‘Hands-on applied learning’
FLIN FLON — No, a pickaxe isn’t on the list of school supplies. Not like when Dallas Mihalicz’s forebears went down into the mines.
The 18-year-old from Flin Flon wants to follow them, but she’d be operating with sophisticated technology or working the controls of a 50-ton loader two kilometres below the rugged Canadian Shield.
Though, more likely, Mihalicz wouldn’t get near the underground until she’d put in her time working on the frozen tundra at an exploration camp searching for the next motherlode. “I’ve been growing up around mining, my father, grandpa, uncle. My dad’s a geologist,” said Mihalicz, who graduated from Flin Flon’s Hapnot Collegiate in June.
Most of her current 11 classmates took far more circuitous routes to University College of the North’s Northern Manitoba Mining Academy, which opened only a year ago in downtown Flin Flon, next door to the hospital and practically in the shadow of the HudBay Minerals mine.
UCN president Konrad Jonasson hopes to see more such academies built throughout the north to teach northerners the specific skills the northern economy needs.
Serendipity ruled in creating the mining school, said executive director Rob Penner.
When the smelter closed at the HudBay mine in Flin Flon, the community talked to then-premier Gary Doer about future projects. Meanwhile, University of Manitoba was working on skilled needs, and the feds had their economic action plan.
“There was probably an alignment of the planets you couldn’t plan,” said Penner.
The mining school has 12 students this term, three of them women. The students range in age from 18 to 30 and come from places such as The Pas, Pukatawagan, Opaskweeyak Cree Nation and Norway House.
Students spend 12 weeks in a classroom, followed by work experience.
“It’s training to employment, it’s not guaranteed employment. We’ve got to get (students) ready by the end of December,” Penner said.
January is when the exploration season starts — the frozen tundra and solidified bodies of water make it much easier for exploration teams to get around.
“They don’t realize a lot of the work is outdoors,” he said. The academy relies heavily on industry and government for equipment and expertise.
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