In Greenland, mining students have a whole mountain to play with

Hans Hinrichsen, manager of the mining school, at Sanaartornermik Ilinniarfik in Sisimiut, Greenland, speaks to the Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit April 15. Hinrichsen’s school hopes to turn out more than 1,000 trained miners over the coming years. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)

When Greenland’s trade school set about offering a new program to train workers for that country’s mining industry, it decided to offer the ultimate in hands-on experience.

Sanaartornermik Ilinniarfik, based in Sisimiut, Greenland’s second-largest town, is planning to build an actual mine for students to practice their trade, the Nunavut Mining Symposium heard Thursday.

“Why not try and dig in like it’s a real mine?” said Hans Hinrichsen, manager of the mining school. “I think that will be appreciated by the industry.”

The local government granted the school a huge expanse of space, with plenty of rocky hills for students to practice blasting, drilling, road building and all the other skills a modern miner needs to know.

Hinrichsen said the school is located at a quarry, with plenty of mountains to shelter Sisimiut from the resulting noise.

The school, which opened in 2008, is the result of an effort by the Greenlandic government to train as many as 1,200 miners to work in a slew of projects around the country. The self-governing Danish territory has deposits of lead, zinc, gold, precious gems, rare-earth elements and molybdenum.

Sanaartornermik Ilinniarfik offers a 10-week basic training course in English and Greenlandic, after which students pick a specialty in surface mining underground mining or prospecting, Hinrichsen said.

English is a requirement for that course and the school offers a crash course in the language before the basic course starts. Hinrichsen said 60 per cent of students don’t make it through the English classes. But of the 64 students who have, every single one has completed the core course.

“We are taking the cream of the labour force in Greenland right now,” he said. “They’ll all be hired before the summer.”

Hinirchsen said the school is also open to taking students from Nunavut. There are currently 20 spaces per year, and Nunavummiut could fill two or three, he said.

Hinrichsen said he could see Nunavut students suffering from less culture shock in Sisimiut, where students could learn alongside fellow Inuit, than at mining schools in southern Canada. But he added one obstacle is the persistent lack of commercial flights between Nunavut and Greenland.

The school also serves as a backup search and rescue centre for Greenland’s mining industry.

Sanaartornermik Ilinniarfik is buying $4 million worth of heavy equipment for the program and graduates will be internationally certified, Hinrichsen said. A building exclusively for the mining program will open this fall.

The symposium also heard that Nunavut’s trade school, in Rankin Inlet, will open this fall, with applications starting in May, said Michael Shouldice, the dean of Nunavut Arctic College’s Kivalliaq campus.

The $17.6-million school will start by offering eight-week introductory courses in housing maintenance, oil burner mechanics, plumbing and electrical.