Freda Campbell, who is a proud member of the Tahltan Nation, never expected that working in the mining industry would allow her to connect with her home on an even deeper level. Her first contact with the mining world was a happy coincidence.
In 1992, when Campbell was in the last semester of her associate degree in business administration at Camosun College in Victoria, B.C., she met Jack Thompson, the president of Homestake Mining Company, who visited one of her classes to talk about job opportunities in mining.
Campbell asked for his thoughts on how Native land claims would affect mining, and Thompson told her about the Eskay Creek gold-silver project on Tahltan territory in northwest B.C., which Homestake owned at the time and was exploring in collaboration with the Tahltan Nation. After his presentation, the two started chatting, and Thompson offered her a receptionist role at Homestake.
It was the beginning of her passion for empowering the Indigenous workforce in the mining industry. “I absolutely fell in love with [the mining industry],” she told CIM Magazine. While at Homestake, Campbell was mentored by Garry Biles, who held a superintendent position at the company. Campbell said that he was ahead of his time when it came to building community relations.
For the rest of this article: https://magazine.cim.org/en/voices/a-tahltan-champion-en/