault and his colleagues had just seen a video of an experiment involving a watermelon and decided to recreate it for visitors at Science North.

"We spent three or four hours wrapping rubber bands around this watermelon — even drew a sad little face on it," he said.