‘Exciting day’ at Goose Lake as Nunavut’s fourth mine begins production
New B2Gold facility expected to produce 310,000 ounces of gold a year
B2Gold CEO Clive Johnson and Kitikmeot Inuit Association vice-president Attima Hadlari cut the ribbon Thursday during the grand opening of Goose Mine. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Goose Mine is expected to produce an average of 310,000 ounces of gold annually for at least nine years, says B2Gold CEO Clive Johnson. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
More than 300 people gathered Thursday at a big white tent in the middle of the Kitikmeot tundra to celebrate the grand opening of Nunavut’s newest gold mine.
“You are now part of Canadian mining history,” William Lytle, B2Gold’s senior vice-president and chief operating officer told the crowd.
Many were wearing B2Gold baseball caps made to mark the long-awaited occasion.
Goose Mine is located in the Back River area, about 400 kilometres south of Cambridge Bay. It was first identified as a potential gold mine site in 1982.
After a decades-long approval process, ownership change and three years of construction, the mine was ready for its first gold pour in July and a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday.
The mine is expected to produce roughly 310,000 ounces of gold annually for at least nine years, said B2Gold CEO Clive Johnson in an interview, adding that the site’s lifespan could be up to 14 years.
He also announced that the company will contribute $10 million to Nunavut Housing Corp. to build housing in the Kitikmeot Region, which brought the room to a standing ovation.
Dignitaries who flew up to the mine from Yellowknife were given a bus tour of the site that includes two open pits for above-ground mining, a power plant, fuel tanks and a mill for grinding ore.
Along with Nunavut leaders, the event brought together dozens of B2Gold employees from South Africa, England, United Arab Emirates and Russia, forming the “United Nations” of B2Gold, Johnson quipped.
However, the company’s hope is that the majority of its Goose Mine employees are going to be Inuit.
“That’s one of our highest priorities,” Johnson said in an interview.
Currently, 200 out of 1,150 mine employees are Inuit.
Along with the Goose Lake project, the company, headquartered in Vancouver, has four other gold mines worldwide including sites in Mali, the Philippines, Namibia, and Colombia.
But the Nunavut project is one of the most promising ones, Johnson said.
In 2025, the company budgeted $85.6 million for “corporate exploration”— money the company plans to use to find new sites for gold mining.
Out of that budget, more than half — $44 million — is set aside for further exploration of an 80-kilometre belt in the Goose Lake area.
With Goose Mine in production, there are four operating mines in Nunavut — Meliadine and Meadowbank gold mines in the Kivalliq Region and Mary River iron mine, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region.
Nunavut leaders had many words to laud the launch of the new mine.
Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok called it a “special moment” for the territory.
The Goose Mine is located about 400 kilometres south of Cambridge Bay. (File image)
David Akeeagok, the minister responsible for mining, called it an “exciting day” that will help grow Nunavut’s gross domestic product.
The mining sector did just that in 2024, helping to grow the territory’s economy by 7.5 per cent, according to numbers released earlier this year by Statistics Canada.
And Nunavut MP Lori Idlout noted that even though she is usually critical of mining and still has some environmental concerns, visiting the B2Gold mine was “generally a positive experience.”
“I think an event like this is really good to remove the stigma around mining,” said Hudson Lester, the Nunavut general manager for N.W.T. & Nunavut Chamber of Mines.
“For the longest time, it was the older gentlemen that just wanted to destroy land and take whatever it had. It’s not like that anymore.”
just googled , price of gold today . $4750 / ounce , money money !!!!
> Currently, 200 out of 1,150 mine employees are Inuit… …However, the company’s hope is that the majority of its Goose Mine employees are going to be Inuit…
The population of Cambridge Bay is 1,800 and change. And that’s old, young, Inuit and non-Inuit. The company will have to actively seek out and fly in employees from other dispersed, remote, communities to meet their goal. It’s going to be a logistical puzzle that will make hitting that “highest priority” of a majority Inuit workforce a significant and ongoing challenge for B2Gold.
Other mines already do this. Nothing new.
They hire all from the east coast and all foreigners for cleaning staff very few local people from nunavik and treat the local workers very bad
Meadowbank is starting to close down operations and there are over 200 highly trained Inuit working there. When Meadowbank shuts down at least they will have another job to apply for.
The mining company would not need to invest too much into training these workers and would save money by hiring them.
You mean like all the mines in Nunavut have done for years?
What about Procurement/Supply Opportunities with Respect to Everyday Mining Consumables Required for Everyday Operation of Both Underground & Open Pit Mining. We are Well Established, Experienced & Ready to Help but as we are Not in The Far North, Get Very Little Opportunity To Supply Top Quality Products.
So with the companies goal of inuit employment there is no reason why every able bodied person of working age be unemployed. . There are more jobs than people. What kind of excuse can one find to avoid making a decent living . Now let’s also avoid the usual “all the money will go south” you can do your part to keep the wealth local
I agree with you 100 %
“Anyone who can’t find work isn’t looking hard enough.”
Hard when your 23 years old, have 2 or 3 kids, and dont trust your gf to not get bothered while ur gone to work. Same story over n over. Mines know this all to well eh.
1 Billion dollars in wages from Nunavut went south last year along with 1 billion dollars of contracts to southern contractors,
If $1B in wages earned in Nunavut went south last year, what that means is that thousands of southern Canadians paid their Federal income tax to Ottawa, and Ottawa gave some of it to the GN (around $3B a year), to pay for public services up here.
What $1B in wages earned in Nunavut by southern workers also means the GN got to collect close to $50M in payroll tax, which again, they go to use to pay for public services up here.
If $1B in contracts were earned in Nunavut by southern contractors, what that means is that hundreds of Canadian companies paid Federal corporate tax, Ottawa took that money and gave some of it to GN to pay for public services up here.
Wages and Contracts earned by non-Nunavummuit can be considered a direct loss to our economy. Another way of looking at it is whether or not you are from Nunavut, if you can make a living up here, that is a net contributor to our territorial well being.
I like to work in core cutting
Congratulations
Let’s see… with $$$$ there comes a lot of not so welcome, not beneficial, not community friendly things. Things such as the ubiquitous hard drug culture. It is fertile ground where money flows. Be prepared as the Boy Scouts org says, crickets!
Interesting development, albeit it took 30 years to get the price to a point where it is feasible to mine this vein…three more we picked around that chunk of land…mostly due to our diamond mines getting stolen by the NWT.
With this one mine, couple of nearby veins will become feasible prior to the other bigger leases getting developed. There were many occurrences of gold in the volcanic belts, but quite a few were not feasible on their own.
Interestingly, the volcanic rocks used for pots and stuff turned out to be adjacent to many claims/leases and future finds from that time. Turns out some serpentine and types of carving stone can also be full of precious stuff, other than the preciousness of carvings.
I wonder if these mines and the employees have to worry about unions destroying all of this as usual. We sure don’t want YK union attitude up here. Or union executive members threatening people as one did to me and my family in Iqaluit.