Twitter

Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Noront Resources May Go Underground in the Ring of Fire – by Ian Ross

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. This article was published in the January, 2011 issue.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“Mining companies from Canada think nothing of establishing social programs for poor communities in Brazil or South Africa. They hesitate in Canada. As a Canadian, I’ve got a problem with that. I think it’s an obligation for us as Canadians to help the First Nations get out of this welfare state and start (helping them) develop and become self-sufficient in developing community jobs.” – Noront CEO Wes Hanson

Noront Resources has subterreanean plan for Ring of Fire

A leading junior nickel and chromite miner in the Ring of Fire wants to establish a light environmental footprint in the James Bay region.

Wes Hanson, Noront Resources’ president and chief executive officer, laid out his company’s impressive conceptual plans before a receptive audience of businesspeople and mining suppliers in Sudbury in late November.

While their McFauld’s Lake rivals, Cliffs Natural Resources and KWG-Canada Chrome, are mapping out ambitious plans for an open pit chromite mine and railroad in the Far North, Noront Resources’ development concept is positively subterreanean.

The Toronto miner has preliminary plans for a massive underground complex beneath the swamps of the James Bay Lowlands. With no operating mines to produce a steady flow of cash, Noront is focused on minimizing costs and is determined not to damage one of the world’s largest wetlands.

Noront is eyeballing a mine, mill and tailings storage facility that are completely underground. There will be no headframe on surface. “The goal is to build a mine you can walk over and not even know it’s there,” said Hanson.

Read more

Exclusionary Planning in Ontario [Aboriginal Conflict and Ring of Fire Mineral Development] – Canada’s North: What’s the Plan?

This posting is an excerpt from “Canada’s North: What’s the Plan?” , a Conference Board of Canada publication written by three nationally renowned Canadian scholars: Thomas Berger , Steven A. Kennett and Hayden King.

“Canada’s North: What’s the Plan?” Highlights:

Most of Canada’s natural resources—forests, metals and minerals, hydroelectric sites, oil and natural gas, and untapped resources that can be further developed—are in the North, and a warming climate is making them more accessible. Businesses, Aboriginal communities, and federal, provincial, and territorial governments will all want their share of the benefits of Northern economic development.

Canada’s North: What’s the Plan? draws on the different viewpoints of three nationally renowned scholars to explore the effectiveness of land use planning in Canada’s North from three very distinct perspectives. Their essays are required reading for those seeking to understand this important issue and draw their own conclusions.

Ontario represents the worst type of planning with Indigenous peoples—a seemingly complete disregard for the perspectives and opinions of the people who will be most directly affected by the land use plans. – The Conference Board of Canada Publication –  “Canada’s North: What’s the Plan?” (November, 2010)

Exclusionary Planning in Ontario

While Nunavut and Yukon have pursued land use plans through the relatively recent NLCA and UFA, treaties in Northern Ontario are over 100 years old and make no mention of planning commissions. There are also no stipulations for the co-management of surrendered lands in the North, and there is no consensus on roles and responsibilities. In fact, there is little consensus about who actually has authority in Ontario’s North. The Cree and Ojibwe feel that they agreed to share their territories in treaties 3, 5, and 9. Ontario feels that there was explicit surrender and, thus, the Crown has jurisdiction.

This is the unsteady footing from which planning proceeds in the province. Not evolving from the claims-based co-management common in the territories, Ontario’s experience might be described more as crisis-based, as it is a response to numerous high-profile confrontations. However, despite the differences between Nunavut’s and Ontario’s land use planning regimes, there are similarities—primarily, the exclusion of Indigenous peoples from the planning process. In Ontario’s case, the problem does not lie in the execution of plans, but in the drafting.

Ontario has an inauspicious history with First Nations communities in the province. That history has even occasionally resulted in violent conflict with the Haudenosaunee and Algonquin peoples, often over lands and resources. Of course, the province has witnessed the police shooting death of Dudley George at Ipperwash and the ongoing standoff in Caledonia, but most pertinent have been a number of recent conflicts in the North.

Read more

2011 Ring of Fire Update Speech – by Ontario MNDMF Michael Gravelle

This Speech was give by Michael Gravelle Minister Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry at the Thunder Bay Rotary Club (Port Arthur Division) on January 4, 2011.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Check Against Delivery

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. It’s a privilege to join you once again. And, I am especially honoured to help launch Port Arthur Rotary’s New Year. On that note, let me offer to each and every one of you my most heartfelt wishes for good health and good fortune in 2011.

Today, I will update you on two of Ontario’s major initiatives:

(1) modernizing the Mining Act; and

(2) the Ring of Fire development in the Far North of Ontario.

Let me start with a brief progress report on MAM — Mining Act Modernization. As you know, the minerals sector is one of Ontario’s major economic drivers.

When we set out to modernize Ontario’s Mining Act, we wanted to strengthen our minerals sector through clear rules and regulations, as well as with streamlined administrative processes. Amending the Act will result in a more balanced approach to mineral exploration and development, and will help keep our mining industry competitive and responsive.

Read more

Ring of Fire’s Noront Resources Brings Santa and Hockey Stars to First Nation Community of Webequie

Todd Hlushko with Webequie youth during Noront hockey clinic - photo by Kaitlyn Ferris
 
This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
 
 
For video footage of the Noront Reources Christmas trip to Webequie: http://www.mikawaa.com/christmascard2010/

 

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario Mining Association member Noront Resources employed a little magic to fly in Santa bearing gifts and two former National Hockey League stars to Webequie last week.  Webequie, which has no year round road connections and a population of 800, is located 540 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

“This is the second year for the Noront Christmas Cheer Event in which every child in the community under the age of 12 receives a gift,” said Leanne Hall, Vice President Human Resources and “special assistant” to Noront’s Santa.  “We started in 2009 giving gifts to children instead of sending cards to help make the children feel special and this year we provided 200 gifts in Webequie.”

It is estimated that $155 million have been invested in mineral exploration in
the Ring of Fire area. In Canada, mining is the largest private sector employer
of Aboriginals, who comprise 7.5% of the mining workforce — up from 3.6% in 2006.
– Ontario Mining Association – December 22, 2010

Former NHL players Todd Harvey and Todd Hlushko came with Santa on the flight from Thunder Bay.  They spoke with students and stressed the “stay in school and believe in yourself” message, signed autographs and showed evidence of their sporting success.  Mr. Harvey, who was born in Hamilton, won gold medals in 1994 and 1995 at the World Junior Hockey championships and Mr. Hlushko, who was born in Guelph, won the Olympic silver medal in hockey in 1994.  As well as playing for different NHL teams, Mr. Hlushko played for a number of years for teams in Germany.

Todd Hlushko and Todd Harvey with Webequie child - Photo by Engage Learning

 

“I had never visited a community like Webequie before,” said Mr. Harvey.  “It was an outdoor rink and we had to shovel off the snow before skating.  It was old school, like pond hockey, and through the day we probably had a couple of hundred kids on the ice.  We ran clinics concentrating on skating, stick handling and shooting and also had a community skate.”

Read more

Ontario Government News Release: Investment, Chromite Top Agenda For Premier In Hong Kong – November 3, 2010

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

McGuinty Meets with Chairman Li Ka-shing and CEO Eric Huang

Leaders from Hong Kong’s business community met Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and ministers Sandra Pupatello and Michael Chan to discuss investment opportunities in Ontario.

Premier McGuinty spoke at a reception hosted by the Canada-Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce. Guests included leaders in mining and financial services. McGuinty credited Ontario’s strong financial services sector for helping it weather the global recession better than most other economies. He also talked about the government’s plans to develop the Ring of Fire, an area in Northern Ontario that contains one of the world’s largest chromite deposits.

Guests also included representatives from Hong Kong universities who came to learn about Ontario’s plans to boost international enrolment in postsecondary institutions by 50 per cent over the next five years.

Earlier, Premier McGuinty met with Li Ka-shing, Chairman of Cheung Kong Limited and Hutchison Whampoa. The Premier and Mr. Li discussed Ontario as a growing North American location for new investment and trade. McGuinty also met with Eric Huang, CEO of CITIC Merchant Bank.

Premier McGuinty also honoured Canadian soldiers at Sai Wan War Cemetery, resting place for soldiers who died in the defence of Hong Kong during the Second World War. McGuinty laid a wreath to honour the over 550 Canadian soldiers who died, 22 of whom were from Ontario.

Read more

[Ontario Mining] Losing Ground – Karen Mazurkewich (Originally published in Financial Post Magazine, April 2010 issue)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. article was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine’s April, 2010 issue.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who stated in a February news conference that “we are not going to succeed in Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground,” has changed his tune. “There is a tremendous amount of excitement over the economic potential of the Ring of Fire,” says Michael Gravelle, Ontario’s Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry.

In Bygone Days, Good Bush Gear And Decent Maps Were A Mining Firm’s Greatest Assets. Today, Regulation And Bureaucracy Rule The Industry. Is Canada Paying The Price?

Don McKinnon, a grizzled prospector from Timmins, Ont., sports a whopping gold nugget on his finger — proof of his prodigious finds. The 80-year-old owns a stake in the nearby Hemlo gold mine and is still very much a player in the Canadian mining industry. He remembers when the staking was hard and the regulations were easy. To get a leg up on the competition, the hoary miner wasn’t above “dirty tricks” like buying up all the mine ministry maps in town. McKinnon still displays the 40 pairs of snowshoes he bought in the winter of ’79 to thwart competing prospectors during the Hemlo staking rush, and tells tales of being stalked by polar bears in the Far North.

But ask him his thoughts on the industry today, and he simply growls: “it’s tougher.” These days, McKinnon leaves the finer points of the mining business to his 27-year-old son, Gordon, president of Canadian Orebodies Inc., which has large claims in the James Bay Lowlands. The younger McKinnon doesn’t spend nights in the bush with a pick-axe. To be a player, junior miners need ample knowledge of stock market and the ability to negotiate impact benefit agreements with First Nations. In Gordon’s case, the list also includes overseeing an survey on caribou migratory patterns — a project he funded as part of an exploration deal in northern Ontario.

While his father still relies on his massive collection of topographical maps, Gordon eagerly awaits Ontario’s new regulations that permit online mapping. It’s staking made simple, but at a price: more bureaucracy. He processes more paper in a week than his father did in a year. “Before, the government saw a new mine as a new revenue stream; now they put us through hoops,” says the younger McKinnon.

Mining was the early economic engine of this nation, and swaths of Bay Street’s wealth can be traced back to prior generations of wheeler-dealers.

Read more

Double-talk Dalton McGuinty [About Ontario Mining]- by Toronto Sun Columnist Christina Blizzard (Originally Published March 09, 2010)

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“In a highly competitive, knowledge-based global economy, we are not going succeed in
Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground.” – Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Feb/11/2010

Premier Dalton McGuinty just pulled off the fastest head spin since Linda Blair grossed us all out in The Exorcist.

One minute the premier thought mining was a dying industry. The next, it’s alive and saving the economy.

In a news conference Feb. 11, McGuinty had this to say: “In a highly competitive, knowledge-based global economy, we are not going succeed in Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground.

“Our natural resource sector is very important to us but we know that future growth will come on the basis of the development of our imaginations in innovative capacities.”

By Monday’s throne speech, McGuinty had put his imagination to good use — and changed his mind.

His message was mining will save the beleaguered northern economy.

Read more

Will Ring Of Fire Ever Burn? – by Terence Corcoran, Financial Post Editor (April/2010)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. Terence Corcoran’s editorial opinion was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine’s April, 2010 issue.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Canada’s mining history is full of characters. But a modern award for promotional ingenuity goes to Richard Nemis, the veteran prospecting whiz who came up with “Ring of Fire” as the name for the latest Ontario mining rush. (Terence Corcoran – April, 2010)

Through the summer of 1967, while my hometown, Montreal, hosted Expo ’67, I was elsewhere. Most of the time I was 4,200 feet underground working as an “apprentice miner” at the famed Kerr Addison gold mine in Northern Ontario. Even at that time, the Kerr Addison, while a legendary gold producer, was considered a has-been. Located in Virginiatown, about 50 kilometres east of the great gold centre at Kirkland Lake, the Kerr Addison was a hard-rock stope operation. We would board the cage at ground level for the long and rickety descent, then take a battery-powered ore mover through black tunnels to our stopes where, lit only by our head lamps, we drilled and blasted grey-green rock faces. The next shift we’d return to muck the rock away and drag in heavy six-foot timbers to build supports and prevent cave-ins. Then we’d drill and blast again.

I wasn’t much of miner, but I could lift and move stuff around, which is what apprentice miners do. The first gold was mined at Kerr Addison in 1913, and over its spectacular life it produced 11 million ounces. Since the first gold rush in 1906, the Kirkland Lake gold mining area — of which Kerr Addison was part — produced almost 37-million ounces of gold, worth more than $37 billion at today’s prices.

Will Ontario, or any part of Canada, ever see such mining-sector productivity and wealth creation again? The test will be the Ring of Fire.

Read more

Ring of Fire Junior Probe Mines Takes the High—and Hard—Ground – by Michael Schwartz

This Corporate Profile Advertorial about Probe Mines originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of the Ontario Prospector magazine which is produced by the Ontario Prospectors Association and published by Naylor (Canada) Inc.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

The End of a Joint Venture and 875 Claims Around McFauld’s Lake Make for Exciting Times

No fewer than 875 claims covering around 14,000 hectares mean that Probe Mines controls one of the larger land packages in the McFauld’s Lake greenstone belt stratigraphy. Probe operates four projects in the McFauld’s Lake area: Victory, which is the largest, Tamarack, McFauld’s West and Black Creek. Each offers a unique setting and unique potential within the Ring of Fire.

Probe Mines is confident in its success to date. Its major presence has led to interests in a full range of metals: chromite, nickel, copper, Platinum Group Metals (PGM), base metal Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS), gold and vanadium. Tamarack and Black Creek have demonstrated their potential with the discovery of Cu-rich VMS mineralization and chromite respectively.

In addition to the chromite discovery on Black Creek, considerable untested potential remains on its other properties. They are exactly what Probe Mines CEO David Palmer describes as “grass-roots projects where no major discovery has been made but where the company feels there is still substantial potential for further exploration.”

Probe’s projects lie in sparsely vegetated and subdued topography over a 100 km belt in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario. Very little is known about the geology of the McFauld’s Lake area and most of what is known has come from the company’s own exploration.

Read more

Ring of Fire – A Mine Project That Will Transform the Far North – Ian Ross

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. This article was published in the December, 2010 issue.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Two years ago, the Ring of Fire was a hot high-grade chromite discovery resigned to the back pages of the business section.

It had a quirky name inspired by the crescent shape of the mining claims laid down in the swamps of the James Bay lowlands and a Noront Resource’s mining executive’s affinity for all things Johnny Cash.

Then along came a deep-pocketed miner called Cliffs Natural Resources. The Ohio-based international iron ore and coal company has a keen interest in breaking into the stainless steel business and has blue sky ambitions for Ontario’s Far North.

The socio-economic impact for the region, especially for impoverished First Nation
people, will be simply transformational for generations to come.

What has been found, in the muskeg is the stuff of top-secret, high-level boardroom discussions and plenty of chatter in the communities that stand to benefit from a potential $2-billion mine, processing and railroad project.

The mineral potential at McFaulds Lake has been compared to the groundbreaking discoveries of nickel, copper and gold in the early 1900s that opened up the North and forever changed Ontario’s economy.

Read more

Sudbury’s Mining Suppliers ‘Well Placed’ to Benefit From Ring of Fire – by Ian Ross

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

The executive director of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) said he’s cautiously optimistic about the opportunities his members may have through high-grade nickel-copper and chromite deposits in the James Bay region known as the “Ring of Fire.”

Dick DeStefano was among those who attended a speech by Wes Hanson, Noront Resources’ president and CEO at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Copper Cliff Nov. 26.

Hanson outlined the junior mining company’s preliminary plans for a massive underground mine and milling complex beneath the swamps of the James Bay Lowlands.

McFauld’s Lake and the James Bay region is a breadbasket of chromite, nickel, copper, gold, platinum and palladium. Noront is the largest landholder with 120,000 hectares, including its flagship Eagle’s Nest deposit, located 300 kilometres west of DeBeers Canada’s Victor diamond mine.

Read more

Ontario’s Resilient Northwest Banks on Education, Public Sector and Ring of Fire Mining Developments – by Livio Di Matteo

Livio Di Matteo is a Professor of Economics at Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University where he has taught since 1990.  His research has explored the sustainability of provincial government health spending, historical wealth and asset holding and economic performance and institutions in Northwestern Ontario and the central North American economic region. He writes and comments on public policy and his articles have appeared in the National Post, Toronto Star, the Winnipeg Free Press and Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal. Mr. Di Matteo has started an Economics Blog at http://ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca/

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

According to the Stockholm Resilience Center (www.stockholmresilience.org), the concept of resilience refers to the capacity of a social-ecological system to withstand perturbations from various types of shock and to then renew itself afterwards.  In other words, if a system is resilient, it can deal with change.  The forest crisis in Northwestern Ontario was a major economic shock to the region’s economy that resulted in massive employment losses and yet if one looks at the region’s economy and especially its major center – Thunder Bay – one cannot help but notice the resilience of the economy. 

Thunder Bay, which has seen three of its four pulp mills close and numerous sawmill job losses over the period 2003-2009, has witnessed increases in many indicators of economic activity suggesting that the economy has been able to adapt to the shock of the forest sector loss.

The relatively resilient economy in Northwest Ontario is being driven by three broad forces: the continued transition towards a knowledge based economy in the region, the expenditure on public sector infrastructure and the growth and development of the mining sector in the region.  The knowledge economy in Northwestern Ontario is being spearheaded by the development of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), the Northwestern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) and the research work of the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute (TBRRI). 

Read more

Could Sault Ste. Marie be Site of Ring of Fire Processing? – by Ian Ross

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Bruce Strapp Exit interview

Sault Ste. Marie is well-positioned to get a share of the chromite processing from the James Bay lowlands, said its outgoing economic development head.

“The value that Sault Ste. Marie will bring to the Ring of Fire is we’ll have one of North America’s biggest steel plants,” said Bruce Strapp, who was preparing in October to take on his new job as executive director of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC).

While a number of communities across the North have been vocal in getting a piece of the action to process chromite ore, the Sault has been flying below the radar, but Strapp said the city is far from being out of the loop.

Strapp said with mine development in the massive McFauld’s Lake camp more than five years away, there is no reason to blow the Sault’s horn until the site selectors show up.

“Moving forward and talking to Cliffs (Natural Resources) and saying ‘We want your business’ (makes no sense when) there’s really no business to be had yet.”

Read more

McGuinty’s Controversial Far North Act Passes – Ian Ross

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. This article is from the November, 2010 issue.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Far North Act (Bill -191) Brings Out Many Angry Critics and Universal Condemnation Throughout the North

The passage of the Far North Act into law at Queen’s Park this fall wasn’t greeted with sustained applause from Northerners, but with anger and condemnation from all corners.

Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey said the act represents a “new era of social prosperity, economic certainty and environmental protection” that places Ontario as a world leader in fighting global climate change.

However, it’s raised plenty of questions on how the McGuinty government plans to both protect and develop the Far North in setting aside a still-to-be-determined 225,000 square kilometres of boreal forest, or 21 per cent of Ontario’s land mass.

But the highly controversial Bill 191, which places the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) as the lead agency to conduct the land use planning in the James Bay region, has many critics asking if the ministry is up to this herculean task.

Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner doesn’t know if the MNR has the manpower and resources to manage the upcoming flood of traffic, people and business in this sensitive region. Gord Miller said “clearly” the MNR must be the lead agency in Far North because they have legislated care and control of all Crown land in Ontario under the Public Lands Act.

But he’s uncertain if the ministry has the resources to take on the task.

Read more

The Ring of Fire – Noront McFaulds Lake Project

This Corporate Profile Advertorial about Noront Resources Inc. originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of the Ontario Prospector magazine which is produced by the Ontario Prospectors Association and published by Naylor (Canada) Inc.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Exploration Activities in the Ring of Fire

Noront Resources Ltd. is focused on its McFaulds Lake Project, which includes a number of significant, multiple, high-grade nickel-copper-platinum-palladium, chromite, vanadium and gold discoveries in an area known as the “Ring of Fire,” an emerging multi-metals district located in the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario, Canada. Noront is the largest landholder in the Ring of Fire and continues to delineate and prove up its discoveries with NI 43-101 technical and economic reports and a well-funded and aggressive drill plan for 2010 and 2011. The company recently completed Canada’s first NI 43 101 technical resource estimate for chromite and updated its Eagle’s Nest Ni, Cu, PGM NI 43 101 technical resource report in March 2010. Noront is a publicly traded company and is listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol NOT.

Noront’s plans for the future include a three-pronged approach: exploration and regional targeting for additional resources; development and feasibility of the Eagle’s Nest deposit to de-risk the project; and corporate social responsibility with a focus on the environment and aboriginal initiatives.

Read more