Baffinland’s massive railway-based sealift raises concerns in Pond Inlet
“Is Baffinland assuming that behind our backs NIRB or government has pre-approved the project?”
The cargo vessel Biglift Barentsz docked at Bremerhaven, Germany, last summer. On top of the deck you can see two prefabricated buildings, 33 and 34 metres high, that Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. acquired from ThyssenKrupp and shipped to the Mary River mine site this summer. Two smaller buildings sit on the aft end of the deck. They’re for use in the company’s railway-based expansion project, which regulators haven’t approved yet. (Photo © Thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions)
Correction added Oct. 17, 4:45 p.m.
Community leaders in Pond Inlet are unhappy about a massive sealift of railway materials that Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. transported to its Mary River iron mine site this summer.
They’re concerned because, to get an early start on its big railway-based phase two expansion plan, which regulators have not yet approved, Baffinland sent two huge 10-storey pre-fabricated buildings from Bremerhaven, Germany, to the company’s port at Milne Inlet on north Baffin Island this summer.
They also shipped two smaller prefab buildings and large amounts of railway-construction materials, such as tracks and spikes.
Baffinland, as early as November 2018, told regulators and its partners at the Qikiqtani Inuit Association about the shipments, through written documents buried inside the public registries of the Nunavut Impact Review Board and the Nunavut Water Board.
But people in Pond Inlet are only finding out about it now.

The Biglift Barentsz approaches Baffinland’s port at Milne Inlet this past August, carrying big prefabricated buildings for use in the company’s railway-based expansion. When people in Pond Inlet saw the vessel pass by their community, it was the first they had heard of the shipment. Two more vessels carrying railway-based material arrived later, and more shipments are to arrive in the summer of 2020. ((Photo courtesy of ThyssenKrupp)
“We’ve just been finding out over the past three or four weeks. We see these things [ships] passing by Pond Inlet being shipped up,” Joshua Arreak, manager of the Mittimatalik hunters and trappers organization, told Nunatsiaq News
“We wondered why and who and how they were doing that. There is no explanation whatsoever from NIRB [Nunavut Impact Review Board], QIA [Qikiqtani Inuit Association] or anyone. We were caught by surprise by this,” Arreak said.
“We have not heard from QIA or NIRB. I don’t know. It’s within the Inuit organizations that we are having problems. They are not communicating with us,” he said.
NIRB acknowledged sealift earlier this year
No Nunavut regulator and no federal government minister has said yes to Baffinland’s phase two expansion plan, which would see a 110-kilometre railway between Milne Inlet and Mary River, a doubling of ore production to 12 million tonnes a year, and nearly 200 voyages annually by huge ore-carrying vessels.
The project can’t be formally approved by the federal government until after a final public hearing before the NIRB that’s set to start this Nov. 2 in Iqaluit and finish up Nov. 8 and Nov. 9 in Pond Inlet.
The NIRB, which did not seek comment on the issue from stakeholders, acknowledged the early sealift of railway materials in a letter sent to Baffinland this past July 25.
The NIRB warned the company that if its phase two plan is not approved, it would be up to Baffinland to remove the materials, likely worth many millions of dollars, from the site.
They also said the sealift will not affect NIRB’s decision-making on the file.
In an email sent Oct. 17, NIRB’s executive director, Ryan Barry, clarified that there is no legal mechanism for NIRB to either approve or prevent the sealift activity.
“The NIRB was left to instead point out that these activities would continue to be included in the ongoing assessment and all related materials could be subject to removal if the proposal is not approved to proceed at the conclusion of the Board’s assessment,” Barry wrote.

Here’s an aerial view of the Biglift Barentsz. This past summer the vessel carried prefabricated buildings to Milne Inlet for use in Baffinland’s railway-based expansion. (Photo courtesy of ThyssenKrupp)
One of the structures, described as a “crusher building,” is 33 metres high, 23.5 metres wide and weighs 1,470 tonnes. Another one, described as a “screen building,” is 34 metres high.
That makes each building, part of a prefabricated crushing and screening plant, roughly equal in height to a 10-storey apartment building—likely higher than any other enclosed structure in the eastern Arctic.
But Baffinland does not yet have permission to use them.
“Baffinland will clearly mark the equipment as ‘Phase 2 only—Do Not Use’ until such a time that the Phase 2 Proposal reconsideration process has been finalized,” the company wrote last July 19 in a report to the NIRB.
Materials stored on Inuit-owned land
In joint submissions to regulators, QIA and Baffinland say the materials would be stored on Inuit-owned land, subject to the terms of QIA’s commercial lease agreement with the company.
For Arreak and others, the process so far suggests Baffinland may believe approval of the project is already a done deal.
“Pond Inlet people are not happy. Is Baffinland assuming that behind our backs NIRB or government has pre-approved the project? I don’t know,” he said.
Frank Tester, a technical advisor to the Hamlet of Pond Inlet, received permission from the mayor of Pond Inlet, Joshua Katsak, to speak to Nunatsiaq News on behalf of the hamlet.
“Baffinland does indeed seem to have acted on the assumption that they would get approval for Phase 2,” Tester said in an emailed statement.
“Whether NIRB had any powers with regard to this matter, the net effect is to give the impression that it puts pressure on NIRB with respect to its responsibilities and saying ‘yes’ to the proposal. This is of concern,” Tester said on behalf of the hamlet.
“Technicalities aside, the hamlet is of the opinion that this should not have happened. This was clearly driven purely by financial considerations and assumptions made by Baffinland about approval for Phase 2,” he wrote.
“Our main concern is animals, the mammals and the marine environment. We would be the most affected community. That’s our concern. Money won’t bring back the animals,” Joshua Arreak said on behalf of the hunters and trappers, stating an oft-repeated message that Pond Inlet has made for years in response to the marine transport component of Baffinland’s plan.
As for the non-governmental organization Oceans North, an intervenor at the upcoming public hearing on Baffinland’s expansion plan, they say they support “responsible development” of the Mary River mine.
But they also say Baffinland may be shipping too much ore too fast without a full appreciation of its environmental impact, and they’re critical of Baffinland’s decision to ship large quantities of ore out of Milne Inlet rather than Steensby Inlet to the south, which they were permitted to do back in 2012.
“I am not surprised that community members are upset that large shipments of rail equipment have arrived at Milne Inlet in advance of regulatory approval for this expansion,” said Chris Debicki, the vice president of policy development and counsel for Oceans North.
Prefab system acquired from ThyssenKrupp
These materials that are being shipped to Milne Inlet are part of a prefabricated railway-based material handling system that Baffinland acquired from the ThyssenKrupp conglomerate in Germany.
The two big buildings, which arrived first, were assembled in Bremerhaven, while a third structure, a rail-car unloading station, was assembled in Stettin, Poland, ThyssenKrupp said in a news release.
Baffinland has also transported a ship loader, a conveyor belt system and numerous other materials for use in a railway transportation system.
The list of materials that Baffinland filed with the NIRB and the NWB includes railway ties, bundles of rails, along with track spikes and tie plates.
ThyssenKrupp’s first shipment for Baffinland, on a vessel called the BigLift Barentsz, amounted to 5,500 tonnes of material, departing from Bremerhaven in early August.
Two more cargo ships delivered more materials this past summer, with more to follow in the summer of 2020, ThyssenKrupp said.
In a deal with QIA, Baffinland has agreed to put an extra $18 million into a reclamation security fund set aside to clean up the Mary River site if and when the project ends, NWB documents state.
An earlier version of this story contained incorrect information. The Nunavut Impact Review Board does not have the legal ability to either approve or prevent Baffinland’s sealift activities. Their letter pointed out that Baffinland carries the risk of having to remove materials from the site if the phase two expansion is not approved.
190719 08MN053 Sealift Mgmt... by NunatsiaqNews on Scribd
Its a crap shoot. These are not items you can get Costco to ship up. The lead time is significant and would set back the project years which would have an economic impact on the region. If the community does not want the services that resource revenue would provide then shut down the whole project.
The only way to protect the environment to the satisfaction of those affected to remove all the southern influences that impact the fish and animals.
I’m sorry I sound cynical but I had this discussion with Abe Ookpik years ago. If the northerners want the convenience and toys then they will have to move into the 21st century. We agreed that northerners will have to make lifestyle concessions to have more services. I’m sorry the hunters and trappers feel threatened but they also rely on southern tech, snowmobiles, gas, firearms and search and rescue when things go wrong.
/rant
It really ticks me off when I see this argument about Inuit relying on “Southern tech” such as snowmobiles and search and rescue. Tell me Steve, why do you feel that yourself and the South have proprietary ownership of technology that is available to all Canadians? There is no social contract that states that anyone has to give up anything in order to access things that belong to us all as Canadians. You are wrong to think this and you should take a long look at your feelings towards Inuit.
P.S. I don’t think you invented Snowmobiles but if you did I retract everything .
This is no different then how QIA was adding units to new modular hotel i iqaluit while they still did not have city approval for water hookup. So maybe its nunavut wide thing to build first, wait to approval later? Happens all the time with the construction companies, they “assume”, they will have all their variances approved.
“Driven by purely financial considerations” should come at no surprise. It is a business. The risks of not gaining approval and having to ship these things back have obviously been considered as less than the risk of losing a season of construction if approval is gained. Risking capital is what businesses do. How is that so hard to understand?
Yes they’re a financially motivated for-profit organization. But the bigger question here should be what happens if somehow no approval is granted for these activities and materials have to be sent back…are the costs of that shipping (and for those infrastructure materials likely on some kind of a capital loan) being paid for by Baffinland, or will they come out of Nunavut’s royalties for the project??!!
As the old saying goes ” It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission”.
Anybody who’s surprised by this must have their head in the sand. This is the way of doings things that governments and businesses consider “consultation”. Instead of consulting ahead of the fact to get information and opinions before deciding on what to do, they decide what they’re going to do, then “consult”, and then “mitigate”. But they’re always going to do it their way.
Not much more can be said, the people here have had plenty of time to comment on all of this…how could they think this would not happen?
correction: neither QIA or NIRB asked for people to comment on this aspect.
Not sure how three empty processing buildings will negatively affect either marine or terrestrial wildlife. That being said Baffinland is definitely jumping the gun and presupposing NIRB’s decision.
That’s because the Minister of *Northern Affairs* can either say yes or no to this project. Even if the people are against it.
And we signed it away on our land claims. It’s a catch 22 with an advantage on CAD side.
Sucks to be an NLCA Inuk, they have no say as they gave away their aboriginal rights. Now, their land and sea are being pillaged by development for meager royalties. Inuit were rob, even by their own peers. Is this what John Amagoalik and other negotiators saw when they encourage Inuit to sign off their rights? This collective agreement didn’t really help Inuit except those who work for NTI, their departments, their organizations, their families, and their friends.
Are the editors softening the title of the article? Before today is was sealift angers pond inlet. Today it is raises concern. Not rewriting history, but if the article is to be renamed, are we not entitled to a footnote to explain the change? There is a lost of space between concern and anger.
grr spell check lot of space between …
Steve L
The editors are not softening. It says; Correction added Oct. 17, 4:45 p.m.
I am from Pond Inlet and Mittimatalik HTO went on local radio to say they were misquoted by the newspaper. Community leaders in Pond Inlet are unhappy about a massive sealift not angry.