Ring of Firea Generational Opportunity

Pictured here is Chief Cornelius Wabasse of the Webequie First Nation. Webequie is the co-proponent along with Marten Falls of the Northern Road Link. Chief Wabasse was a key note speaker of the Ring of Fire conference held as part of the CEN CAN Expo in Thunder Bay in 2022. Chief Wabasse spoke passionately about the potential the Northern Road Link has for it’s community. Wabasse says “it has been hard work, it is critical work and most important, it is a collective work.”

Consensus is still off in the distance, but efforts continue by Ontario’s Mines Minister to get the contentious Ring of Fire mining region into production.

Companies like Wyloo’s Ring of Fire Metals and other players continue to advance their plans which have the potential to transform the economies of northwestern and parts of northeastern Ontario into the western hemisphere’s dominant contributor to the green economy.

“There’s always a lot more work to do,” Mines Minister George Pirie told an audience at the Canadian Mining Expo in June in Timmins. “We’ve got the policies in place, like the Critical Minerals Strategy. I’m responsible as the minister, to ensure that the Ring of Fire gets developed. And the Ring of Fire is a generational opportunity - not only Canada, but for the globe.”

There are two main players, Ring of Fire Metals and Juno. Ring of Fire Metals has a known resource, Eagle’s Nest, with a very rich nickel deposit.

“The other company is Juno. It’s a host of rare earths and base metals and precious metals in that same region. The EA process is being led by the chiefs, by the communities of Webequie and Marten Falls,” said Pirie.

“And they’re running the duty consult for all the communities, and that’s the way it should be. We have a generational opportunity.”

Pirie reminded the audience that the region is also host to massive chromite deposits. Chromite is a crystal- line mineral composed primarily of iron-oxide and chromium-oxide compounds. Chromite is used to harden steel, to manufacture stainless steel and to form alloys. It is used in plating to produce a hard, beautiful surface and to prevent corrosion. It can also be used to give glass an emerald, green colour.

“We used to talk about chromite quite a bit. I’m here to remind you, don’t forget about chromite. The number one jurisdiction right now for chromite is South Africa. South Africa has an alliance with Russia and China. That alliance is very fragile from a Western perspective. And who’s got the world’s largest undeveloped chromite deposits? It’s the chromite deposits in the Ring of Fire.”

The Canadian Chrome Corporation – CCC an exploration stage company is one such company that is participating in the discovery, delineation and development of chromite deposits in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario, including 1,024 hectares covered by four unpatented mining claims (Fancamp Claims) approximately 280km north of Nakina, Ontario, which contains the Black Horse chromite deposit, named the “Black Horse Project” and 1,241 hectares covered by seven unpatented mining claims (Big Daddy Claims) approximately

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