Nanisivik town site ready for bulldozing

SARA MINOGUE

The Nunavut Water Board has given Breakwater Resources Ltd. the go-ahead for a $9.9 million demolition plan for the Nanisivik town site.

Executive director Philippe di Pizzo approved the plan in a July 6 letter that outlines the terms and conditions under which the cleanup must take place.

That means Breakwater will start demolishing buildings this summer and should finish the project by fall, 2005.

The Government of Nunavut has already turned down offers to buy much-needed infrastructure from Breakwater.

Bill Heath, vice-president of Breakwater, was surprised by the GN’s decision not to buy any of the buildings left on the site.

“We were of the view that there was still some life left in those buildings.

We’ve been trying very, very hard for almost five years to find some alternative purpose for Nanisivik that would allow the infrastructure to stay in place.”

Heath was at the public hearing in Arctic Bay on June 3 and 4 when many residents expressed dismay at the idea of losing valuable infrastructure.

The site, now vacant, contains the empty remnants of a small town, with a gym, a swimming pool, houses, a school, a library and a dormitory.

“It’s really the people of Arctic Bay who are going to pay the biggest price for that decision,” Heath says. “Arctic Bay doesn’t have an awful lot by way of services and when you’ve got things like a swimming pool as close to Arctic Bay as we have in Nanisivik, and we’re just going to have to get rid of it, that’s got to be disheartening for them.”

Arctic Bay will not be getting any of the empty buildings left at the Nanisivik town site, but residents are still hoping to get something useful out of the former zinc mine before it disappears.

Four Government of Nunavut employees will travel to Arctic Bay July 12 and 13 to discuss the possibility of using the clean-up exercise to offer training to some Arctic Bay residents.

Mishak Allurut of Arctic Bay says the committee intends to discuss a proposal that asks the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs to pay for training during reclamation work in Nanisivik, as well as “ways to mitigate the impact of the closure.”

Allurut represented the hamlet of Arctic Bay on the committee until he left his hamlet job to join the Qiqiktani Inuit Association three weeks ago.

If the concept is approved, the committee will talk about starting apprenticeship programs or mechanical training that could take place as the clean-up gets underway.

The GN employees traveling to Arctic Bay are all members of the social-economic sub-committee of the inter-departmental Nanisivik working group. While the working group has been disbanded, the sub-committee still holds monthly meetings, usually by teleconference, with its counterparts in Arctic Bay.

This meeting will give the people of Arctic Bay a final chance to get a say on what happens at Nanisivik before everything, including the roads and culverts around the town, is demolished.