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Canada Mining – North of 60

Building skills and shovelling money: life as a Northern Indigenous miner in the ’80s and ‘90s – by Derek Neary (NNSL.com – November 24, 2021)

https://www.nnsl.com/

Ted Tsetta spent close to 30 years working at various Northern mines. He was employed by Subarctic Welding when he heard from a recruiter at the Polaris zinc mine on Little Cornwallis Island, approximately 100 kilometres north of Resolute Bay, in what is now Nunavut (it was still the Northwest Territories at the time).

“I got a call and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll go,’ I’m not going to hesitate in the mining industry,” Tsetta says. “I took that chance right off the bat.” He remembers his first day of work as a labourer at Polaris was Oct. 5, 1981. He was 19 and pulling in more than $3,000 every two weeks.

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New road paves the way for Canada’s first primary cobalt mine – by Staff (Mining.com – November 7, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Fortune Minerals (TSX: FT) (OTCQX: FTMDF), the company behind what could become Canada’s first primary cobalt mine, said this week that its NICO project will greatly benefit from the about-to-be-open Tlicho all-season road, linking the community of Whati to the national highway system.

The Tlicho Highway is a 97-kilometre, two-lane gravel all-season road to Whati constructed by North Star Infrastructure under a 28-year, $400-million design-build-operate-maintain contract with the Government of the Northwest Territories. The capital costs include up to $53 million in federal government contributions through the Canada Infrastructure Fund.

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Hearings on Baffinland expansion in Nunavut close with criticism from Pond Inlet – by Jane George (CBC News Canada North – November 6, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

After three years, four hearings, two cancellations and other restrictions imposed by COVID-19, the fate of Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation’s proposed Mary River expansion project is now in hands of the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB).

The most affected Nunavut community does not embrace the mining company’s plans for growth. “We don’t want to sacrifice our culture and tradition for jobs and benefits,” said Enookie Inuarak, of Pond Inlet’s hunters and trappers organization, on the final day of the NIRB hearing in Iqaluit.

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Agnico investing $33M in exploring Nunavut – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – November 5, 2021)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Looking to strengthen the gold mine platform it is building in Nunavut, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. is investing roughly US$33 million into exploring its three main assets in the Canadian territory – Meliadine mine, Meadowbank Complex, and the recently acquired Hope Bay mine.

This robust investment in Nunavut is part of US$163 million of exploration the company has budgeted for all of its assets, which is substantially higher than the US$113 million invested in exploration during 2020 and a record for the company.

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Pond Inlet woman’s barrage of criticism shakes up Baffinland hearings – by Jane George (CBC News Canada North – November 4, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

A Pond Inlet, Nunavut, woman managed to lambaste the Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. on several fronts Wednesday, despite being about 1,000 kilometres north of the Nunavut Impact Review Board hearing underway in Iqaluit.

Anita Uuttuvak sat alone in a chair in front of a microphone, while speaking by videoconference in her home community. She looked straight into the camera, and spoke in Inuktitut and English about the mining company and its proposed expansion of the Mary River iron mine, now in its final assessment by regulators.

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Baffinland works to woo support for its iron mine expansion in 1st day of community roundtables – by Jane George CBC News Canada North – November 3, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation hopes to smooth the way forward for its expanded Mary River iron mine proposal during this week’s Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) hearings in Iqaluit. But concerns over wildlife and the mine’s overall impact surfaced during the first day of community roundtable sessions held in Iqaluit, and remotely from Pond Inlet, Nunavut.

These contrasted with the mining company’s promises of increased environmental controls, more involvement for Inuit and attention to traditional knowledge, community improvements — and new cash for the community.

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Green light on expansion of Baffinland’s Mary River mine ‘critical,’ company says – by Jane George (CBC News Canada North – November 2, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. says mine could go into care and maintenance if expansion is denied

The next five days of hearings under the Nunavut Impact Review Board could prove critical to the future of the Mary River iron mine.

Baffinland, which owns the mine, is looking to come out of the review in Iqaluit with a positive recommendation for its Phase 2 expansion. This could lead to the federal northern affairs minister to grant a new project certificate to the mine, with conditions.

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Iqaluit city councillor calls for support of Baffinland mine expansion – by David Venn(Nunatsiaq News – October 28, 2021)

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Iqaluit Coun. Kyle Sheppard says he plans to take another run at persuading his council colleagues to support the proposed expansion of the Mary River iron mine.

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. wants to build a 110-kilometre railway from its Mary River mine to Milne Inlet, double its iron ore shipments through the Tallurutiup Imanga marine conservation area and add another dock to its port.

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Nunavut mine created legacy of partnership – by A.J. Roan (North of 60 Mining News – September 30, 2021)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Found within the newest territory of Canada, Nunavut may seem barren and inhospitable, yet it has provided resources and succor to its First Peoples for thousands of years.

While European colonizers and the indigenous peoples in their ancestral home suffered many differences, it was the shared efforts of the two groups in trade and labor that bridged this gap, eventually leading to the formation of Nunavut itself.

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B.C. investors behind major mine restart in Yukon – by Nelson Bennett (Business in Vancouver – September 24, 2021)

https://biv.com/

Still plenty of potential in Faro lead-zinc mine, says serial entrepreneur Don McInnes

The tiny Yukon town of Faro, a four-hour drive northwest of Whitehorse, would never have existed were it not for the nearby lead-zinc mine of the same name, which is said to have been the largest in the world at the time it was built in the late 1960s.

At its peak the town was home to 2,100 people, with the Faro mine accounting for 35% of Yukon’s GDP.

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125 years after gold was discovered in the Yukon, we ventured up to Dawson City. Here’s what it looks like now – by Brendan Kiley (Seattle Times – September 10, 2021)

https://www.seattletimes.com/

DAWSON CITY, the Yukon Territory — The first tourists to Dawson City arrived in July of 1898, a few weeks before the boomtown’s second birthday.

Mrs. Mary E. Hitchcock (widow of a U.S. Navy officer) and Miss Edith Van Buren (niece of the former U.S. president) swept into the new gold-mining settlement, 170 miles south of the Arctic Circle, with opulent cargo: a zither, a parrot, canaries, a portable bowling alley, crates of fancy foods (pâté, truffles, olives), a movie projector, an exhaustive wardrobe (silks, furs, starched collars, sombreros), two Great Danes and a 2,800 square-foot marquee tent for their lodgings.

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Nunavut’s fly-in workers see their share of earnings rise (Nunatsiaq News – September 7, 2021)

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Nunavut’s mines have driven a big growth in the territory’s total earnings in recent years — and a growing share of those earnings is being collected by fly-in, fly-out workers who live outside the territory.

That’s according to a new report by the Conference Board of Canada that looks at the earnings of non-resident workers in Canada’s three territories over a decade. In 2017, non-resident workers in Nunavut earned a total of $357 million — nearly 30 per cent of the total earnings made in the territory that year.

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Canada’s first rare earth miner in trading halt on expansion rumours – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 10, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Australia’s Vital Metals (ASX: VML), the first rare earths producer in Canada, has announced a trading halt until Thursday, August 12, on reports of negotiations to acquire two projects in Quebec, one of which is considered to be the world’s fourth largest dysprosium deposit.

The company, AFR reported, is said to be in final talks to acquire the Zues project and a 68% interest in Kipawa, two rare earths assets owned by Quebec Precious Metals Corp. (TSX-V: QPM).

Pushing the Aussie miner’s shares up, which have climbed 22% in the last week and an eye-popping 308% in the past year, was Vital’s announcement on Monday that it is actively seeking to expand into US capital markets.

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Report documents ‘degrading’ treatment of Indigenous women at Yukon and B.C. mines – by Julien Gignac (CBC News Canada North – August 4, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/

She had a ritual that involved loading and reloading a shotgun in front of a group of men. The message seemed clear enough: Stay away.

“I would sleep with it right next to my bed, sometimes right in the bed next to me, and I’d have my bear spray right there, too,” said the unidentified woman who is quoted in a new report documenting the experiences of Indigenous women and women of colour at mining camps in Yukon and Northern B.C.

The report, titled “Never Until Now,” was commissioned by the non-profit Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society. It suggests that women are often assigned low-paying, menial jobs at mines because of their gender — and it’s those very roles that often compromise their personal safety.

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Nunavut’s mining industry now significantly outpacing the N.W.T.’s (CBC News North – July 29, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Nunavut’s mining industry has hit a significant milestone — it’s now projected to be worth more than the N.W.T.’s.

According to the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines, there are opposing trends at work. Nunavut’s mineral production has been expanding, while the N.W.T.’s has been shrinking.

“Nunavut is on a strong growth track,” said Ken Armstrong, chamber president, in a statement. “Unfortunately, in the N.W.T., we are seeing the pattern of decline that economists have been predicting.”

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