Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published March 26, 2011.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Lisa Wright – Business Reporter (Toronto Star)

It has been described as the most significant base metals play in Canada since the lucrative Voisey’s Bay discovery in Labrador nearly 20 years ago.

The giant Ring of Fire deposit of chromite, nickel and copper — located in a remote corner of the James Bay lowlands — was first unveiled with fanfare in 2007. And it was highly touted in the Ontario throne speech last year as a cornerstone of the province’s future prosperity.

“It is the most promising mining opportunity in Canada in a century,” Lieutenant Governor David Onley said a year ago this month.

Superlatives aside, all the players involved have been going full tilt since then trying to get the Ring developed in an area twice the size of Prince Edward Island amid First Nations blockades and an extremely challenging environment that will require a major infrastructure build. Read the rest of this entry »

Wawatay News is Northern Ontario’s First Nation Voice with offices in Sioux Lookout, Timmins and Thunder Bay. This article was posted on their website on March 17, 2011. James Thom is the Editor - jamest@wawatay.on.ca

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Citing rapidly moving development and inadequate involvement for Marten Falls, the community launched its second blockade of the Ring of Fire.

After taking part in a traditional ceremony March 3 at the community’s blockade site on Koper Lake in the James Bay lowlands, Marten Falls Chief Eli Moonias spoke with local and national media about his community’s concerns in the Ring of Fire mineral exploration area. Koper Lake is located about 128 kilometres north of Marten Falls in its traditional territory.

“We feel that the issues here and the development is getting away from us, too far ahead, without our adequate and meaningful involvement,” Moonias said.

The Ring of Fire contains chromite, a rare mineral used to make stainless steel. It falls in the traditional territory of Marten Falls and Webequie.

“We never got to the first stage yet where we have meaningful exploration agreements,” Moonias said during the blockade, adding his community plans to hire a negotiator to work on their concerns. “What we’re saying here is slow down a little bit.” Read the rest of this entry »

Wawatay News is Northern Ontario’s First Nation Voice with offices in Sioux Lookout, Timmins and Thunder Bay. This article was posted on their website on March 17, 2011. James Thom is the Editor - jamest@wawatay.on.ca

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

About 35 years ago, the James Bay Cree communities in Quebec faced similar obstacles and challenges to those facing the Matawa Ring of Fire communities today.

Anthony MacLeod, director of a Cree owned catering and janitorial services company, shared the story of how nine Cree communties banded together to find benefit when Hydro Quebec began damming rivers in their traditional lands to make hydro.

“What they are experiencing now – interest in their land, development likely coming soon – we were experiencing that 30 to 35 years ago,” MacLeod said, speaking at the Matawa First Nations Community Governance & Economic Development Conference March 1-2.

“We have been working with the Matawa communities for two years, showing them models we have as a nation, to show what we went through. It wasn’t all happy and successful. But we recognized we were much stronger as a united group than as individual nations.” Read the rest of this entry »

Wawatay News is Northern Ontario’s First Nation Voice with offices in Sioux Lookout, Timmins and Thunder Bay. This article was posted on their website on March 3, 2011. James Thom is the Editor - jamest@wawatay.on.ca

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Christine Kaszycki is determined to work with First Nations to make sure no one is left out in the cold around the Ring of Fire. Kaszycki, assistant deputy minister for the Ring of Fire Secretariat with the Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry (MNDMF), promised to balance the needs of industry and First Nations if a mine is in production by 2015.

Her job includes “working with the First Nation communities to ensure they have got the capacity they need to meaningfully participate and to ensure they have the right kinds of supports in place to actually engage as this project moves forward,” Kaszycki said.

She said MNDMF is listening to the communities about what they want and need from development to put the right kinds of programs and frameworks in place to allow it to happen. The province recognized the Ring of Fire – located in the traditional lands of Webequie and Marten Falls – as one of the most significant recent discoveries of minerals in the world. Read the rest of this entry »

For a video presentation about the Special Achivement Award, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-special.html

An award for special achievement is being given this year to Laurence Golborne, Mining Minister of Chile, for his management of the rescue operation that saved 33 miners who had been trapped underground for 69 days in the San José copper-gold mine.

An estimated one billion people around the world were riveted to screens on October 12, 2010, as, one by one, the miners were winched to the surface in a 21-inch wide bullet shaped capsule called Phoenix, following a rescue effort that had taken 51 days and is believed to be the deepest ever.

For a video presentation about the Los Sulfatos discovery, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-thayer.html

This award, honouring the memory of one of Canada’s greatest mine finders, recognizes an individual or a team of explorationists credited with a recent significant mineral discovery anywhere in the world. 

An exploration team of Anglo American has been chosen to receive the 2011 Thayer Lindsley Award. The team is being recognized for its discovery of Los Sulfatos copper deposit in Chile, a world-class discovery with an inferred resource of 1,200 Mt @ 1.46% copper and 0.02% molybdenum and a potential resource of 4,000-5,000 Mt @ 0.8-1.0% copper.

The five team members include Graham Brown, group head of geosciences and exploration; Vicente Irarrazaval, regional head of exploration; Juan Carlos Toro, regional copper geologist; Graeme Lyall, senior resource geologist; and William Robles, senior geologist.

For a video presentation about Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-viola.html

This award is named in honour of the PDAC’s longest serving president and is given to a person or company demonstrating leadership in management and financing for the exploration and development of mineral resources.
 
Winner of this year’s Viola R. MacMillan Award is Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited, a company that has developed into a world-class, multi-mine gold producer. An ambitious four-year mine-building program from 2006 on has transformed the company, creating exceptional value for shareholders, employees and host communities. Today Agnico-Eagle, which has been in operation for 53 years, has six operating gold mines in Canada, Finland and Mexico. Its gold reserves have increased significantly, and the company ranks among the top ten gold producers in the world, based on market capitalization.

For a video documentary about Phillip (Jerry) Asp, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-skookum.html

Recipients of this award will have demonstrated exceptional achievement and/or service in an aboriginal-run service business for the Canadian mining industry or a Canadian aboriginal exploration or mining company, or have made a significant individual contribution to the mining industry.
 
Phillip (Jerry) Asp is this year’s winner of the Skookum Jim Award. Asp is being recognized for promoting mining’s benefits to aboriginal communities in British Columbia. A former Chief of the Tahltan Band Council, Asp established the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation to provide construction and maintenance services to northern BC mines. The company became the largest aboriginal-owned and operated heavy construction company in western Canada.

Jerry negotiated two mining impact and benefits agreements, the first for the Golden Bear mine that set the template for later Tahltan projects, and the second for the Eskay Creek mine. Jerry is a founding member of the National Indian Businessman’s Association and the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association, of which he serves as vice president. He was a major contributor to the award-winning Mining Information Toolkit for Aboriginal Communities.

For a video documentary of Mrs. Dillon, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-distinguished.html

This award recognizes an individual who has achieved one or more of the following: made a substantial contribution to mineral exploration and mining development over a number of years; given considerable time and effort to the PDAC; made outstanding contributions to the mineral industry in the field of finance, geology, geophysics, geochemistry research, or a related activity. 

Patricia Dillon is this year’s recipient of the PDAC’s Distinguished Service Award. Mrs. Dillon is being honoured for her many and exemplary contributions to the PDAC and to the Canadian mineral industry, especially to its education and human resources initiatives. Patricia served as a PDAC director for 15 years and as the association’s president from 2006 to 2008. She is also a past president of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum and is the only person to have been president of both associations.

Patricia has charted the course for PDAC Mining Matters, a highly successful educational program. She is a director of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, past-president of the Minerals and Economics Management Society, a director of the Ontario Mining Association, and past-chair of the Minerals and Metals Industry Sector Study Steering Committee, which oversaw research on human resource needs in Canada’s mineral industry.

For a video documentary of IAMGOLD Corporation’s CSR program, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-environmental.html

This award honours an individual or organization demonstrating outstanding initiative, leadership and accomplishment in protecting and preserving the natural environment and/or in establishing good community relations during an exploration program or operation of a mine.

 The PDAC has selected IAMGOLD Corporation to receive the Environmental & Social Responsibility Award for the company’s commitment to excellence in environmental stewardship, community engagement, and health and safety, particularly during exploration. IAMGOLD has operating mines and exploration projects in West Africa, South America and Québec.

The company’s frameworks for health and safety management and sustainability are informed by international standards and good practices (including the PDAC’s e3 Plus) and are used to create performance criteria and measurable results for all of its operations. The company was the top extractive company and third overall in the 2010 Globe and Mail’s ranking of environmental and social and governance performance of Canada’s largest companies in the S&P/TSX 60 Index.

For a video documentary of Shawn Ryan’s disovery, please go here: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/programs/awards/award-winners-video-dennis.html

This award, named for a former president of the association, honours individuals who have accomplished one or both of the following: made a significant mineral discovery; made an important contribution to the prospecting and/or exploration industry. The award may also be used to recognize an important mineral discovery in Canada. 
 
Prospector Shawn Ryan wins this year’s Bill Dennis Award for his gold discoveries in Yukon. Ryan worked for close to 15 years to locate the source of the alluvial gold found in the Klondike gold fields. In 2004 he identified the anomaly that led Underworld Resources to its White Gold deposit and a subsequent $138-million takeover by Kinross. Ryan’s efforts and eventual success have had a positive impact on exploration in the Yukon, with a six-fold increase in exploration spending from $30 million at the beginning of this decade to an estimated $183 million in 2010.

Ryan worked for close to 15 years to locate the source of the alluvial gold that sparked the Klondike gold rush more than a century ago. In 2004 he identified the anomaly that led Underworld Resources to its White Gold deposit and a subsequent $138-million takeover by Kinross Gold Corporation. Ryan’s efforts and prospecting success have had a substantial impact on exploration in Yukon, stimulating renewed exploration interest and activity in the territory.