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Big Nickel – By James H. Gray (Maclean’s October 1, 1947) – Part 2

Busy People

Well, if Sam Ritchie will settle for that kind of monument, there it is. It’s the only kind there is at the moment, for the guys who owe their jobs to Sam Ritchie’s stubbornness haven’t got around to anything else. We wondered about this and asked Dan Dunbar, Inco public relations man, why not.

“I guess they just haven’t had time. This is the participatingest community on the face of the earth. Everybody is always up to something, usually three or four things at the same time.”

Actually, instead of one community at Copper Cliff, there are as many communities as there are mines. Each settlement has its community hall and in the winter the lights in the halls are seldom out. The outdoor skating rinks are jammed with small fry. Teams from the district have an excellent record in national competition and each mine has its hockey team, bowling team, badminton team and baseball team.

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Educating the Next Generation for the Mining Sector – Sylvia Barnard (Part 2)

Onaping Mine ClassroomThe Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR), is undertaking a National Occupational Standards Project which will provide detailed essential skills profiles, core competencies and occupational standards for workers in underground mining, surface mining, and minerals processing.  

The Mining Companies and its stakeholders are moving forward together at unprecedented levels of collaboration in order to address the skilled workforce shortages.  In 2008 we will see national standards start to emerge.  Greater marketing and branding activities for mining as a high tech, dynamic industry will be launched.

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Big Nickel – By James H. Gray (Maclean’s – October 1, 1947) – Part 1

Inco Advertising 1946This brave New World of ours may be bringing the world-order architects down with the jitters, but no one is going to convince Mr. and Mrs. Job Public that it doesn’t have the gaudiest surface glitter they have ever seen.

Never before have so many automobiles been loaded down so heavily with so much nickel plating. The stores are filling up with nickel-plated tasters and electrical goods, nickel-plated furniture, nickel-plated utensils and fishing rods and gadgets of infinite assortment and complexity. And in tune with the glistening motif of the times, the merchandisers are lifting the faces of their store fronts and prettying them up with nickel plate, aluminum and chromium.

That’s just the first verse. Under the hood of your new car, in the works of your new radio, in the kitchen of your restaurant and under he concrete floor of your cellar, in airplanes and plows, in power plants and in nail files, in skyscrapers and in dental bridgework, there is more nickel hidden away than you can shake a stick at.

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Educating the Next Generation for the Mining Sector – Sylvia Barnard (Part 1)

Cambrian Geology Students in the FieldThe Canadian mining industry is growing, mainly due to the expansion of the global economy.  This global expansion, however, is placing increased pressure on mining companies to recruit workers from around the world.  

The 2005 report of the Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council (MITAC) identified the need for over 80,000 workers in the mining industry over the next 20 years.  That number has now risen to 92,000.

The industry doesn’t operate in a human resources vacuum.  Foreign mining companies are aggressively recruiting Canadian workers at a much greater rate than the global recruitment activity of Canadian companies. And in addition there are skills shortages throughout Canada not just in mining, but also in petroleum, electricity, construction, etc.

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Cambrian College President Sylvia Barnard – An Introduction

Sylvia Barnard - President Cambrian CollegeSylvia Barnard is President of Cambrian College which is located in Sudbury, Canada. The college has an enrolment of over 4,400 full-time students and approximately 8,000 part-time personal, professional and human resources development courses and seminars.

Cambrian College offers Mining, Geology, and Civil Engineering diploma programs as well as apprenticeship and skilled trades training, graduating over 1,000 students annually for entry into the mining industry. Cambrian College has also been providing research for the mining industry for about 40 years. There is a very close, cohesive relationship between this institution and the local mining sector.

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Mine Money Triangle – By Leslie McFarlane (Maclean’s – April 15, 1938)

Inco Advertising 1939Prosperity, modernity, pioneer color and a relief problem
– You’ll find them all in the Big Three of Ontario mining

Considering Northern Ontario’s glittering triangle. At the apex, toward the eastern border of the province, lies Kirkland Lake; one hundred miles west and a little north, timmins; southward, along that invisible boundary that makes Ontario two provinces in one, Sudbury.

No communities in all of Canada are busier, none more prosperous. The same golden light shines on each. Close together geographically, speaking the same language of mines and mining in a score of tongues, with a common tradition of pioneer luck and labor and a common destiny in that their wealth is derived from the rock, it might seem that they would share a common personality. They don’t. They are too vital for that.

Each of the three communities is distinctive in its own right.

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Sudbury History – An Introduction

Sudbury is the richest mining district in North America and among the top ten most important globally. The region accounts for roughly half the mining production in the province of Ontario, the largest mineral producer in Canada. This prolific mining camp has been in continuous production for almost 130 years and many industry experts predict …

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Canadian Mining and Aboriginal Communities in Conflict – Glenn Nolan

Glenn Nolan - Chief of the Missanabie Cree First NationMining activity in Canada is on the rise due to higher metal prices and the metals shortage worldwide. According to Natural Resources Canada, “approximately 1,200 Aboriginal communities are located within 200 kilometres of producing mines and 2,100 exploration properties across Canada”.

Some of those communities have been participating in the industry through partnerships, joint ventures, and employment contracts in all aspects of mining ranging from early exploration projects to production mining. However, the majority of communities remain on the outside of development projects, some even resisting any aspect of development within their traditional lands.

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Glenn Nolan – An Introduction

Glenn Nolan is the Chief of the Missanabie Cree First Nation, located in northern Ontario. He is a strong advocate for sharing information between the mining industry and First Nation communities. Nolan is a director at the Prospectors and Developer Association of Canada (PDAC) and has been recently voted to the position of second Vice-President. …

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The Shy Philanthropist from Schumacher – Michael Barnes

They speak well of Fred Schumacher in the community which honours his name just outside of Timmins. He was well-to-do before he came to the gold camp and seems to have made money for fun there.

Born in Denmark in 1863, the young immigrant to the United States eventually became a pharmacist but he did not make drug dispensing his occupation. Instead he became a salesman and later married the daughter of the firm’s owner.

He founded his own patent medicine firm and became rich in the process. Then he decided he needed some excitement in his life and investigated the potential of the new gold-fields in Northern Ontario.

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Michael Barnes Columns – An Introduction

In addition to publishing 50 books, Michael Barnes has written many columns on the history of northern Ontario. Even today, this is a region of Canada that is not well known across the country. With Michael Barnes’ permission, the Republic of Mining will be posting these columns on this site so a new digital generation …

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Michael Barnes – The Godfather of Northern Ontario History-Stan Sudol

Michael BarnesFor someone who has been retired since 1989, Michael Barnes has no intention of slowing down.

The author of 50 books and counting, most about Northern Ontario, Barnes has had a long and varied career that included a bus conductor, a bush cook in Ramsey, and a beer thrower in Wawa.

He has also been a CBC freelance broadcaster and newspaper columnist, both for a time in Sudbury. But his “real job” was a public school teacher and principal working in locations across the north and finally ending up in Kirkland Lake.

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FNX Mining – Sudbury Basin Success (Part Two) – Stan Sudol

Underground at McCreedy West - FNX Photo“We had the pick of the geologists’ crop in the depressed mining sector of 2002 and subsequently built one of the country’s biggest, youngest and most innovative exploration teams,” continues MacGibbon. “And with all that historical data, our fantastic computer- literate staff played a key role in helping us decide where to drill.”

Right from the beginning, this junior’s exploration mindset was on steroids. From 2002 to 2007 FNX will have spent more than $100 million on exploring its properties in the Sudbury Basin.

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FNX Mining- Sudbury Basin Success (Part One) – Stan Sudol

Terry MacGibbon, Executive Chair, FNX Mining Company Ltd. - FNX Photo“Our company has a strategic position in the trillion-dollar Sudbury Basin which by far, is the richest mining district in North America,” observes Terry MacGibbon, executive chair of FNX Mining Company Inc. “With China’s and eventually India’s voracious hunger for metals, expected to last for decades, the long-term growth and future of our company on solid ground.”

MacGibbon’s dedication to the region is proudly on display in the front lobby of the company’s University Ave. head office – adjacent to Toronto’s high-rise financial core where many of the country’s top mining analysts and investors work – with a bold eight-by-four sculpted wall hanging in the shape of the famous Sudbury Basin.

“Most Canadians don’t realize the Sudbury Basin is a global ‘metallic super power’ and that there are many incredibly rich mineral deposits still to be discovered here. This 120 year old mining camp will be producing nickel, copper and platinum for at least another century if not more,” he said.

With two operating mines on the north range of the Sudbury Basin, another mine ready for production in 2008 and two other promising deposits in the district, many have overlooked the phenomenal growth of FNX Mining.

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Another Rumble in the Nickel Jungle? -Stan Sudol

Stan Sudol - Executive Speech Writer and Mining ColumnistWith such turmoil on global stock exchanges, one might wonder if Xstrata CEO Mick Davis and Vale CEO Roger Agnelli are trying to perform their proposed merger/takeover – difficult enough at the best of times – on the deck of a financial Titanic.

On Monday, many stock exchanges around the world witnessed the worst single day decline since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The TSX saw $90 billion evaporate while European exchanges wiped out $300 billion. In total, trillions of dollars in investment value were lost. The U.S. exchanges were closed for a holiday.

The “American contagion” as many are calling this stock market slaughter – due to the U.S. subprime mortgage fiasco and collapsing property values – continued Tuesday morning around the world including American exchanges.

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