A new mine? This Nunavut town says it’s ready

“We’re based on business. That’s Rankin Inlet.”

By JIM BELL

The exploration camp at Meliadine, about 25 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet. By 2014 or 2015, Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. hopes to turn this site into a producing gold mine. (PHOTO COURTESY OF AGNICO-EAGLE)


The exploration camp at Meliadine, about 25 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet. By 2014 or 2015, Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. hopes to turn this site into a producing gold mine. (PHOTO COURTESY OF AGNICO-EAGLE)

Pujjuut Kusugak, the mayor of Rankin Inlet, says his community is


Pujjuut Kusugak, the mayor of Rankin Inlet, says his community is “a place of opportunity” because of its geographic location and its entrepreneurial population. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

Inspired by what they’ve seen in the neighbouring community of Baker Lake, the people of Rankin Inlet now say they’re prepared for the benefits that the long-awaited Meliadine gold mine would bring their community.

“Rankin Inlet is a place of opportunity. People are wanting to go to Rankin Inlet to find opportunity,” Pujjuut Kusugak, the mayor of Rankin Inlet, said April 7 at the Nunavut Mining Symposium.

Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. acquired Meliadine, located about 25 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet, from Comaplex Minerals Corp. in July 2010 and hopes to turn its new property into a producing gold mine by 2014 or 2015.

Kusugak said Rankin Inlet is an ideal location for such a project, because of its history, its spirit and “its legacy of skilled workers.”

That’s because, unlike almost every other community in Nunavut, Rankin Inlet owes its very existence to mining.

The town grew up around the site of the North Rankin Nickel Mine, which operated between 1957 and 1962. Seventy per cent of its workers were Inuit, many of them monolingual.

Now, Kusugak said, a new mine at Meliadine would help his community flourish once again.

He predicts, for example, that Rankin Inlet will add between 400 and 600 people to its current population of 2,800.

And to keep the new mine’s benefits within the community, Kusugak said 120 registered businesses now operate in Rankin Inlet and the community’s bustling airport already serves as “the hub of Nunavut.”

Damian McInnis, Rankin Inlet’s economic development officer, said he sees Rankin Inlet “on the cusp of a boom.”

“We’re based on business. That’s Rankin Inlet. If you want a piece of the pie, Rankin Inlet is the place to be,” McInnis said.

The community’s hamlet council supports an all-weather road from Rankin to the mine site, the constructon of which could start this fall if the project receives a permit, McInnis said.

At the same time, regional organizations like the Kivalliq Inuit Association and the Kivalliq Wildlife Board have written letters of support, he said.

A key element in delivering benefits from mining to local people is education and training for the young and for adult workers — but several speakers said Nunavut must do far more than it’s doing now.

To plug the training gap, people in Rankin Inlet and across the Kivalliq region have come together to create their own fledgling training infrastructure with the help of government.

Those efforts have produced:

• an enterpreneurship course at the high school in Rankin Inlet;

• a new trades training school in Rankin Inlet; and

• a regional collaboration called the Kivalliq Mine Training Society, comprised of the GN, Nunavut Arctic College, the Kivalliq Inuit Association and Agnico-Eagle.

But a big financial cloud now hangs over the mine training society, threatening it with extinction.

Kevin Bussey, the executive director of the mine training society, said April 7 that the federal program that pays for most of it, the Aborginal Skills and Employment Program, is scheduled to expire in 2012.

“We’ve been told to wind down our program,” Bussey told delegates at the Nunavut Mining Symposium.

So far, Bussey said, the regional society has brokered various forms of training for about 150 clients.

About 70 of those people have gone on to jobs at the Meadowbank gold mine, whose owner, Agnico-Eagle is a member and supporter of the training group.

But instead of winding down, the mine training society should be looking at expansion, Bussey said, into a “Nunavut Mine Training Society” — given the large mine projects now in the works for all three Nunavut regions.

“In the past we’ve been playing catch-up. We’ve been going where the puck is and all of a sudden it’s not there anymore,” Bussey said.

Paul Quassa, the acting mayor of Igloolik, a community that’s now preparing for the Mary River iron mine, agreed with Bussey.

“We need the three regions co-operating,” Quassa said.

Symposium delegates also received information on the financial benefits that the Meadowbank mine now delivers to Baker Lake, and which give a strong indication of the benefits that could soon be headed in Rankin Inlet’s direction.

Graeme Dargo, who works as a consultant for Agnico-Eagle, said the Meadowbank mine employes 242 Inuit whose pay cheques add $16 million a year to the local and regional economy.

And of the $1.26 billion that Agnico-Eagle has invested to develop the Meadowbank mine, $347 million has gone to Nunavut-based suppliers, Dargo said.

In a set of goods and supplies contract awards announced last month, Agnico-Eagle gave 82 per cent of the work to Baker Lake companies, about $3.3 million worth, while awarding only $715,000 worth to southern companies.

“It’s just awesome. It’s going really well,” Dargo said.

Alain Hamel of Agnico-Eagle said the company has developed a “fair, transparent and competitive” contracting process for work at the Meadowbank mine.

“The policy has been well-received by Inuit companies in the Kivalliq,” Hamel said.

Hamlet officials from Rankin Inlet say their community is now ideally positioned for economic growth. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)


Hamlet officials from Rankin Inlet say their community is now ideally positioned for economic growth. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

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