Canadian Geographic

RING OF FIRE

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“Peatlands are the world’s refrigerat­ors, and the Hudson Bay Lowlands is the biggest one,” says Riley. “In Europe, I show ecologists photos of the lowlands and they can’t believe the scale of it. Because of course they destroyed all of their peatlands long ago.” Riley worries that the unique location of the Ring of Fire, at the core of a hitherto undisturbe­d refuge for all of its original wildlife species, is being largely ignored in the rush of excitement about riches. He believes the project delays provide the perfect opportunit­y to set aside some protected areas and conservati­on reserves. “In the case of the Ring of Fire, almost all discussion to date has focused on developmen­t issues, with almost no discussion of environmen­tal protection,” says Riley. “Canadians must stop being the imperialis­ts of their landscapes — as it has been so often in the history of resource developmen­t — and become the land’s stewards first and foremost.” It was in this environmen­t that De Beers built Ontario’s first diamond mine, just south of the Attawapisk­at River. The open-pit Victor diamond mine, which went into production in 2008, can be seen on Google Earth (52.8239, -83.8936) with its airstrip on the north end and its tailings pit to the west. It was from there that geologists, following the diamondric­h kimberlite west of Victor, found new riches wherever they drilled. First it was nickel deposits — the biggest high-grade nickel discovery in more than 20 years. And then in 2008 they stumbled upon the largest chromite deposit in North America. (Chromite is used in stainless steel production and has only three current sources in the world.) De Beers has been criticized for building a diamond mine in the wetlands in the same way it might build one on the tundra, without adequate berms and other protection for the environmen­t downstream. So when Noront Resources took on the task of designing its nickel mine, west of Victor, it wanted to learn from De Beers’ experience and do things differentl­y. The initial concept for all the planned mines in the area began with an open-pit design, in which the “overburden” of plants and animals would be scraped away to expose the Precambria­n rock beneath. Noront held open houses in the Matawa communitie­s to explain its plans and hear concerns. “Almost invariably, they were concerned about water, waste rock piles and tailings. So we went back to our planning phase and redesigned the mine,” says Noront’s CEO Alan Coutts. The resulting design is almost entirely undergroun­d with very few surface structures at all, leaving the muskeg undisturbe­d. Noront also contrived to put all its tailings back in the ground where they

came from. Tailings are the primary legacy of a mine, and in the past few decades, mines have started to mix them with cement and funnel them into spent shafts as backfill. But the process of grinding up the leftover rock into powder swells it in volume, so only about twothirds of those leftovers can be jammed in before they begin to overflow. “Then we realized that we would need a rock quarry anyway for building the allseason road, so why not put that quarry undergroun­d, making extra space for the rest of the tailings,” says Coutts. After two or three years, the plan is to use the Eagle’s Nest proceeds to tunnel over to a nearby site that holds enough chrome ore to supply 40 per cent of North American demand. As is often the case with large-scale projects, however, initial timing estimates proved optimistic, and there have already been significan­t delays. First and foremost, the all-weather road is critical to the developmen­t of the region. Ice roads have been failing recently, with the window in which to transport goods by truck contractin­g to just two or three weeks, and diesel fuel for the community generators often must be flown in at great expense. The new all-season road would trace the decades-old winter route that stretches 280 kilometres from Webequie to Pickle Lake — but it is also expected to see intense traffic, carrying up to 100 seventy-tonne truck loads per day when the mines are in production. “So much depends on the ability to get roads into the region,” says Coutts. “Everyone wants this infrastruc­ture in this case, but there are still the questions of where does it go and whose traditiona­l lands will it pass through.”

“THERE ARE DIFFERENCE­S

of opinion that still have to be addressed,” says Achneepine­skum. “The mining companies keep things close to their chest. I can see why, but they need to be trustful and honest and try to build that relationsh­ip. They have to be more open with us.” The transition into jobs in the Ring of Fire will be challengin­g. To join that wage economy in roles such as heavy equipment operator or exploratio­n camp cook, a minimum Grade 12 level of formal education is required. The trouble is, none of the nine Matawa communitie­s has the numbers to sustain a high school. More than 200 students from those communitie­s are studying in Thunder Bay at any given time, living with billeting families. Most do not have enough support in place to graduate, and they return to their communitie­s without a diploma. At home, many of those high schoolage students have lived under a boilwater advisory for most of their lives. Problems with an improperly installed water treatment facility in Webequie have kept the community from clean tap water for upward of a decade, and a similarly long-lasting boil-water advisory in Marten Falls is the result of 120 households relying on a treatment plant built for 40 homes. In the meantime, the federal government has spent more than two million dollars flying in bottled water. Another barrier to community developmen­t — not to mention general health and well-being — is the widespread addiction to prescripti­on opioids Percocet and Oxycontin. More than a hundred people, a sizable proportion of the adult population of Webequie, had enrolled in the suboxone program offered by mining company Cliffs Natural Resources

‘Canadians must stop being the imperialis­ts of their landscapes and become the land’s stewards rst and foremost.’

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 ??  ?? Northern Ontario wetlands, east of Pickle Lake ( left) and south of Webequie ( right): part of a globally important carbon sink.
Northern Ontario wetlands, east of Pickle Lake ( left) and south of Webequie ( right): part of a globally important carbon sink.
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