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Canada Mining – North of 60

‘Historic event’: Groundbreaking marks start of Tlicho all-season road construction (CBC News North – August 23, 2019)

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

Elected officials stabbed at muddy ground with clean shovels at the official groundbreaking on the Tlicho all-season road in Whatı̀​​​, N.W.T., on Saturday. For Whatı̀ Chief Alfonz Nitsiza, the moment was the culmination of decades of effort.

Speaking to reporters in a scrum, Nitsiza said that decades ago two elders — including his own uncle, who is a former chief — survived two plane crashes in the Tlicho region.

“They quickly realized, this is too much, and there’s a lot of people going in and out of the community for medevac, we need to get a road here. That’s when it all started — almost 30 years ago.”

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History Hunter: Hard rock mining on Dublin Gulch is more than a century old – by Michael Gates (Yukon News – August 29, 2019)

Yukon News

For other Michael Gate’s Mining History Columns on the Yukon: https://www.yukon-news.com/author/michael-gates/

The Klondike gold rush drew tens of thousands of hopeful prospectors into the north hoping to strike it rich in the placers of Bonanza Eldorado and numerous other creeks.

But among them were a smaller but unwavering brigade of prospectors who were determined to burrow beneath the placer gravels into bedrock in hope of finding the mother lode. These prospectors spread out to the branches of tributaries in regions so remote that they weren’t yet even plotted on maps.

One of these remote locations was Dublin Gulch, which was said to have been first staked by 1897. There was a staking rush to the area in 1901. Interest quickly dwindled and many of these claims lapsed, but another flurry of staking occurred two years later.

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North: Whale Tail mine expansion undergoes public hearings this week in Baker Lake – by Sara Frizzell (CBC News North – August 27, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/

Open pit mine began commercial production this summer

Plans to expand the newly opened Whale Tail gold mine, near Baker Lake, Nunavut, are the subject of public hearings this week in the community.

The Nunavut Impact Review Board is running the consultations Monday through Thursday. It’s reviewing plans to increase the size of the Whale Tail open pit, to start another open pit near a site called IVR and to start underground mining.

Community representatives from Baker Lake and other Kivalliq-region communities will have their say at the hearings along with the territorial and federal governments. Agnico Eagle began mining operations at Whale Tail this summer with approval to run for three or four years and mine 8.3 million tonnes of ore.

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China would benefit most from billion-dollar, 700-km highway through Canadian Arctic, critics say – by Meagan Campbell (National Post – August 23, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com/

Questions are being raised about plans to build a $1-billion, 700-km highway from Yellowknife to a proposed port on Nunavut’s Arctic coast, paid for by Canadians but which critics say would largely serve Chinese government interests.

Last week, Transport Minister Marc Garneau pledged more than $50 million to the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to study the feasibility of a highway to replace ice roads that are no longer reliable amid climate change.

While local leaders applaud the funding, critics say the largest benefit would go to a mining company, MMG, which is controlled by the Chinese government and holds several mineral deposits in the region where the highway would be built.

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Mining in the Arctic: The Beginnings of an Industry – by Scott Tibballs (Investing News – August 22, 2019)

Investing News Sponsored Content

The Arctic is a harsh and unforgiving environment; whether it’s the weather conditions, darkness or isolation, it’s a region that hasn’t seen much human activity relative to the rest of the world.

Seven nations have territory north of the Arctic Circle: Canada, the US, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and, through its enduring ownership of Greenland, Denmark. Iceland is also regarded as an arctic nation despite not having any territory within the circle, and China has declared itself a “near Arctic state” — whatever that means.

The Arctic provides many opportunities by way of its historical resistance to human interference: It’s relatively untouched, and its changing climate means there are new opportunities to pursue in transportation, exploration and discovery — especially in the mineral resources space.

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NEWS RELEASE: New program to clean up largest abandoned mines in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories (August 19, 2019)

YELLOWKNIFE, Aug. 19, 2019 /CNW/ – Canada is moving forward with a long-term plan to clean up contaminated sites in the North.

Today, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, announced that the Government’s new Northern Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program will invest $2.2 billion over 15 years to address remediation of the eight largest abandoned mine projects in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

These projects are the Faro, United Keno Hill, Mount Nansen, Ketza River, and Clinton Creek mines in the Yukon; and the Giant, Cantung, and Great Bear Lake mines in the Northwest Territories. The Great Bear Lake project consists of multiple smaller sites in close proximity to each other.

The new program will leverage expertise gained over 15 years of managing human and environmental health and safety risks at contaminated sites in the North and allow for longer-term tenders for work at the sites, providing greater certainty for impacted communities and economic opportunity for Indigenous people and Northerners.

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‘As goes mining, so goes the Yukon’: Government and corporate leaders praise territory’s potential – by Brian Sylvester (Northern Miner – August 15, 2019)

Northern Miner

With 11 of 13 First Nations reaching settlements on land claims and a new gold mine set to ramp up production, Yukon was the focus of discussion during the Territorial Panel at The Northern Miner’s annual Canadian Mining Symposium held at Canada House in London, U.K., earlier this year.

The panel consisted of Yukon Premier Sandy Silver; Graham Downs, president and CEO of ATAC Resources (TSXV: ATC); Brandon Macdonald, president and CEO of Fireweed Zinc (TSXV: FWZ); John McConnell, president and CEO, Victoria Gold (TSXV: VIT); and Paul West-Sells, president and CEO of Western Copper and Gold (TSX: WRN; NYSE-MKT: WRN), with Andrew Cheatle, senior vice-president for Africa with Forbes & Manhattan, as the panel moderator.

The companies on the panel are all part of the Yukon Mining Alliance, a government-industry initiative designed to promote investment in the territory. Premier Silver kicked things off by offering the audience some facts and perspective on the Yukon in Canada’s northwest.

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Northern residents applaud pair of federal announcements paving way to long-awaited all-weather Arctic road – by Bob Weber (Globe and Mail – August 16, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

CANADIAN PRESS: Two federal announcements this week are expected to kick-start a long-awaited road into the heart of the Canadian Arctic that would lower grocery costs for northern families and unlock billions of dollars in mineral resources.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau pledged more than $50-million to cover preliminary studies and planning for an all-weather road from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories to a deep-water port on Nunavut’s central Arctic coast.

“This will change the economy of Canada,” Wally Schumann, the NWT’s minister of industry, tourism and investment, said Thursday. A direct, all-weather connection to southern Canada’s highways – Nunavut’s first – would allow everything from fresh vegetables to construction materials to be shipped more cheaply and easily by trucks.

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Ottawa gives $21.5 million to Kitikmeot road and port project – by Derek Neary (Nunavut News – August 13, 2019)

Nunavut News

The federal government is committing $21.5 million to the Kitikmeot Inuit Association’s slimmed-down request to get the Grays Bay Road and Port project “shovel ready” over the next couple of years.

The funding announcement for the initiative, which is expected to make Nunavut mining projects more economical and potentially reduce cost for community resupply, came Tuesday in Iqaluit. Federal Minister of Transport Marc Garneau was on hand for the occasion.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) had already announced that it would give $7.25 million to the initiative. “We are very happy with the outcome… we feel good about where we are,” said Scott Northey, CEO of Nunavut Resources Corporation in regards to the financing from the federal government and NTI.

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It’s time for Canada to act like the northern nation it proclaims to be – by Jessica M. Shadian (National Post – June 27, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com/

Opinion: The Senate is right: We need a Ministry of the Arctic and an Arctic Infrastructure Bank if the North is to be our ‘land of the future’

The Report: Northern Lights: A Wake-Up Call for the Future of Canada

Twelve years ago, Stephen Harper stated that when it comes to defending Canada’s sovereignty over the Arctic, “we either use it or lose it.”

Harper’s comments came a full 50 years after prime minister John Diefenbaker announced his government’s Roads to Resources Program. Ten years prior to that, prime minister Lester B. Pearson announced his vision of the north as “a land of the future.”

As the Senate Report on the Arctic, Northern Lights: A wake-up call for the future of Canada, went to press last week, the north as Canada’s “land of the future” is still yet to be realized. Canada has not only failed to “use it” to defend its sovereignty, it has also failed to see the human and economic potential that is the key to the future of this country and its role in the world.

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How pulling frozen mud ‘Popsicles’ from N.W.T. lakes can help make mining cleaner – by Priscilla Hwang (CBC North – August 6, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/

An Ottawa researcher developing new technology to pull up and analyze frozen mud samples from N.W.T. lakes says it will give regulators and mining companies a better tool to do their jobs.

“It’s a technology that’s going to allow mining companies to … better plan how they’re going to use the area around the lake, and make sure that their work is done sustainably,” said Tim Patterson, professor of geology at Carleton University.

“That’ll allow them to do better to protect the aquatic ecosystems.” Currently, mining companies have to follow strict cleanup protocols when planning to mine in the N.W.T.

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America is losing the battle of the Arctic – by Hal Brands (American Enterprise Institute – July 30, 2019)

http://www.aei.org/

The Pentagon’s new Arctic Strategy is a step forward, but not enough to counter Russia and – yes — China.

The two most important global issues of the coming decades are the return of rivalry between great powers and the intensification of climate change. Squarely at the intersection of these trends sits the Arctic, a region whose growing importance is reshaping the world’s geo-economics and geopolitics alike.

Publicly, the Trump administration is giving greater attention to the Arctic – an indication that the U.S. is mobilizing for the new era. Unfortunately, while Washington is speaking the language of great-power rivalry, its actions have yet to catch up with its words.

Since January, the Navy and Coast Guard have released separate Arctic strategies. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer has called for new freedom of navigation operations and an increased naval presence in the region.

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‘There’s no vision’: Agnico CEO slams feds over Northern resources – by Shane McNeil (BNN Bloomberg – July 30, 2019)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.’s chief executive is warning the federal government not to miss out on developing resources in Northern Canada.

“We’re not making a lot of headway there,” Agnico Eagle CEO Sean Boyd told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview. “There’s just easy things that should be done. The federal government is in a situation now where they transfer massive social payments to Nunavut. Why don’t you create industry? … We’ll do our part, but we can’t do everything.”

Agnico () operates three mines in Nunavut, including the Meliadine open pit gold mine, which began production in May. Boyd said that it’s on the mining industry itself to make a better case for the investment possibilities in the Arctic.

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Canada announces $2M for research into carbon neutral mining at Gahcho Kue mine (CBC News North – July 23, 2019)

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

Project accelerates natural process that uses mine waste to trap greenhouse gases

The Canadian government is investing millions in a research project that has the potential to make some mining operations carbon neutral.

Greg Dipple, a professor of geology at the University of British Columbia, has been working with three other universities and three mining companies, among other groups, to use tailings from mining operations to strip carbon dioxide from the air and convert it to a stable mineral form, trapped in cement-like rock.

“It’s essentially the acceleration of a natural process called chemical weathering,” said Dipple. “The difference here is … we can do it in a timescale of minutes to hours to days to weeks rather than hundreds or millions of years.”

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North: Mining boom to drive economic growth in territories beyond rest of Canada: report – by Ryan Ratrick Jones (CBC News North – July 12, 2019)

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

The Conference Board of Canada says outlook rosy for Nunavut and Yukon, but N.W.T. in for a bumpy ride

Economic growth in the territories will outpace the rest of Canada over the next two years, driven by the strength of the mining sector in Yukon and Nunavut, according to the latest forecast from the Conference Board of Canada.

Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are forecast to experience combined growth rates of 5.3 per cent in 2019 and 4.4 per cent in 2020, the independent research organization said in its summer territorial outlook, released on Wednesday. That’s compared with 1.5 per cent and 2 per cent across Canada’s 10 provinces.

“The near-term outlook is actually quite positive if we combine all three territories,” said Marie-Christine Bernard, director of forecasting for the Conference Board of Canada. “When you have a positive environment for mining, it generally also has positive effects in other areas of the economy.”

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