Natasha Nagyougalik began work at Meadowbank in 2010 as a young mother to a three-year old son. Now Aidan is 11 and mom has climbed the Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. career ladder to a top rung.
She works as a dispatcher, but has also learned to operate the $2-million RH120 shovel, one of the largest and most sophisticated pieces of equipment in the global mining industry. “In high school, I started off working at the local Northern store,” Nagyougalik said.
Then she saw job openings advertised by Agnico as either a dishwasher or housekeeper. She went for dishwasher. Five months later, she saw a posting for a month of heavy equipment training in Morrisburg, Ont. That was before Agnico brought simulator training to the mine site.
“My best friend was working at the mine as well and she was convincing me. We went together for that course. I came back to Meadowbank as a haul truck driver,” she said. Working two weeks in and two weeks out was hard at first.
“It was difficult. I had my son waiting at home for me. But I had to also provide for my siblings, all my family, pretty much. I talked with my mum. She would take care of my son when I’d go work. At that time, there were no jobs in town. So that was our best option,” she recalled.
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