Onotassiniik Winter 2014

B O T T O M U P, T O P D O W N : P l a n n i n g f o r f u l l R i n g o f F i r e b e n e f i t s

Onotassiniik Wawatay’s Mining Quarterly

Winter 2014-15

ONOTASSINIIK.COM

GOLDEYE

Sandy Lake joins junior explorer in Weebigee project 10

Hudbay Minerals reaches out to First Nation

NEIGHBOURS 8

REMOTE CONTROL: Neskantaga opens e-learning centre 4 | ᐅᐡᑭ ᐊᐸᒋᒋᑲᐣ ᐸᑭᑎᓂᑲᑌ ᓄᐱᒪᑲᒥᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ 4

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for 10: Webequie commits to land use planning 10 Matawa graduates heavy equipment operators Bryan Phelan Onotassiniik

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ebequie First Nation has reached an agreement with Ontario to work together on a community land use plan.

“Ontario is pleased to be taking another step forward with Webequie First Nation in community-based land use planning, which includes planning for the resourcerich area known as the Ring of Fire,” Bill Mauro, minister of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), said Aug. 21 in a government news release announcing the deal. “This agreement marks a critical milestone in our partnership that is bringing together the knowledge and experience of the community with our information and expertise to help make informed land use decisions in the Far North.”

Land use plans are required under the Far North Act, which became provincial law in 2010, for most major development in the region, such as the opening of a mine or the building an all-weather road. The act also requires that at least half of the Far North be protected from development.

“We’re looking forward to working in partnership with the Ontario government on land use planning in a manner that respects our Aboriginal and Treaty rights, including the ability to decide how our lands and resources are to be used together with Ontario,” Webequie Chief Cornelius Wabasse said in the MNRF release. “Webequie’s primary objective is to ensure our community’s interests are protected now and for the future, including our traditional activities and values. We’re hopeful this process will help achieve these goals.”

Wabasse and the eight other members of the Matawa Chiefs Council in March signed a framework agreement with Ontario that is expected to guide negotiations for development in the Ring of Fire, located in the traditional territories

of several Matawa communities. Matawa First Nations consider “land management” issues central to regional negotiations.

In addition to Webequie, other Matawa First Nations are to varying degrees engaged with the province in the development of community-based land use plans in the Far North. Marten Falls, Eabametoong and Constance Lake have

Pikangikum and Slate Falls – have completed land use plans that have been jointly approved with Ontario.

The Far North Act also requires that a Far North Land Use Strategy be prepared for the region. “The Strategy will provide guidance to support land use planning on a broad scale or on matters of common interest across the Far North,” such

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en members of Matawa First Nations were certified as heavy equipment operators in September after successfully completing 10 weeks of training.

The training took place at the Operating Engineers Training Institute of Ontario, which is located in Morrisburg, in the eastern part of the province on the St. Lawrence River. The program consisted of both theory and practical experience. Trainees chose two of three equipment options for the hands-on experience – tractor-loader backhoe, excavator and bulldozer.

All 10 Matawa participants met the requirements for Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities certification, graduating Sept. 12, Matawa First Nations Management noted on its website.

The graduates are Duncan Gagnon, Daniel Achneepineskum, Roland Meshake, Jason Chapais, Rolland Shewaybick, Sheldon Faulconer, Charles Wesley, Solomon Achneepineskum, Duane Wesley, and Isaiah Achneepineskum.

The program operated through the Ring of Fire Aboriginal Training Alliance (RoFATA) at Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment & Training Services (KKETS). Serving the nine Matawa First Nations, the objective of KKETS is “to provide culturally-appropriate opportunities for education, training and employment … to empower individuals to take initiative for change in their own lives.” RoFATA is a partnership between KKETS, Noront Resources and Confederation College.

Welders trained in Six Nations Another KKETS program has resulted in the training of eight Matawa community members as welders.

For the first time, KKETS delivered a Welding Level 1 course recently, under RoFATA and in partnership with Grand River Employment and Training (GREAT). The training took place over 15 weeks, with the trainees staying in Brantford, Ontario and commuting to the GREAT centre in Six Nations. All eight trainees achieved a ‘shielded metal arc weld’ qualification and most of them also gained welding qualifications in ‘flux core’ or ‘gas metal arc.’

The successful trainees were: Shawn Baxter of Marten Falls; from Long Lake #58, Don Chapais, Estelle Taylor and Irvin Waboose Jr.; Edee Edwards of Nibinamik; from Aroland, Ross Kashkish and Ricky Mendowegan; and Adam John-George of Constance Lake.

“Your dedication and perseverance has opened doors for many opportunities yet to come!” Matawa First Nations Management said in congratulating them with a Sept. 9 post to the tribal council’s website.

photo: Bryan Phelan Chief Cornelius Wabasse of Webequie: ‘Protecting community interests.’ all completed terms of reference for such plans, leading to the start of formal public consultation processes.

As of July, Nibinamik and Neskantaga were also engaged with MNRF in the early stages of preparing land use plans.

Three First Nations to the west of the Matawa communities – Cat Lake,

as watersheds, all-weather roads and transmission corridors, caribou habitat and migration routes, and climate change, said an MNRF spokesperson. The MNRF began public outreach on the development of the Far North Land Use Strategy in 2013, with the goal of having a draft strategy in early 2015.

Can we interest you in something from our menu?

We are certain you will find something to satisfy your appetite.

Wawatay News

Onotassiniik

Sagatay

wawataynews.ca

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For print and online advertising, contact:

Northern Ontario’s First Nation Voice Published by Wawatay Native Communications Society since 1974, the newspaper is distributed to more than 80 First Nations across Northern Ontario and to Aboriginal people living in the region’s towns and cities. Wawatay News features Aboriginal news, people, culture and language published in English and the Aboriginal languages of Northern Ontario – Ojibway, OjiCree and Cree. Wawatay News coverage and distribution area serves an Aboriginal population of almost 58,000.

Wasaya’s In-fight Magazine Publishing each season, this full colour, glossy magazine is distributed on all Wasaya flights, in regional airports and in First Nation communities served by Wasaya. In addition to learning more about their carrier, Wasaya passengers will enjoy reading entertaining stories about the places they travel to, special events they’ll want to enjoy, and special people they’ll want to meet when they get to their destination. Wasaya passengers will also be interested in reading about the services available to them in their destination community. This publication provides an economical means of advertising your products and services to these travellers.

Nishnawbe Youth Magazine SEVEN Magazine provides Aboriginal youth in Northern Ontario with opportunities to share their struggles & triumphs, fears & hopes, stories & creativity. In expressing themselves through media, participating youth develop communication skills, gain self-confidence & experience personal growth. At the same time, they support, inform & inspire their peers in creating positive change & celebrating life.

Wawatay Radio Network

Northern Ontario’s premier station for Aboriginal people Wawatay Radio Network provides radio programming to more than 300,000 Aboriginal people in Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Treaty 3 area. WRN provides regional, national, and international news of interest to its audience broadcast in the Aboriginal languages of Northern Ontario - Ojibway, Oji-Cree, and Cree.

Broadcasts also consist of local events, community announcements, special programs for Elders, youth and women, interactive call-in shows such as question and answer panels, and dedications and greetings.

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WINTER 2014 WAWATAY NEWS AD PROOF

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Wawatay’s Mining Quarterly Onotassiniik sets out to provide knowledge and information about the mining industry in northern Ontario to First Nations communities, individuals and leaders throughout the region. Wawatay’s Mining Quarterly emphasizes best practices within the mining industry, while helping to share information about mining activities and mining agreements with and between First Nations of northern Ontario.

The online home for Wawatay wawataynews.ca serves as a portal to all of Wawatay Native Communications Society’s products and services. The site is Northern Ontario’s First Nation voice and is visited by Aboriginal and Non-aboriginal residents of the region and around the globe. The site receives over 50,000 unique visitors every month worldwide. All ads displayed on the website include a “click through” to their own website.

Tom Scura

Sales Representative Toll Free: 1-888-575-2349 Email: toms@wawatay.on.ca

For radio commercials and live broadcast bookings, contact: Mark Kakekagumick

Client Services Representative Toll Free: 1-800-243-9059 Email: markk@wawatay.on.ca

CLAIMS VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4

“

We see our role in the community as being a

partner in advancing social and economic development.

In Manitoba, Hudbay has joined with various stakeholders to develop programs and training to provide the people of northern Manitoba with the skills required to fill northern jobs. We need skilled workers

”

for our new mines and our preference is to hire locally.

Onotassiniik (translated from Oji-Cree as ‘People Who Work With Rocks’) is a forum for sharing knowledge about the mining industry in northern Ontario with First Nation communities, individuals and leaders. The magazine emphasizes best practices within the industry, while providing information about mining activities and agreements involving First Nations.

–David Garofalo, president and chief executive officer of Hudbay Minerals, states in the company’s 2013 corporate social responsibility report.

Read the stories on pages 8 and 9 to learn how Hudbay is translating these words to action in northern Manitoba, where as of last year 13 per cent of Hudbay’s workforce was Aboriginal.

Published quarterly by Wawatay Native Communications Society www.wawataynews.ca

Magazines Editor/Writer Sales Representative Graphic Designer Translator

Bryan Phelan Tom Scura Matthew Bradley Vicky Angees

Contributors Aecon Group Inc., Bill Gallagher, Goldeye Explorations Limited, Hudbay Minerals, Insight Information, John van Nostrand / rePlan, Matawa First Nations Management, Rick Millette / Northern Policy Institute

photo: Rick Radell/Aecon Group Inc. Bill Clarke, left, vice-president of Aboriginal affairs for Aecon Group Inc., and Chief Peter Moonias of Neskantaga First Nation.

Comments Bryan Phelan bryanp@wawatay.on.ca Subscriptions reception@wawatay.on.ca phone (807) 737-2951 toll free 1-800-243-9059 fax (807) 737-2263 16 Fifth Ave. P.O. Box 1180 Sioux Lookout, ON P8T 1B7 Advertising Tom Scura toms@wawatay.on.ca phone (807) 344-3022 toll free 1-888-575-2349 fax (807) 344-3182

“The development of this innovative concept was made possible through the collaboration and contributions from best-in-class companies and organizations that have the combined objective to create a sustainable solution for training in remote communities.”

–Teri McKibbon, Aecon president and chief executive officer, remarks on the opening of the Neskantaga Training Centre, which will help residents of the First Nation obtain trades and technical certifications. Please see the full story in English and Oji-Cree syllabics on page 4.

“Cisco Canada strongly believes in the transformation of education delivery to Canada’s most remote communities.

Leveraging our collaboration technology, we are delighted to join Aecon and its partners in connecting Neskantaga’s youth with the valuable job skills training they need to play an important role in the growth and prosperity of their community.”

–Rick Huijbregts, vice-president of Smart+Connected Communities for Cisco Canada, speaks about the broader implications of the Neskantaga Training Centre.

“The North now has all the ingredients in (its) backyard to make stainless steel, a uniqueness not found anywhere else in the world. How incredulous would it be for Canada to be the only G8 country not to have a stainless steel industry when the chromite, nickel and iron are all in one place? … A stainless steel manufacturing plant would be a catalyst for accelerating investment in the Ring of Fire chromite development by providing a local market for the product. It would also ensure that the middle step of smelting chromite into ferrochrome would be done locally. An industrial hat-trick if you will.”

–Rick Millette, senior executive director for the Ring of Fire at the Northern Policy Institute, makes the case for federal investment in a northern Ontario stainless steel industry (in a blog titled ‘Stainless steel and the Ring of Fire’ at northernpolicy.wordpress.com). For more from Millette on the Ring of Fire, please see page 5.

2nd Floor Royal Bank Building, Suite 202 Victoriaville Centre 620 Victoria Ave. East Thunder Bay, ON P7C 1A9

onotassiniik.com

“People went into the Ring of Fire under the old idea that they could get what they wanted under the old terms. And it turns out that under the new terms it’s going to be done differently. This is the shifting of power, just as the pipeline story is the shifting of power. Suddenly, people are realizing that they can’t get those pipelines without the Aboriginals. That’s real power.

This is not the same Canada.”

–Author John Ralston tells the Toronto Star in an October interview about his new book, The Comeback, which presents a portrait of modern Aboriginal life in Canada and calls on Canadians to embrace and support ‘the comeback’ of Aboriginal peoples.

“We know the Ring of Fire’s future will not be determined within the region itself but in southern Ontario, where the majority of the political ridings are. Or it will be decided [in Ottawa] to the extent that the federal government is involved. So [mining companies] must win the hearts and minds of those people sitting at home because that’s how your project is going to be approved.”

–Kate Lyons, a partner in the law firm Goodmans, says at a CanadaSouthern Africa Chamber of Business seminar in September. Lyons also stressed that meaningful corporate social responsibility and engagement with locally affected communities was one of the best methods of winning this support, miningweekly.com reported.

On the Cover

main photo: Goldeye Explorations Ltd. Elvis Harper, a Sandy Lake member and field assistant for Goldeye Explorations, holds a channel sample from the Weebigee project. bottom photo: Rick Radell/Aecon Group Inc. Officially opening the Neskantaga Training Centre were, from left: Larissa Sakanee, Matawa CEO David Paul Achineepineskum, Neskantaga Elder Peter Ostamus, KKETS manager Morris Wapoose, Chief Peter Moonias, Lasandra Munroe (in front of chief), Aecon Group VP Bill Clarke, Brian Pelletier of Operating Engineers Training Institute of Ontario, Dorothy Sakanee, and Neskantaga Coun. Wayne Moonias.

WAWATAY’S MINING QUARTERLY

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ᐅᐡᑭ ᐊᐸᒋᒋᑲᐣ ᐸᑭᑎᓂᑲᑌ ᓄᐱᒪᑲᒥᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᑲᒥᑯᓂ ᐅᑲᐅᒋᑕᒪᑯᓇᐊᐧ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᐅᐡᑲᑎᓴᐠ ᑫᓄᒋᑲᐡᑭᑕᒪᓱᐊᐧᐨ, ᐃᑭᑐ ᐅᑭᒪᑲᐣ

ᐅᑎᐸᒋᒧ ᑊᕑᐊᔭᐣ ᐱᓫᐊᐣ

ᐁᐧᑎ ᑭᐁᐧᑎᓄᐠ ᒥᓇ ᓄᐱᒪᑲᒥᐠ ᑲᐊᔭᑭᐣ ᐅᐣᑌᕑᐃᔪ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃ ᑲᐅᒋᐯᔓᓇᑲᐧᑭᐣ ᑲᐃᐧᔭᓂᔑ ᒪᑕᓄᑲᑌᐠ ᐅᐡᑭ

ᑲᐃᓀᐧᑕᒪᑫᐱᐦᐃᑫᐨ ᐱᑐᓂᔭ ᐊᐣᒋᐢ

ᐊ

ᑲᐧᒋᐠ ᐁᐅᐣᒋᑲᓇᐊᐧᐸᒋᑲᑌᐠ ᓇᐊᐧᐨ ᐁᒥᓇᐧᔑᐠ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ, ᒥᓯᐁᐧ ᑫᑲᐟ ᒪᑲᑌᐃᐧᐊᐧᐸ

ᑲᐃᔑᐊᔭᓴᒥᓴᑲᐠ, ᐱᐊᐧᐱᑯᐃᐡᑲᐧᑌᒥᐊᐧᐣ ᒥᓇ ᑭᒧᒋᓂᔕᑐᐣ ᐸᐸᐳᐃᐧᓀᓴᐣ ᐃᒪ ᑲᑭᐅᒋᐃᓇᐱᔭᐠ. ᔕᑯᐨ ᑭᒋᑫᑯᓇᐣ ᑭᑕᓀᑕᑲᐧᓄᐣ ᐃᒪ ᑲᑕᓇᓄᑲᑌᑭᐣ ᑫᑯᓇᐣ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᑲᒥᑯᐠ. ᐁᑲᐧ ᓄᑯᑦ ᑲᑭᓂᐱᐠ ᐊᑲᐢᐟ ᐱᓯᑦ ᑲᐊᐱᑕᐊᐧᑭᓱᐨ ᑭᐸᑭᓂᑲᑌᐸᐣ ᐅᐁᐧ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᑲᒥᐠ, ᐊᓇᐃᐧᐣ ᐊᔕ ᑭᐅᒋᒪᒋᐊᐸᒋᒋᑲᑌ ᐅᑕᓇᐠ ᐱᐳᓄᐠ ᒥᓇ ᓂᑕᑦ ᑲᑭᐅᐡᑭ ᑭᑭᓄᐊᒪᐃᐧᑕᐧ ᐅᑭᑭᔑᑐᓇᐊᐧ ᐅᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᑯᐃᐧᓂᐊᐧ ᓯᑲᐧᓄᐠ. ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᑕᓇᐱᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᑲᑲᐯᔑᐊᐧᐨ ᒥᐦᐃᒪ ᐁᐅᒋᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐃᐧᑕ ᒪᒪᑕᐊᐧᐱᑯ ᐊᐸᒋᒋᑲᓂᐠ ᑲᐅᒋᐊᓄᑭᒪᑲᑭᐣ ᒋᐅᑕᐱᓇᒧᐊᐧᐨ ᐦᐊᔾ ᐢᑯᓫ ᒥᓇ ᑯᑕᑭᔭᐣ ᑭᒋ ᑭᑭᓄᐊᒪᑯᐃᐧᓇᐣ, ᐊᔭᑲᐧᒥᓂᑫᐃᐧ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᓇᐣ, ᐁᑲᐧ ᒥᓇ ᓇᓇᑐᐠ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᐃᐧᓇᐣ ᒋᑌᐱᓇᒧᐊᐧᐨ ᒪᓯᓇᐦᐃᑲᓀᓴᐣ ᑲᑭᔑᑐᐊᐧᐨ. ᑭᐊᒋᑲᑌᐊᐧᐣ ᐃᒪ ᒋᐅᒋ ᐱᒥ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐃᐧᑕᐧ ᒪᒪᑕᐊᐧᐱᑯᐠ ᑲᐅᒋᐊᓄᑭᒪᑲᑭᐣ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧ ᐊᐸᒋᒋᑲᓇᐣ ᒪᓯᓇᑌᓯᒋᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᑲᐅᒋ ᐊᐧᐸᒥᑎᓇᓂᐊᐧᐠ ᑲᐊᔭᒥᐦᐃᑎᓇᓂᐊᐧᐠ, ᐁᑲᐧ ᒥᓇ ᑯᑕᑭᔭᐣ ᐸᐸᑲᐣ ᑲᐃᓇᓄᑭᒪᑲᑭᐣ ᑭᑭᓄᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧ ᑫᑯᓇᐣ ᑲᐅᒋᐱᒥ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐃᐧᑕᐧ, ᑎᐱ ᒪᓯᓇᑌᓯᒋᑲᓂᐠ, ᑲᑭᔕᑕᐱᓭᐠ ᐃᐡᐱᒥᐠ ᑲᐅᒋᓇᒋᐱᒋᑫᒪᑲᐠ ᒪᒋᑭᑐᐃᐧᓂᐠ. ᐁᑲᐧ ᑲᔦ ᐃᒪ ᐅᑕᔭᓇᐊᐧ ᑲᒪᒪᑯᓂᑲᑌᑭᐣ ᑲᐊᐸᒋᑐᐊᐧᐨ. ᐅᐁᐧ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᑲᒥᐠ ᐅᑎᐯᐣᑕᓇᐊᐧ ᒥᓇ ᐅᒋᐱᒧᒋᑲᑌ ᒪᑕᐊᐧ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐃᐧ ᐱᒧᒋᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᐁᑲᐧ ᐅᐣᑌᕑᐃᔪ ᐅᑭᒪᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᑭᐅᒋᐸᑭᑎᓇᑲᓄ ᔓᓂᔭ. ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᑕᔑᑫᐃᐧᐣ ᐃᔑᑕᑲᐧᐣ 270 ᑭᓫᐊᒥᑐᕑᐢ ᑭᐁᐧᑎᓄᐠ ᐊᐧᐸᓄᐠ ᐃᓀᑫ ᑕᐣᑐᕑ ᐯ, ᒥᐦᐅᐁᐧ ᐯᔑᐠ ᑕᓇᐱᐃᐧᐣ ᑲᓴᐣᑲᓯᑭᐣ ᒪᑕᐊᐧ ᑲᑎᐯᐣᑕᑭᐣ. “ᑲᐃᐧᑕᓄᑭᒥᑐᐊᐧᐨ ᐅᑭᐅᓇᑐᓇᐊᐧᐸᐣ ᒋᐅᔑᒋᑲᑌᐠ ᐅᐁᐧ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ, ᑭ ᑭᒋᐊᓄᑭᐊᐧᐠ ᑲᔦ ᐁᓂᑲᐧᔭᒋᑕᒪᑫᐊᐧᐨ ᑫᑕᔑ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐃᐧᑕᐧ ᑫᓄᒋᒥᓄᓭᐦᐃᑯᐊᐧᐨ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐊᐧᐠ ᐁᐧᑎ ᐊᓂᓂᑲᐣ,” ᑭᐃᑭᑐ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᐅᑭᒪᑲᐣ ᐱᑕᐣ ᒧᓂᔭᐢ ᒣᑲᐧᐨ ᐊᐱ ᑲᑭᐸᑭᓂᑫᐊᐧᐸᐣ. “ᐅᑭᐊᐧᐸᑕᓇᐊᐧ ᐊᐣᑎ ᑫᓂᔑᑲᐧᔭᑯᐡᑲᒪᑲᓂᐠ ᐅᒪᒋᒋᑫᐃᐧᓂᐊᐧ, ᐊᐣᑎ ᑫᓄᑎᓇᒧᐊᐧᐨ ᐃᐡᐱᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᐃᐧᓂ ᒋᑕᑲᐧᓂᐠ ᐣᑕᔑᑫᐃᐧᓂᓇᓂᐠ ᑲᐡᑭᐦᐁᐃᐧᓯᐊᐧᐨ.”

ᐣᑐᐡᑲᑎᓯᒥᓇᓂᐠ

ᑫᑭᔭᓄᒋ

ᒣᑲᐧᐨ ᐊᐱ 2013, ᑭᑭᓄᐊᒪᑫ ᑭᑫᐣᒋᑫᐃᐧᐣ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᓂ ᐊᓄᑭᑕᒪᑫᐃᐧ ᐱᒧᒋᑫᐃᐧᓇᐣ (KKETS), ᒪᑕᐊᐧ ᑲᑲᓇᐊᐧᐸᑕᐠ, ᐅᑭᒪᒋᑐᓇᐊᐧᐸᐣ ᐁᑲᐧᐣ ᐅᐱᒥᐃᐧᒋᑫᐠ, ᑲᐱᒥᐃᐧᑐᐊᐧᐨ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃᑫᐃᐧ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᓇᐣ ᒥᓇ ᑯᑕᑭᔭᐣ ᑭᒋᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧ ᐱᒧᒋᑫᐃᐧᓇᐣ ᒥᓯᐁᐧ ᐅᒪ ᑲᓇᑕ ᐊᐦᑭᐠ ᑲᐸᐸᒪᓄᑭᐊᐧᐨ. ᒪᒪᐃᐧ ᐃᐧᒋᐦᐃᑐᐊᐧᐠ ᑕᐡ ᒋᐅᒋᐊᐧᐃᐧᒋᑐᐊᐧᐨ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐃᐧ ᑕᔑᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᒋᑕᑲᐧᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᐣ, ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧ ᑭᑭᓄᐊᒪᑫᐧᐃᓂᐠ ᐃᓀᑫ

ᐱᐊᐧᐱᑯᑲᓂ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᐣ. ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑲᑕᐠ ᑕᐡ ᓂᑕᑦ ᑲᑭᐃᔑᒪᒋᒋᑲᑌᐠ ᑲᑭᐃᔑᐅᔑᒋᑲᑌᐠ ᐅᐁᐧ ᑐᑲᐣ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᑲᒥᐠ. ᐅᐁᐧ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ ᑭᐃᔑᓇᑯᒋᑲᑌ ᑲᑭᐅᔑᒋᑲᑌᑭᐸᐣ ᒋᐅᒋ ᐃᓯᓴᐦᐅᒋᑲᑌᑭᐣ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑲᑕᐠ ᒋᒧᒋᓇᓇᐱᓂᑲᑌᑭᐣ ᐊᐱ ᑲᑭᔭᓂᐅᔑᒋᑲᑌᐠ. ᐁᑲᐧ ᒥᓇ ᑲᑭᐃᔑᓇᑯᒋᑲᑌᐠ ᑭᐃᔑᒋᑲᑌ ᒋᐁᐧᒋᓭᐦᐃᑯᐊᐧᐨ ᐃᒪ 300 ᑲᑲᐯᔑᐊᐧᐨ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐊᐧᐠ ᒋᑌᐱᓇᐊᐧᐨ ᑲᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᓂᐨ, ᒥᓇ ᑯᑕᑭᔭᐠ ᑫᑯᓇᐣ ᐸᐸᑲᐣ ᑲᐃᔑᐃᐧᒋᐦᐃᐁᐧᓂᐨ ᐁᐧᑎ ᑭᒋᐊᐧᓴ ᐅᐣᒋ. “ᒥᐦᐅᐁᐧ ᐁᔑᓇᑲᐧᐠ ᑲᑭᐅᐣᑎᓂᑲᑌᐠ ᐅᐡᑭᑫᑯᐣ ᒋᔭᓂᔑᐊᐸᑕᑭᐣ ᑭᐁᐧᑎᓄᐠ ᑕᓇᐱᐃᐧᓇᐣ ᑫᐅᒋ ᐊᓂᑯᓯᒋᑲᑌᑭᐣ ᐁᐧᑎ ᐊᑲᐧᒋᐠ ᑫᑯᓇᐣ,” ᑭᐃᑭᑐ ᐱᓫ ᐠᓫᐊᕑᐠ, ᑲᐊᓂᑫ ᐅᑭᒪᐃᐧᐨ ᐃᒪ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐃᐧ ᑲᓇᐊᐧᐸᒋᑫᐃᐧ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᐁᑲᐧᐣ ᐱᒧᒋᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ, ᑲᑭᐅᒋ ᐊᔭᒥᐨ ᔪᑐᑊ ᒪᓯᓇᑌᓯᒋᑲᓂᐠ ᑲᑭᓇᑯᒋᑲᑌᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᑲᒥᐠ ᐅᑕᓇᐠ ᐱᐳᓄᐠ. “ᐅᑲᐅᒋ ᑲᒋᑎᓇᓇᐊᐧ ᒪᐊᐧᐨ ᑲᐃᔑᐁᐧᐣᒋᓭᓂᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᐃᐧᓂ ᒥᓇ ᑯᑕᑭᔭᐣ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᐃᐧᓇᐣ.” ᑭᓇᑯᒋᑲᑌ ᑕᐡ ᑲᐃᔑᐊᑌᐠ ᐃᐁᐧ ᐅᓇᑲᐣ ᐊᐧᑭᑕᐸᐠ ᐃᒪ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃᑲᓂᐠ. ᐁᑲᐧ ᓇᐣᑕ ᓂᔓᔕᑊ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐊᐧᑲᓇᐠ ᑭᓂᐦᓱᓂᐱᑌᐱᐊᐧᐠ ᐁᐅᒋ ᐊᔭᒥᐦᐃᑯᐊᐧᐨ ᑲᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᐊᐧᐨ ᐃᒪ ᑭᒋ ᑎᐱ ᒪᓯᓇᑌᓯᒋᑲᓂᐠ. ᐊᐁᐧ ᑕᐡ ᐯᔑᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐊᐧᑲᐣ, ᒪᑭ ᓴᑲᓂ, ᑭᐃᐡᐱᓂᑫᓂ ᐁᑲᑫᐧᑌᐧᐨ ᓇᐣᑕ ᐁᓇᑫᐧᑕᐠ ᑫᑯᓂ. ᑭᔓᐃᐧᑫᐧᓂ, ᒪᐊᐧᐨ ᐃᑯ ᐁᒪᒥᓀᐧᑕᐠ ᐁᔑᓇᑯᓯᐠ ᐃᒪ ᐁᔭᐱᐨ ᐃᒪ ᐅᑌᓴᐱᐃᐧᓂᐠ. “ᓄᑯᑦ ᐣᑐᑕᒥᐣ ᑲᑦᐱᑐᕑ ᓂᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᒥᐣ ᒥᓇ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧ ᐊᐸᒋᒋᑲᓂ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᐣ,” ᑭᐃᑭᑐ. “ᓂᒥᓀᐧᑕᐣ ᐅᒪ ᐁᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑯᔭᐣ ᒥᓇ ᐁᑲ ᐁᓇᑲᓇᑲᐧ ᓂᐊᐧᑯᒪᑲᓇᐠ.” ᔕᑯᐨ ᑕᓂᐃᓯᓭ ᐅᒪ ᑲᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐃᐧᑕᐧ ᒋᔭᓄᒋ ᑲᒋᑎᓇᒧᐊᐧᐨ ᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᓇᐣ, ᑲᐅᐡᑲᑎᓯᐊᐧᐨ ᒥᓇ ᑲᑭᒋᐦᐊᐃᐧᐊᐧᐨ, ᐃᒪ ᑕᓇᐱᐃᐧᓂᐠ ᓇᐣᑕ ᒥᓇ ᐊᐧᓴ, ᑭᐃᑭᑐ ᑭᒋᔭᐦᐊ ᑕᐧᓄᐟ ᓴᑲᓂ. “ᐅᑲᐅᒋᐃᐧᒋᐦᐃᑯᓇᐊᐧ ᑲᐅᐡᑲᑎᓯᐊᐧᐨ, ᐊᓂᐡ ᐃᐧᐸᐨ ᑕᓂᐊᓄᑭᐃᐧᓂᑲ ᐅᒪ ᐯᔓᐨ,” ᑭᐃᑭᑐ ᒪᕑᐠ ᒧᓂᔭᐢ, ᑯᑕᐠ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐊᐧᑲᐣ ᑲᑭᓇᑯᓯᐨ ᒪᓯᓇᑌᓯᒋᑲᓂᐠ. “ᓂᐸᑯᓭᑕᐣ ᐱᐊᐧᐱᑯᑲᓂᐠ ᒋᔭᓂᔑᐊᓄᑭᔭᐣ, ᓇᐣᑕ ᐃᒪ ᐊᐦᑭᐃᐧ ᓇᓇᑲᒋᒋᑫᐃᐧᓂᐠ.” ᐁᑲᐧ ᐃᒪ ᒪᓯᓇᑌᓯᒋᑲᓂᐠ ᑭᓇᑲᐧᐣ ᒥᓯᐁᐧ ᐁᓄᐱᒥᐊᐧᐠ ᒥᓇ ᐁᒥᓇᐧᔑᐠ ᑲᐃᔑᐱᑲᐧᑕᑭᐊᐧᐠ ᐊᐧᑲᐦᐃᑲ ᐃᒪ ᓀᐡᑲᐣᑕᑲ ᑲᐃᔑᑕᑲᐧᐠ ᒥᓇ ᐁᒪᑌᐱᒥᐱᓱᐨ ᐊᐃᐧᔭ ᐃᐢᑭᑐᐣ ᑲᐃᔑ ᒥᑕᑕᒧᑐᐊᐧᐨ ᐃᐢᑭᑐᐠ ᐃᒪ ᓴᑲᐦᐃᑲᓂᐠ, ᐁᑲᐧ ᒥᓇ ᐸᓂᐢᑫᐧ ᐱᑯ ᔑᑯᐱᐠ ᐁᐸᐸᑕᑭᓱᐊᐧᐨ ᒥᓯᐁᐧ. ᒪᒋᐨ ᑲᑭᔭᓂᑭᑐᐨ ᐅᐁᐧᓂ ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᑫᐃᐧᑲᒥᑯᓂ ᒧᓂᔭᐢ ᑭᐃᑭᑐ, ᑭᑭᓄᐦᐊᒪᐊᐧᑲᐣ: “ᐅᐡᑲᑎᓴᐠ ᐅᑕᓂᐊᐧᐸᑕᓇᐊᐧ ᐊᐣᑎ ᑫᓄᒋᑌᐸᑫᓂᒧᐊᐧᐨ,” ᑭᐃᑭᑐ.

Rick Radell/Aecon Group Inc. Narcise Kakegabon speaks while Morris Wapoose, manager of Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment & Training Services, holds a giant dreamcatcher with Chief Peter Moonias.

‘Game changer’ for remote training

E-learning facility provides Neskantaga youth ‘opportunity to succeed,’ chief says Bryan Phelan Onotassiniik

F

rom the outside it’s a modest looking building, with mostly grey walls, a metal door and just two tiny windows visible from where we’re looking.

Great things are expected, however, from the activity inside the Neskantaga Training Centre.

A grand opening of the centre took place in mid August, although it has operated since last winter and celebrated its first graduating class in the spring.

The centre connects Neskantaga First Nation residents through e-learning tools to high school and postsecondary programs, safety training courses, and trades and technical certifications.

It does so using state-of-theart technology that includes high-definition, two-way video communication and collaboration technology; a 70-inch interactive whiteboard; a 70-inch LED

(light-emitting diode) highdefinition television; and highspeed satellite broadband connectivity. It’s also equipped with laptop computers.

Funded by the provincial government, the Neskantaga Training Centre is owned and operated by Matawa First Nations Management.

Neskantaga, located 270 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, is one of the tribal council’s nine member communities.

“The partnerships formed to build this facility, along with all of the hard work, have culminated in a facility that will have a positive impact on the people of Neskantaga for many years to come,” Chief Peter Moonias said during the opening ceremonies. “This is an integral step in the right direction – providing access to higher learning directly in our community so that our youth have the opportunity to succeed.”

Partners in the project have been many. In 2013, Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment & Training

Services (KKETS), a division of Matawa, formed a strategic partnership with Aecon Group, which does construction and infrastructure development across Canada. Together they made a commitment to provide access to First Nations community-based education, trades and apprenticeship training in northern and remote areas surrounding Ontario’s Ring of Fire mining development. For the remote training centre in Neskantaga, Aecon collaborated with KKETS in leading a project team that also included ATCO Structures & Logistics, Bell Canada, Cisco Canada, Galaxy Satellite, Operating Engineers Training Institute of Ontario, and Confederation College.

The facility design allowed construction components to be flown to Neskantaga for assembly on-site. Its technology gives people in the community of 300 convenient access to teachers, professionals and expertise hundreds of kilometres away.

“This a game-changer for

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How to avoid a $1-billion ‘Getting it right’ may take decades boondoggle Rick Millette Step 1: The Ontario government buys back Cliffs’ Ring of Fire properties based upon sunk costs (for the sake of argument), making the purchase price half a billion dollars and calling it square. Presumably, Cliffs goes away happy upon getting its investment back.

Step 2: Queen’s Park then transfers Cliffs’ Ring of Fire properties – for the sum of $1 – to a separate corporate entity controlled by Matawa tribal council. While it may look like a freebee, it’s anything but since nothing to date has remotely worked.

Bill Gallagher Guest Columnist

‘Boondoggle’: any unnecessary and wasteful project.

‘Billion’: a thousand million.

(Webster’s Dictionary)

A

billion dollars is an attentiongetting number. That’s no doubt why the Wynne Liberals touted that number as a campaign pledge for development of Ring of Fire infrastructure in the run-up to their recent election win. This $1-billion carrot arose after the party politically ‘rediscovered’ the Ring of Fire as a slumbering engine of economic growth for the province.

Buried in the election budget was the glossed-over detail that the Queen’s Park billion was contingent on Ottawa providing a matching billion. The feds quickly set this sleight-of-hand straight, whereupon the Wynne Liberals confirmed on the hustings they were good for their $1-billion pledge no matter what.

On the industry side of the ledger, as Cliffs Natural Resources slowly realized it was taking a fiscal cold shower on its rushed expansion into Canada, it took a $1-billion write-down on its Bloom Lake iron project in Quebec. (‘Write-down’ is the accounting term used to describe a reduction of the book value of an asset due to economic or fundamental changes in an asset.)

Cliffs will likely take another major write-down on account of its botched Ring of Fire investment.

In order to avoid a billion dollar boondoggle, here’s a totally different idea for consideration as to how to commit the budget’s politicallypledged billion:

Step 3: The remaining half billion dollars is put into the new Ring of Fire Infrastructure Development Corporation (resource access) budget, with the future Matawa representative on the board having a singular veto to ensure it will be earmarked for mining infrastructure.

Step 4: It would then be up to Matawa tribal council to seek and align with a private sector miner on such terms and conditions necessary to make it a successful mining theatre. Matawa and the miner would jointly drive the Ring of Fire forward.

Nothing has worked thus far.

Litigation is still the prevailing dynamic.

The premier says she isn’t worried about the departure of Cliffs. But $1 billion is at risk.

So, this novel idea puts Cliffs’ Ring of Fire assets in the hands of the group that will actually do the most to bring the mining camp to reality. That’s because at the moment, there isn’t a chromite project or a chromite proponent to warrant the expenditure of $1 billion.

And to now spend the budgeted billion without a project or a proponent would most certainly qualify as a billion dollar boondoggle!

Bill Gallagher is a lawyer, strategist and author of Resource Rulers: Fortune and Folly on Canada’s Road to Resources. The book, available on amazon.com, tracks the rise of Native empowerment and the coinciding, remarkable legal winning streak in the Canadian resource sector. It offers a way forward, with new rules of engagement for resource development and for winning outcomes.

discovering Victor to the first diamonds; 35 years from the first sight of gold at Musselwhite to the first golden brick being poured.

At the Ring of Fire, we are only seven years in from when the rich drill results of Noront and other companies created the scenario for actual mining, and we have only scratched the surface of the barriers to overcome.

Senior Executive Director, Ring of Fire Northern Policy Institute

T

he Ring of Fire has taken on the allure of a huge Christmas gift.

Like the children who anticipate the big day coming, Northern Ontarians are finding it painfully difficult to stop themselves from diving under the tree and ripping open the prize that awaits. But wait they must.

“We can and we will create a much better, a much stronger, Ontario and Canada through the Ring of Fire,” says Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle. “And we will do it right.”

The federal minister responsible for the Ring of Fire, Greg Rickford, said much the same when telling Canadian Press that “this is a legacy resource project and we want to get it right for the multi generations of Northern Ontarians that can benefit from this.”

It’s hard to argue with the rationale of taking the time and “getting it right.” However, there’s another determining factor at play.

That factor is the reality of how mining projects usually unfold from discovery to development.

About 150 kilometres to the east of the Ring of Fire is the De Beers Victor diamond mine. Access is only possible by winter road or aircraft.

To start up at Victor, De Beers had to build an ore processing mill, on-site accommodations and operational buildings, as well as a 90-kilometre hydro line and an airstrip. Before that, there were time-eaters like environmental studies, agreements with First Nation communities, training plans and hiring. Not to be forgotten is the actual digging to get at the diamonds, via a large openpit operation.

A Lakehead University geology student made the discovery at Victor in 1987. Construction started in 2006.

The first diamonds came out of the ground in 2007.

The Musselwhite gold mine is 275 kilometres to the west of the Ring and is also dependent on winter roads and an airstrip. The first traces of gold there were found in 1962. It took until 1986 for drilling results to warrant a mine, which didn’t produce gold until 1997.

So, it took 20 years from

It took 20 years from discovering Victor to the first diamonds; 35 years from the first sight of gold at Musselwhite to the first golden brick being poured. At the Ring of Fire, we are only seven years in from when the rich drill results of Noront and other companies created the scenario for actual mining.

All indications point to Noront’s Eagle’s Nest project being the first operational mine in the Ring of Fire. But Eagle’s Nest, which contains nickel, copper, platinum and palladium, will have a ramp to reach the ore body. Due to the deep and unstable muskeg at surface, the company also plans to build its processing mill underground.

These are much more time-intensive construction projects than open pits

and above-ground construction.

Victor and Musselwhite take the diamonds and gold out of their mine sites in relatively small airplanes.

But even after blasting, crushing and concentrating nickel and chromite (the Ring of Fire is believed to include the largest deposit of chromite ever discovered in North America) you’re left with a lot of heavy concentrate to get to a smelter. To move that kind of volume and weight from the Ring, 540 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, you need a substantial road, slurry pipeline or railway. The build time for those items will be lengthy due to the distances and ground conditions involved, not to mention the approvals needed.

The markets for gold and diamonds have also been strong and relatively stable before and since the construction of Musselwhite and Victor. The same can’t be said for other metals such as nickel, which have fluctuated significantly in the past several years. Will the markets determine the rate of development for the Ring? Absolutely.

The unfortunate parade of unrest on various parts of the planet make investors both nervous and optimistic about the demand for the Ring’s metals. Indeed, world events and the markets are two of the major factors that control how quickly mines develop. The currency exchange rates also come into play. These factors are beyond the power of mining companies or our governments to control, and therefore progress can be hindered or accelerated in unexpected degrees.

What is certain is that the metals will still be in the ground in 10 years or 100. What is debatable is whether the mining development process or our government and First Nations will be the quickest to facilitate the mineral production stage. The best time scenario is one that’s simultaneous. The best public interest scenario is that everyone gets it right.

Northern Policy Institute posted this commentary as a blog to its website, northernpolicy.wordpress.com, on July 31. It is printed here with permission.

‘GAME CHANGER’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 northern commnunities being connected to the outside world,” Bill Clarke, vicepresident of Aboriginal affairs for Aecon Group, says in a short YouTube video showing the training centre in use last winter. “It opens up a whole new, wonderful spectrum of education and training.”

The video zooms for a closeup of the satellite dish on top of the building. Inside, about a dozen students, sitting in three rows, interact with an instructor shown on the large TV monitor. One of the students, Maggie Sakanee, raises her hand to ask or answer a question. Smiling, she looks comfortable in her plaid shirt and Roots hoody, flip chart paper on the wall behind her, binders and a travel coffee mug on the desk in front.

“Right now they have computer skills and heavy equipment training,” she says.

“I’m happy that I’m here and not (having) to the leave the

family.”

Of course the training centre will lead to jobs for the students, young and not so young, in the community and sometimes elsewhere, Elder Donald Sakanee says.

“It’s a good opportunity for the young people, especially if there’s going to be economic development happening around here,” agrees Marc Moonias, another student in the video. “I want to hopefully work in the mining sector, as an environmental monitor.”

The video gives a sense of the remote, pristine environment surrounding Neskantaga by showing a distant view of a snowmobile crossing a frozen snow-covered lake, with nothing but trees in the foreground and background.

Last word on the training centre goes to Moonias, the student: “Nowadays it gives young people some hope,” he says.

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WAWATAY’S MINING QUARTERLY

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RINGS of DEVELOPMENT Maximizing Ring of Fire benefits requires simultaneous planning at local First Nation, tribal council and NAN levels Fort Severn

John van Nostrand Principal, rePlan Inc.

M

ines are like the proverbial pebble in the pond – they have profound circles of influence. Their impacts range from the economic to the environmental to the social. They affect national, regional and local economies, entire watersheds and ecosystems, and the towns, farmlands and hunting grounds that communities around them occupy.

The Ring of Fire is one of the largest pebbles ever to be dropped in the pond we call Ontario. It will create an economy estimated at more than $50 billion. It will have a broad impact on over 60 per cent of the province, and a direct impact on an area four times larger than the Timmins/ Sudbury Mining Region in northeastern Ontario.

Development of that region began more than 100 years ago when major ore, nickel and silver deposits were exposed around Sudbury and Cobalt during the building of the railway to the Clay Belt. But with the Ring of Fire, there is a very real opportunity to prepare and plan – ahead of development – in order to maximize the benefits for not only for the mining companies and our provincial coffers, but also the 49 communities of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) and other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations that currently live in the region.

For those who don’t think that planning is necessary, let’s remember what happened within the Timmins/Sudbury Complex. When first announced, it attracted an enormous influx of prospectors, large and small mining companies, and inexperienced labourers. Many lives were lost at Cobalt and elsewhere before an immigrant family walked to Toronto to protest the death of loved ones, forcing the provincial government to create its first Mines Act in 1906. Today, as fascinating and dynamic as the great communities of Timmins and Sudbury are, they are also among the most expensive cities to run in Canada. This is because they grew up as clusters of separate mine-heads and associated mine towns that now cover enormous land areas that are difficult and expensive to service within a single municipal boundary.

Moreover, pre-existing Aboriginal populations had no say in, and did not benefit in any significant way, from the mines.

Development of the Ring of Fire will require the planning, design and construction not only of the mine sites themselves, but also the extensive infrastructures required to serve them – including power supply, telecommunications, roads, and railway lines. Housing and community services will need to be built for existing populations, estimated at 50-60,000 predominantly Aboriginal residents, as well as the estimated 40-50,000 new residents who will come to The Ring to construct and operate, or provide services to, the new chromite mines.

I

n order to maximize the benefits of the Ring of Fire, planning will have to take place both “bottom-up” and “top-down.” In other words, First Nations, mining companies and the provincial government will need to work from the centre of the Ring (the pebble) outwards, and from the edge of the region it will create (the pond) inwards – simultaneously. This will require not simply local plans for the First Nation communities located closest to the mines and for the mining sites themselves, but also an overall regional development plan for the pond as a whole, as well as tribal council (district) plans for the nine tribal councils that exist in-between. Above all, mining companies and the Province will need to establish round tables with local First Nations, tribal councils, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, and other stakeholders to establish a shared vision and set of principles on which all subsequent plans will be based.

Like the mines themselves, these round tables and plans cannot and will not be created overnight. But it is important that planning begin to take place as soon as possible, starting at a local level but in ways that will make sense for the growth and development of the region as a whole in the longer term. For example, while early

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Weenusk (Peawanuck)

Bearskin Lake Sachigo Lake Big Trout Lake

Wapekeka Wawakapewin Kasabonika Muskrat Dam Sandy Lake Kingfisher Lake Koocheching Webequie Kee-Way-Win Wunnumin Lake North Nibinamik Caribou Lake Deer Lake North Spirit Lake Neskantaga Poplar Hill McDowell Lake Eabametoong Cat Lake Pikangikum Mishkeegogamang Slate Falls Lac Seul

Marten Falls

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Whitewater Lake Long Lake #58 Ginoogaming

THUNDER BAY

Hornepay

Missanable Cree

Chapleau C work on local First Nations plans must start – and indeed is starting – with individual communities within the Matawa First Nations area, it is also very important that work begin simultaneously on a tribal council plan for Matawa, and a regional development plan for the NAN region, so that each scale of planning can inform – and be informed by – the others.

The problem with parallel planning processes is that like parallel lines it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to arrange for them to meet.

The importance of this approach is demonstrated by other similar planning processes in Mid Canada that have been developed for comparable resource regions, through the collaboration of Aboriginal peoples with provincial and local governments and resource companies.

These include the recent Thompson Economic Diversification Plan, which includes the Thompson and Region Infrastructure Plan (see http://www. thompson.ca/index.aspx?page=280 ) – for the region located just over the Manitoba border from northern Ontario – and the Comprehensive Regional Infrastructure Sustainability Plan (CRISP) for the Athabasca and Cold Lake Oil Sands (see http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/Initiatives/3224.asp).

It will likely be difficult enough to start the local

First Nation plans within communities that, after living under The Indian Act of 1867, and Treaties 5 and 9, are either no longer used to dreaming about their future and projecting themselves forward, or are simply suspicious of planning and of what their neighbours might be negotiating separately with other mining companies. Nor are the mining companies used to thinking that their mine plans will need to be developed in close collaboration with the communities within or near which they will be located. But it is essential that while these local First Nations plans are being prepared and negotiated, work starts on the Matawa district plan that will identify the overlay of new infrastructure that will be required to serve the mines. Its location and design can in turn serve the infrastructure and housing needs not only of future mine sites but also those of expanding local First Nation communities.

The preparation and negotiation of local First Nations and tribal council plans is of necessity an iterative process, within which each informs and assists the realization of the other. The local mining and community plans will show where local growth, influx and housing development can best be located, and the tribal council plans will show where local infrastructure and employment areas can best be located to serve both the mines and the First Nation communities.

The larger NAN regional development plan is required not only to ensure that growth and development of each of the tribal councils benefits from mining operations through access to regional infrastructure, but also to create a framework for regional growth over the next 100 years. The regional plan will begin to address the impacts of growth and development on the more than 5,000 square kilometres of natural

environment that will be affected by the Ring, including one of the largest wetland areas in the world. It will also deal with the Ring’s relationship to other pending regional development projects, including the development of other mining and resource sites, and development of the James Bay Coast in response to the opening up of the Northwest Passage. At the same time, it will present a framework for the development of the secondary, tertiary and even quaternary economies – such as construction, transportation, energy supply and transmission, tourism, agriculture, and forestry – that can be developed alongside chromite extraction, in order to cushion the inevitable ups and downs of resource prices and to create a longer-term sustainable economy.

Finally, the NAN regional plan should be suitable to serve as an amendment to the province’s current Growth Plan for Northern Ontario (2011), and as such should show the relationship of the emerging region with the major urban hubs of Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Kapuskasing, Timmins and Sudbury.

Recently, the provincial government described its approach to planning for the Ring of Fire as one that was being developed “in parallel” with the mining companies and First Nations. The problem with parallel planning processes is that like parallel lines it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to arrange for them to meet. Better we jump in the pond together, and make very sure that the ripples these new mining activities create are of benefit to all.

SAULT STE. MARIE

LEGEND Ring of Fire Independent Bands Independent First Nations Alliance Keewaytinook Okimakanak Matawa First Nations Mushkegowuk Council Shibogama First Nations Council Wabun Tribal Council Windigo First Nations Council

Attawapiskat Kashechewan Fort Albany

Major Highways

Moose Cree Mocreebec Council of the Cree Nation

Rail

onstance Lake KAPUSKASING

yne

Cree

Secondary Highways All Weather Roads Winter Roads

Flying Post Taykwa Tagamou

TIMMINS

Wahgoshig

TRIP in northern Manitoba Thompson and Region Infrastructure Plan unites interests of Aboriginal communities & other stakeholders

T

he need to broaden and diversify the economic base in Thompson, Manitoba and the surrounding region is a long-standing priority.

Economic volatility in recent years, coupled with an announcement in 2010 that Vale would close its nickel smelter and refinery in Thompson within five years and focus on mining and milling, have underlined the need for the city, region and community partners to tackle this issue head on.

The Thompson Economic Diversification Working Group (TEDWG) was formed to spearhead this effort. rePlan facilitated the TEDWG process with the goal of accelerating Thompson’s development as a regional service centre for northern Manitoba, with a strong mining pillar. rePlan, a Toronto-based company that helps natural resource companies around the world understand and fulfill their corporate social responsibility, worked with stakeholders to identify two streams of work that will help Thompson diversify its economy and strengthen its position as an economic contributor to northern Manitoba. A series of action plans were developed to address the working group’s priority areas, including education and training, and housing. A regulatory framework, which includes the Thompson and Region Infrastructure Plan (TRIP), supports the action plans.

The TRIP identifies potential population growth and economic development

Mineral Producers Key Exploration Projects Other Exploration Projects

Beaverhouse Mattagami

Matachewan

Brunswick House Chapleau Ojibwe SUDBURY

John van Nostrand is an architect and community planner, and the founding principal of rePlan (www.replan. ca) and affiliated firms planningAlliance (www.planningalliance.ca) and regionalArchitects (www.regionalarchitects.com).

Over the last three decades, he has been the driving force behind the firm’s domestic and international community planning and development practice. John has extensive experience leading large, multi-disciplinary consulting teams on complicated development projects across Canada and around the world, including a number of major mine-related housing projects in Africa, Latin America and Canada. He has worked with and for First Nations and other Aboriginal groups on a number of significant projects, including the Thompson and Region Infrastructure Plan, the Comprehensive Regional Infrastructure Sustainability Project (CRISP) for the Athabasca Oil Sands (including Fort McKay First Nation), schools and community centres for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, a capital plan for Kashechewan First Nation, and preliminary housing plans for Mishkeegogamang Ojibway Nation and Sandy Lake First Nation (with the North-South Partnership for Children). John’s work has received a number of international and national awards, including the 2004 Jane Jacobs Award for “Ideas That Matter.”

opportunities in the Thompson Region and determines what infrastructure will be needed in the future to support growth. It also assists in defining Thompson’s role as a regional service centre. While assessing a wide range of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructure, the TRIP focuses on the development of transportation, housing, and education and training infrastructure over the next 30 years, within a long-term concept for regional infrastructure development.

The TRIP serves as a roadmap for infrastructure development in the Thompson Region over the long term, focused on Thompson as the “hub.” It addresses equally what needs to be done, such as the development of all-weather roads in the North, and how this work may be carried out (for example, through a community development model). The TRIP represents the united interests of Aboriginal stakeholders, the City of Thompson, industry and local businesses in developing a sustainable and productive Thompson Region through the provision of high-quality infrastructure.

As an overarching vision document, the Thompson Economic Diversification Plan summarizes each of the action plans and regulatory framework documents undertaken through the TEDWG process. When taken together, these individual plans form a comprehensive framework for sustainable economic diversification, development and growth in the Thompson Region.

The TEDWG was chaired by the City of Thompson, and includes representatives from Vale, the Province of Manitoba, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), Keewatin Tribal Council, Manitoba Metis Federation, Northern Association of Community Councils (NACC), Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Thompson Unlimited, and the Thompson Chamber of Commerce.

WAWATAY’S MINING QUARTERLY

7

Introduction to Mining Bryan Phelan Onotassiniik

H

udbay Minerals continues to create hundreds of mining jobs in northern Manitoba and is now more than ever working with First Nations to help fill them.

While already employing more than a thousand people in the region, many of them at its flagship mine in Flin Flon, Hudbay has long referred to its Lalor project near Snow Lake as being “on a fast track to become our next major underground mine.” Lalor, which contains gold, zinc, copper and silver, is one of two new mines Hudbay officially opened in September. The company owns 70 per cent of the other mine, Reed, which holds an estimated $800 million worth of copper.

The Lalor mine, built at a cost of $441 million, “is quickly evolving into one of the most significant base-metal discoveries in a generation and is expected to support mining beyond 2030,” according to Manitoba’s minister of mineral resources, Dave Chomiak. Together, Lalor and Reed, which will have a shorter mine life of five to seven years, are expected to create about 370 permanent jobs, Chomiak said when the mines opened.

Pam Marsden, the first Aboriginal liaison officer at Hudbay, works closely with employment and training co-ordinators in area First Nations so their members can benefit from these and other opportunities with her company. “We want to create jobs and business opportunities for our northern neighbours,” Marsden told Onotassiniik. “If someone was to get hired at our Lalor project at the entry level and work their way up to a developer-miner, they could retire there.”

To help get some people started on a mining career path, Hudbay established a training and employment model with Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) that it hopes to repeat with other First Nations. Once job opportunities were identified, Hudbay and OCN worked with other partners on “essential skills assessments and gap training” for interested candidates, Hudbay noted in its 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility Report. Individuals selected for underground operations then attended a five-week Introduction to Mining course that included classroom time, use of a mine simulator, underground tours, practical training for operating trucks and scoop trams, and hands-on experience with drilling equipment. Ten students, including three from OCN, graduated from the course and then began work in Hudbay mines.

Joan Niquanicappo, OCN general manager, noted in the Hudbay report that in addition to the three hires, 15 band members completed an Introduction to Industry course set up with Hudbay

Supporting first steps on mining career paths

and the Northern Manitoba Sector Council, and 60 more applied to take the course when it was offered again in spring 2014. “Industry here had been saying for years that there were labour shortages but nothing was being done to address the need,” Niquanicappo said. “The process we set up … was the first concrete step taken to fill the jobs at Hudbay and address employment issues for OCN people, particularly young people. We’re delighted with the results so far.”

House – enrolled in an Exploration Technician Program offered at the Mining Academy. Alan Vowels, one of the Hudbay geophysicists who discovered the Lalor deposit, helped develop the 12-week course, designed to provide participants with the knowledge and skills needed for mineral exploration and geophysical surveys.

Also in 2013, the Academy hosted more than a hundred children for a course called Career Trek, which allowed them to explore up to 16 career options through hands-on activities.

photo: Hudbay Minerals Pam Marsden, Hudbay Aboriginal liaison officer, speaks with students.

Northern Manitoba Mining Academy Another training initiative supported by Hudbay is the Northern Manitoba Mining Academy operated in Flin Flon by the University College of the North. Since it opened in 2012, Hudbay has donated $200,000 and half an acre of land to the Mining Academy, and its employees have given their time to curriculum development, instruction and career days.

Last year, 12 students – some of them from the Cree nations of Opaskwayak, Cumberland House, Mathias Colomb, and Norway

All of this bodes well for a workforce of the future for Hudbay, which last year had 13 per cent of its employees in Manitoba selfidentify as Aboriginal, up two per cent from the previous year.

“We prefer to hire from communities near our operations because it benefits these communities and strengthens our relationships with them,” David Garofalo, Hudbay president and CEO, wrote in the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report. “We also found that people from the North are more likely to stay in the North, and therefore stay with the company.”

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Getting to Know You

Hudbay reaches out to First Nation neighbours

meetings. The meetings typically involved a Hudbay vice-president and high-level community leaders – chief and councillors, Elders and sometimes a junior chief. “When I first came to the company, a lot of the senior management were asking me questions like ‘What do I wear?’ or ‘What do I say?’ ” Marsden recalls of those first steps.

“I’d say ‘Just don’t wear a tie.’ ” Along with a VP and Marsden, it would be common for Hudbay

Bryan Phelan Onotassiniik

H

Albuquerque, New Mexico who has lived in Manitoba for 18 years now – became a teacher about the world of First Nations. And when the Idle No More movement swept across Canada, its messages of Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protection became part of her lessons. “We wanted to hear what they were saying and (learn) how we can better govern ourselves,” Marsden says.

In another attempt to help Hudbay better understand its

udbay Minerals, which operates three mines in northern Manitoba, is 88 years old. Until recently, however, the company, its managers and miners were mostly strangers to their First Nation neighbours.

Hudbay was founded in 1927, when it was known as the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company, at an ore body in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Today, that’s still the location of the company’s flagship 777 mine, along with Lalor, Manitoba Hudbay is a diversified mining an ore concentrator and zinc Long-life, underground copper/ company that produces copper production facilities. Zinc and zinc/gold/silver mine. Initial concentrate (containing copper, copper are the primary metals production in 2012. Production gold and silver) and zinc metal. It is mined underground at 777, shaft commissioning in second half headquartered in Toronto. although there is gold and silver of 2014.

Flin Flon, Manitoba there as well. In September, 777 mine – a long-life, underground Snow Lake, Manitoba Hudbay officially opened two Concentrator processes Lalor ore. copper/zinc/gold/silver mine. new mines east of Flin Flon: Lalor Concentrator produces zinc and mine, near Snow Lake, which Constancia, Peru copper concetrates from 777 contains the same minerals as Low-cost, open-pit copper mine. Zinc plant produces special 777; and the Reed copper mine, mine. Commercial production high-grade zinc metal; one of three of which Hudbay is 70 per cent expected in 2015. primary zinc producers in North owner.

America.

Close to Hudbay’s operations –Source: Hudbay Minerals Inc. are Opaskwayak Cree Nation, (hudbayminerals.com) Reed, Manitoba Mosakahiken Cree Nation and 70 per cent ownership of Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, underground copper mine. VMS Ventures Inc. discovered highall in Manitoba, and over the grade deposit in 2007 and owns border in Saskatchewan three 30 per cent. Initial production communities that are part of the in September 2013; achieved Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation – commercial production in 2014.

Pelican Narrows, Sandy Bay, and photo: Hudbay Minerals Deschambault Lake.

When a elder was unclear about Hudbay’s work in the Cross Lake area, Pam “Even though Hudbay has been Marsden, centre, arranged a helicopter tour over a drill site for him and others. in Treaty 5 traditional territory for 88 years, a lot of the folks I work with are just miners,” says Pam Marsden, hired as the company’s first Aboriginal liaison officer to bring along staff specializing in exploration, environmental neighbours, Marsden introduced an Aboriginal cultural awareness three years ago. “They go to work, do their shift and then that’s it. issues and human resources. “We tell them all about the workshop for everyone from the company’s managers to union There’s no external activity with the neighbours.” company,” Marsden says. “Within the communities that we’re representatives to contractors. Topics covered include treaties and As far as Marsden is concerned, though, those days are done. “I working alongside, a lot of them don’t have mining experience or residential schools, stereotyping and racism. As of June, 250 of think like most businesses, the mining resource sector has come to knowledge, and that’s OK. Neither did I before I came into this.”

Hudbay’s 1,350 employees in Manitoba had taken the workshop, understand the best way to be successful is to have the support, or But she also realizes the communication needs to be two-way. which is facilitated by a neighbouring community. at least understanding, of the people affected by the business they “One of the twists that kind of throws First Nations community do,” she explains. “And I think people believe they have a justifiable people off is I always try to ask them ‘Can you provide us a interest in the activity around them.”

PowerPoint of what you are about? Can you tell us who your As a result, Hudbay is learning to build relationships with community is?’ I want to know who they are because this is who An 825-foot tall stack from a copper smelter no longer in use by surrounding communities. “We’re getting to know each other,” we’re going to be working with.”

Hudbay easily dwarfs everything around it in Flin Flon. Mardsen Marsden says.

Hosting open houses also allows communities “to show off who found in her travels outside of the town that the stack, now capped they are,” says Marsden, to share what businesses and services off, was the only image some people had of Hudbay.

When it comes to explaining the company’s activities, showing they offer, and to express what’s important to them. The same forums give Hudbay the chance to share information about its is sometimes better than telling, learned Marsden, who has a Understanding each other is of foremost importance at the operations to a wider community audience. master or arts degree in communication from the University of beginning of any relationship, personal or business, Marsden “Community protocol is one of the most significant teachings North Dakota. says during a presentation at the 2014 Ontario Mining Forum in that we as a company have learned and continue to practise,” She recalls one such case, when Hudbay was doing work in the Thunder Bay. Marsden says of Hudbay’s interaction with First Nations. “An Cross Lake First Nation area. “One of the elders said to me, ‘You So, to promote understanding between Hudbay and the First example is the passing of tobacco to an elder or the chief.” know, I don’t really know what they’re talking about.’ ” Marsden Nations nearby, she started by simply arranging introductory Within Hudbay, meanwhile, Marsden – a Navajo originally from CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

HUDBAY

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Sandy Lake blessing for gold exploration

HELICOPTER TOUR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

took this as another opportunity to educate, arranging a helicopter tour over a drill site for this elder and some others, then a landing at the site for a closer look. “The elders kind of gave it their once over, then said ‘OK, OK, I understand now.’ ” Similarly, Hudbay offers mine tours “to anybody who has any kind of interest in wanting to know about Hudbay,” Marsden says, “and they come in and the can see firsthand what is going on underground. We can explain what a scoop tram is and whatever kind of drilling we’re doing, but to actually see the operations in action with people working, it does create a different perspective.”

In many cases, it also seems to spark even greater interest, says Marsden. “When we have students or community members attend a mining tour, they’re just totally hungry for more, hungry to get into the employment-hiring process, hungry to maybe to come back for another tour.”

Marsden welcomes these and other opportunities to talk about the mining cycle and balance mostly negative portrayals of the mining sector she says Aboriginal people receive through social media.

The prevailing message about mining on Facebook and Twitter seems to be “extraction equals destruction,” Marsden observes – a phrase she heard while doing outreach at a high school.

“People form an opinion on what they know. We don’t expect anyone to be an expert in mining except the people who work for us, so it’s more of a process of continual education. For example, many people naturally understand in broad terms how minerals are extracted (but) the amount of land reclamation and environmental monitoring that goes into modern mining is often surprising to them.”

Bryan Phelan Onotassiniik

R

obin Luke Webster, president of Goldeye Explorations, figures he spent about three months of a recent one-year period in Sandy Lake First Nation. It has been an extraordinary but necessary investment of time, Webster has found.

With the First Nation’s blessing, Goldeye has been exploring for gold on its mining claims

Sandy Lake’s traditional territory and the gold it might yield – a certain level of understanding and trust is needed before a proper exploration deal can be reached, suggests Webster. “You can’t do it without the understanding because you’re not sure what you’re negotiating about; you’re not sure what you’re talking about. You need the trust, you need the understanding and then you can have the confidence to know, ‘OK, we’re giving and taking; it’s a good deal.’

Agreements have to work for all sides, so there has to be trust.”

‘Two-way street’ Building trust in this new relationship between Hudbay and its First Nation neighbours has sometimes been very difficult, Marsden says of her role as an Aboriginal liaison for the company.

“I’ve come across a lot of harsh terms against me.

I’ve been called a traitor, I’ve been called a spy, I’ve been called a lot things.”

Still, she reminds company officials to listen as much as they talk in community meetings.

“Communication is a two-way street – we have to give it and receive it,” Marsden says. “Keeping communication lines open is one excellent step to a healthy relationship, just like if you’re in a marriage.”

So, she has made it her business to make Hudbay visible and accessible, whether by engaging community members at the Aboriginal friendship centre in Flin Flon, introducing co-workers to their first powwow in Opaskwayak Cree Nation, or participating in a student job fair hosted by the Swampy Cree Tribal Council.

Marsden refers to a common phrase she heard at the Valhalla Inn during the 2014 Ontario Mining Forum: “What does it really mean when you say ‘We’re trying to do ‘meaningful engagement?’ ” she asks. “I think it just means that it’s from the heart and you really mean it.”

In its 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, Hudbay states its ‘community engagement’ goals: build constructive relationships with neighbouring communities and Indigenous peoples, understand and address their concerns, and thereby contribute to quality of life. Doing so, the company has found, facilitates the permitting and approval of new mines and keeps projects on schedule.

south of Sandy Lake since 2013. The junior exploration company is based in Richmond Hill, Ontario, part of the Greater Toronto Area.

“First Nations and exploration companies need to understand each other better,” Webster says during a presentation at the Ontario Mining Forum in June. “In Sandy Lake, community members had no idea what exploration is and on our first visits there we had no idea what a remote First Nation is.”

Webster helped the learning process along by spending 92 days in Sandy Lake during the preceding year, when he held the titles of manager and then vice-president of corporate affairs and community relations for Goldeye.

“None of that is project related; it’s just talking to people,” he says of that time in the community. “It’s not easy. A junior (exploration company) can’t really afford that time but that’s what we’ve got to do.”

Webster’s outreach activities in Sandy Lake have included hosting an information booth during Treaty Day and a community feast, supporting participation of youth hockey teams in the regional Little Bands tournament and making home visits to local elders.

This relationship building is the foundation for Goldeye’s five-year exploration agreement with Sandy Lake, signed last year. “It takes time; there’s no substitute,” Webster explains. “You can’t fly in and fly out one day later and say ‘here, sign this (agreement).’ That’s crazy.”

With so much potentially at stake – use of

By spending so much time in Sandy Lake, Webster says he witnessed firsthand daily challenges people in a remote First Nation can face, such as limited access to health services, but he also experienced the community’s strengths.

“I have visited with a number of elders in the community and had an opportunity to hear many stories about life in Sandy Lake now and in times past,” he says. “I have been invited into people’s homes for feasts, memorials, birthday parties and other gatherings, and the welcome has always been warm and genuine; there is such a strong sense of community. Respect plays an important role in day-to-day life but so

does laughter. I’ve made a lot of real friendships in Sandy Lake.”

While visiting elders, Webster mostly listens but sometimes he talks a bit about Goldeye’s exploration work. At the company’s Treaty Day booth this work was illustrated with the help of a poster and a drill core. And during the Goldeye drilling program last winter, Sandy Lake’s chief and council, along with their band office staff, were given a full tour of the work site. Encouraged by Goldeye, others dropped by for informal tours.

“It’s a learning process for both sides,” Webster says of the relationship between the company and the First Nation, which now owns a small part of Goldeye through the exploration agreement. “The process has to start at the earliest stages of exploration … the very beginning. We certainly haven’t reinvented the wheel in terms of the consultation activities, we’ve just moved it a heckuva lot forward.

Local support at the early stage is crucial for Goldeye to be able to effectively carry out the exploration activities that we hope will lead to the next major gold discovery in northwestern Ontario.”

The drill program last winter started with an elder from Sandy Lake leading a traditional blessing ceremony near the project site.

Participating in the ceremony were Sandy Lake Chief Bart Meekis, councillors and community members, alongside Goldeye staff and contractors. “The ceremony to me signified mutual respect and shared hope,” says Webster.

A couple of months after the winter drilling had stopped, around the time of Sandy Lake’s annual Treaty Day in June, Goldeye sponsored a feast to celebrate a safe drilling period and its positive results, and the community’s support of the project.

“There is a genuine appreciation that our company is taking the time to be involved in the community at such a deep level,” Webster says.

“And working with the people here on a day-today basis, and being a part of something with the potential to create so much opportunity, has been an incredibly positive experience.”

Goldeye personnel and Sandy Lake volunteers served the food at the feast, which included geese and moose meat. Webster was so busy handing out plates to the waves of Sandy Lakers who arrived he didn’t get one himself. He didn’t seem to mind.

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Goldeye Groundwork

Hoping & preparing for Ontario’s next major gold discovery Bryan Phelan Onotassiniik

T

he mineral exploration agreement between Goldeye Explorations and Sandy Lake First Nation had been a long, long time coming.

Robin Luke Webster was just four years old when his father, Blaine, first staked claims near Sandy Lake in 1986. So much time had passed that Robin had gone from bring a pre-schooler to manager of corporate affairs and community relations at Goldeye, where Blaine is chief executive officer.

Sandy Lake hadn’t supported the initial exploration work that followed Goldeye’s claim staking in the ’80s – line cutting, surface geophysics, an airborne geophysical survey and a limited amount of drilling – so the project was put on hold. Goldeye tried to re-activate the project in the early 2000s, but Sandy Lake still wasn’t ready to endorse it. Representatives of the First Nation and Goldeye began to talk with each other at that time, however, and by 2004 the band council had assigned one of its members for liaison with Goldeye.

Finally, in the summer of 2013, Goldeye got the go-ahead to channel sample some of its claims in the Sandy Lake Greenstone belt, part of the First Nation’s traditional lands, and the results showed “significant gold values.” At the suggestion of a Sandy Lake resident, the exploration project name became “Weebigee,” Oji-Cree for the goldeye fish in area waters. And on Nov. 18 that year, Chief Bart Meekis of Sandy Lake and Blaine Webster signed a formal, fiveyear exploration agreement for Weebigee project activities.

Robin, who joined his father at Goldeye as an advisor in 2012, attended the signing, which took place in the council chamber at the Sandy Lake band office. “There was a strong feeling in the room that something very important was taking place,” he recalls. “I remember Deputy Chief Robert Kakegamic saying that we were making history at that moment and I was proud to have played a role.”

Shareholder Of course Goldeye and Sandy Lake hope the future holds the best moments for their partnership in Weebigee.

Upon signing, their exploration agreement entitled Sandy Lake an ownership stake in Goldeye – 500,000 common shares, as of this fall valued at about $30,000 and representing just over one per cent of the total shares. Sandy Lake will gain the same number shares by the end of 2014 and again in 2016, with renewals of the agreement. (Although it’s a five-year agreement, the terms made it subject to renewal at the end of the first and third years, allowing Sandy Lake the chance to evaluate along the way how the exploration is unfolding.) The shares are to be held in a trust established by Sandy Lake First Nation for the benefit of the community.

“The shares may not hold an incredible value at the moment, but they are a seed for the

Goldeye Explorations Limited • Goldeye is an Ontario-based gold/ silver exploration company. Goldeye’s immediate focus is advancing its flagship Weebigee project near Sandy Lake through more exploration and drilling.

• Other Canadian properties maintained

by Goldeye include its Gold Rock project, south of Dryden; West Shining Tree, south of Timmins; and Todd Creek in B.C. (joint venture partner) • In October, Goldeye announced it would drop its Sonia-Puma project in Chile, as a cost-cutting measure that will allow it to focus resources on Weebigee.

future,” says Robin Webster, appointed Goldeye’s president in October. “In the event that a major discovery is made … the shares could be worth a substantial amount.”

If there is such a discovery by Goldeye, chances are it will come at its flagship Weebigee project, since that is currently the focus of all of the company’s exploration efforts. Goldeye has other exploration projects elsewhere in Ontario, and in B.C. and Chile, but none of those is active.

The Weebigee project consists of 363 claim units over about 6,000 acres, covering gold and base metal showings south of the Sandy Lake reserve. There are three distinct areas to the

project: Northwest Arm, Canoxy and Sandborn Bay. All of Goldeye’s exploration work so far has been in Northwest Arm, where visible gold was noted in half of 23 drill holes.

Webster summarizes in one word the drill results there so far: “fantastic.”

Even more importantly, he says, “We believe that they indicate that the area has the potential to host a major gold system. A methodical program of exploration and drilling is necessary.”

It won’t happen quickly or cheaply.

Weebigee is still at a very early stage of exploration, even though Goldeye spent close to $1 million on it in the first nine months of 2014, after exploration expenses the previous year of about $300,00.

Several more years of steady exploration, costing tens of millions of dollars, will be required at Weebigee before there will be enough information to decide whether to build a mine, Webster says. A feasibility study on the economics, which would include engineering and environmental studies, would only be started once exploration at Weebigee is far more advanced.

funding junior exploration projects.”

Still, “We continue to promote the project widely and look forward to resuming exploration shortly,” Webster tells Onotassiniik in October.

As part of attracting investment in Weebigee, Webster says Goldeye and Sandy Lake are trying to show the strength of their relationship, in contrast to conflict elsewhere in northwestern Ontario that has sometimes led to project shutdowns and court cases. Webster’s presentation about Weebigee at the Ontario Mining Forum (a repeat of one made previously at the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto, with Wally Kakepetum and Monias Fiddler of Sandy Lake’s Land and Resources Office) was titled Walking the Path Together. Aside from the five-year exploration agreement and its provision of ownership shares for Sandy Lake, Goldeye is committed to extensive community consultation and outreach for Weebigee, says Webster, and to ensuring increased opportunities and benefits for the community as the project advances.

Instead of flying experienced line-cutters into Sandy Lake for the channel sampling that took place in 2013, for example, Goldeye brought in a trainer to provide a course to about 10 locals for certification in chainsaw use, standard first aid and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials information system). Several of them were then hired to work on Goldeye’s summer program.

“We try to do as much hiring of community members as possible … (for) line-cutting, geophysics, drilling,” Webster says. With more Weebigee project investment will come more training and jobs, he adds.

“It has taken a very long time to get to where we are today but we have laid the groundwork necessary for success.”

Fundraising

Ultimate Goal

To get to that advanced stage, a small junior exploration company like Goldeye has to rely mostly on financing from other investors.

“We don’t have $20 million in the bank,” Webster explains in a presentation at the Ontario Mining Forum this past June in Thunder Bay. In fact Goldeye, which has just two full-time and three part-time employees and hires project staff as needed, was left with only $265,000 when it had finished its drill program last winter.

“Part of the way we continue is people like me put a chunk of each pay cheque back into the company and try to make it work,” Webster says.

Insiders, employees and board members own five per cent of Goldeye’s shares; investment companies hold about 20 per cent; and the remaining 75 per cent are owned by individual investors throughout Canada, including Sandy Lake, and worldwide.

But while Weebigee drill results to date suggest potential for “the next major gold discovery in Ontario,” Webster says, Goldeye wasn’t able to secure the new financing needed for $1.5 million worth of exploration and drilling it had planned for this past summer and fall. With the price of gold having fallen by more than a third since a peak in 2011, “Investors are nervous about

As an exploration and discovery company, not a miner, Goldeye’s goal at Weebigee is to fully explore the area for gold and “make multiple significant discoveries,” Webster says. Such discoveries would, of course, lead to significant financial benefit for Goldeye’s shareholders, including Sandy Lake First Nation.

As the project becomes more advanced, Goldeye will need to bring in partners that have capabilities beyond those of a junior explorer. “Ideally, if we continue to obtain solid (exploration) results, a major company might become interested in partnering with Goldeye,” says Webster. “This process is something that has been discussed at the community level.

Goldeye’s task is to make discoveries and bring in partners who understand the Goldeye-Sandy Lake First Nation relationship and commit to ‘Walking the Path Together.’ ” It’s a path that could eventually lead to a gold mine. “The ultimate goal,” says Webster, “is to see mining activity near Sandy Lake, and mining – done in a socially and environmentally responsible manner – is where the real opportunity for sustainable economic development is.”

[Top of page 10] Representatives of Sandy Lake First Nation council and Goldeye Explorations Limited at the November 2013 signing of their exploration agreement. From left, Coun. Fabian Crowe, Chief Bart Meekis, Deputy Chief Robert Kakegamic, Goldeye CEO Blaine Webster, Goldeye VP (now president) Robin Luke Webster, Head Coun. Wayne Kakepetum, and Coun. Russell Kakepetum.

[Bottom of page 10] A community feast in Sandy Lake, in June, sponsored by Goldeye.

[Above] Dan Dan Meekis of Sandy Lake after working a shift at the drill in February. “I’ve never seen it that cold, 50-below (Celsius), no exaggeration, and ... that’s what he looked like when he came home,” recalls Robin Webster of Goldeye.

[Left] Weebigee Project personnel on the job last winter, from left: Goldeye field technician Nick Bain and senior technical advisor David Jamieson, Minotaur Drilling president Kevin Holmgren, and Sandy Lake members Minashe Rae, Curtis Linklater, and Dan Dan Meekis.

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