MASHinery

Meet Ken Sim, the Founder Behind MASHinery in North Bay

Ken Sim was born and raised in North Bay, and he has spent his whole working life around big machines. He owns Canor Construction, one of the biggest excavation outfits in the city, and he will tell you the thrill never wore off. He still likes watching an excavator dig. He still likes buying them, running them, being around them.

MASHinery is what happens when a man like that decides to share. What caught Ken off guard was everything that came with it. A five year old climbs down from a real excavator grinning ear to ear, then walks over and hugs the trainer. "That was stuff I didn't even think of," Ken says, "how neat that would be to share."

From Excel Landscaping to Canor Construction in North Bay

Ken started his first company in 1999, Excel Landscaping, doing driveways, landscape projects and weeping tile. By 2006 he was working closely with Canor. He bought gravel and bins from the owner at the time, who hired Ken's crew to shovel snow, then to plow, then to build fence. Every year over lunch, the owner slid his books across the table and told Ken he should buy him out. Ken laughed it off in 2007, and again in 2008. In 2009 he said yes, and he closed on Canor that October.

Back then Canor had about fifteen people, a couple of dump trucks and maybe a loader. Today it employs over a hundred people, and about 150 through the winter.

How a Las Vegas Trip Became North Bay's Heavy Equipment Playground

On a trip to Las Vegas, Ken and a few of his guys found Dig This, a playground where anybody can run heavy equipment. They walked in acting like they had never seen a machine. The instructor asked them to try picking up a basketball with the bucket. They made it look so easy he asked if they had been there before and told them they were wasting his time. The joke on the way home was that somebody should build one up north.

Ken kicked the idea around for years. What finally moved it was the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, which had backed two projects at Canor before. This time Ken told them it was different: he would only build it if they came in with him. They did, so he pushed the button and cleared the lot. MASHinery opened on July 24, 2026, and Vic Fedeli was there to open it. Ken says there is nothing else like it in Canada, and only three in all of North America.

Heavy Equipment Experiences for Kids and Adults in North Bay

You need no licence and no experience. The yard holds a 4 ton, a 13 ton and a 20 ton excavator, a bulldozer, a skid steer on tracks, a backhoe, a big front end loader and a rock truck, plus a mini excavator in the Kids Zone that swings and digs but stays put.

There are fourteen experiences to choose from. Kids five and up who stand at least 48 inches tall can run the mini excavator, and more than one family has watched a child dig for dinosaur bones. At ten, kids can move out of the Kids Zone onto the bigger machines. Grown ups pick from the Bulldozer Adventure, Loader Learning, the Skid Steer Course with its auger and concrete breaker, the Backhoe Double Duty Challenge, the 13 Ton Monster Mash, or combinations like the Mega Earth Moving Mash Up. A sixty minute session is all yours on the machine, because the safety training happens separately, before you start. The oldest guest so far was 91.

Smash a Car With an Excavator in North Bay

This is the one people talk about. MASHinery buys cars and trucks from local scrapyards, already drained of oil, gas and antifreeze, and sets each one on a paved pad ringed with concrete blocks. Before you touch a control, you get a can of spray paint or a brush. Write on it, draw on it, sit in it, take your pictures.

If you have never run a machine, you get a twenty minute crash course. Then, in Ken's words, they let you put the hammer down. Use the teeth to rip it apart. Smash the windows. Tear a tire off. You get about half an hour to do as much damage as you can, then the crew sweeps up and hauls what is left back to the scrapyard, a little flatter than it arrived.

As Ken puts it, you can rent an excavator in town any day. Nobody rents you one to smash a car.

Safety First: What to Know Before You Book MASHinery

Ken and his general manager, John Perry, are both certified trainers in Surface Mining Common Core. They train Canor's own operators for open pit work and sign off on their apprentices' training for the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. John brings over twenty years on heavy equipment, and he has the authority to stop everything if a standard is not met. Every machine has a custom disconnect: your coach wears a lanyard with a button that shuts the machine down instantly, and you talk to each other the whole time through a headset.

Book online before you come. There are no walk ins; you pick your experience and a time, and the team confirms it. Wear closed toe shoes and dress for the weather, with sunscreen on a hot day. MASHinery supplies the vest, the hard hat and the headset. Guests 16 and under come with an adult. The question Ken hears most is whether a younger child can run the big machines. The answer is no. Under ten, they cannot reach the pedals anyway.

What a Visit to MASHinery Looks Like

You walk into a front reception full of MASHinery shirts, hats and keychains, plus little models of the machine you are about to run. In the training room you watch a fifteen minute safety video, then your coach walks you through a sandbox with a model of every machine on site, so you are not going in blind.

Out in the yard every session starts with MASHinery Aerobics: lift the arm, curl the bucket, swing the turret, one control at a time. If you are comfortable, your coach has you push the bucket down until it lifts the machine. Then you dig a hole and chase a ball. If you are getting the knack, the last ten minutes are yours alone. Family and friends watch from a raised viewing deck, with snacks, drinks and picnic tables close by.

Team Building and Corporate Events in North Bay

MASHinery also hosts birthdays, bachelor and bachelorette parties and private events, but Ken built it with company days in mind. The usual corporate golf day pairs you with the same three people for four hours. Here the whole group is in sight from the deck. You can see one coworker struggling to dig and another chasing the ball, and everybody is laughing.

One large corporate client has booked an afternoon after its annual safety meeting, with four cars to smash and a custom challenge built just for its executives. And because Ken can pull machines from Canor, a group can run five excavators at once or race five dozers to the finish. He wants the big offices in Barrie, Toronto, Huntsville and Timmins coming north for the day.

Why Ken Built It: Getting Young People Into the Trades

Ken thinks MASHinery does more than entertain. "Technology is advancing like crazy," he says, "but forty years from now, you're still going to dig a hole to put a pipe in the ground." Somebody has to run those machines, and there is a good living in it, without ten years of school. A kid who climbs down from an excavator at MASHinery might not want to be an astronaut anymore.

Winter is next. Ken plans to stay open, with the digging set aside and car smashes, ball and tire challenges and snow plowing in its place. Every guest review on Google so far comes in at four stars or better, and several name John. For Ken, it is also something to run long into retirement. Book your seat in the sandbox.