Sudbury's Junction Creek Festival returns

The sun was shining as hundreds turned out to the Junction Creek Festival and Trout Release at Twin Forks Playground on Saturday. The free festival involves a barbecue, educational activities and a bucket of trout to release into the creek.

The annual festival sees anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 brook trout released into the river as part of an effort to preserve the creek.

This year, more than 2,500 Brook Trout were released.

Miranda Virtanen, executive director at the Junction Creek Stewardship Committee, says the event is part celebration of the community efforts to protect the creek and reintroducing the trout.

"Brook trout are really sensitive to pollution and water quality," Virtanen explains."So when we have brook trout surviving in the creek that means the creek is healthy."

For the past 24 years, the Junction Creek Stewardship Committee has been dedicated to restoring the creek.

The Junction Creek Festival and Trout Release event has been running for more than a decade. Virtanen says the event doubled post pandemic, seeing more than 600 people last year.

"It's definitely growing and continuing to grow," she says.

Junction Creek is a 52-kilometre river that runs through the heart of downtown Sudbury, draining into the Vermillion River, the Spanish River, the North Channel into Lake Huron.

"It has that ripple effect where it's not just having an impact locally, but the great lakes watershed as well," Virtanen explains.

Virtanen says that the Junction Creek Stewardship Committee has events year-round, including tree planting and cleanup events.