When Greenstone Economic Development Corporation executive director Dina Quenneville wanted to show community and business leaders how their area can be transformed by mining, she took them on a road trip to the Red Lake gold camp.
Mine expansion at Goldcorp has attracted an army of contractors and new businesses along McNeely Road in Balmertown, which has become mining suppliers' row.
With available space at a premium in Red Lake, the Greenstone group saw that the influx of new industry players has spurred development of a business park and a retail-commercial subdivision.
“This community (Greenstone) used to do this many years ago,” said Quenneville, alluding to the gold producton in the Geraldton- Beardmore camp that petered out in the late 1960s, early 1970s.
Quenneville has the job to get key Greenstone companies, investors and politicians turned on to the wide-ranging economic spinoff opportinities in mining.
Mineral development in the Far North Ring of Fire would attract a slew of builders, developers and suppliers to Greenstone if the James Bay lowlands open up.
Greenstone, an amalgamated rural municipality of seven communities northeast of Thunder Bay, has gotten an economic taste of what exploration can do for an area with a string of high-grade gold discoveries projects in the Geraldton-Beardmore area that could soon evolve into operating mines.
In a region that was devastated by job losses in the forestry industry, Quenneville said many junior miners have hired locals, and companies that once supplied and hauled equipment for the sawmills are doing the same for the exploration outfits.
“Now we need to get into preparation for the next wave.”
One of Greenstone's smallest communities, Nakina, is being proposed by Cliffs Natural Resources and KWG Resources as a major transload for chromite ore that will come south by rail or truck from deposits in the Ring of Fire.
Nakina sprang out of the bush in the 1920s as a railroad repair and refuelling stop along the Canadian National Railway's (CN) main line.
Although CN's local presence is reduced to historic relics of that era, rail may be a saviour again to the isolated community of 500 at the north end of Highway 584.
KWG has staked a proposed 350-kilometre long railway corridor that snakes south over the glacial sand banks to connect with CN at Exton, three kilometres west of Nakina.
But Greenstone isn't satisfied with merely being a logistics hub; local officials are lobbying Cliffs to locate its highly-prized ferrochrome processor, and 400-plus jobs, at Exton.
On a bush lot, across the CN tracks from Nakina Forest Products, is the site that Greenstone is showcasing for the electric arc furnaces.
In competing for the refinery against Sudbury and Thunder Bay, each represented by powerful Ontario cabinet ministers, Greenstone isn't pleading poor sister status.
The municipality has hired technicial consultants and enlisted a former provincial energy minister, George Smitherman, to make its sales pitch to Cliffs and to stickhandle through any issues at Queen's Park.
Greenstone has also forged strong relations with nearby Aroland First Nation and the Matawa First Nations in the Ring who stand to benefit from the massive multi-billion-dollar mining, transportation and processing project.
“We're not aiming for second place,” said Jay Daiter, a Greenstone councillor who represents Nakina. “Our target is set on the ferrochrome processing piece.”
Cliffs is currently in a pre-feasibility study of its Black Thor chromite deposit at McFaulds Lake.
The tight-lipped Ohio miner is expected to name the location of the processor when it launches into the feasibility stage sometime early this year.
While the mining industry hasn't had a transformative effect in Nakina, Daiter said the signs of change are subtle. Surplus properties are being sold off, homes are being purchased on speculation, and one developer has purchased two former Kimberley Clark apartment blocks.
The town once hosted 1,200 people when CN was an active presence and the Kimberly Clark sawmill was in full force, said Daiter.
“We're all waiting for the starting gun to go off.”
The municipality, economic development corporation and their consultants have launched into a business planning exercise to determine what industry's future infrastructure, housing, labour and training needs will be.
Nakina's tiny airport is already bustling with activity. Its newly repaved 3,500-foot runway has become a jumping off point for supply and fuel hops into the exploration camps. Business expansion is planned for there too.
“We're getting very close to that level of readiness,” said Daiter. “There's already increased demands on our airport where there isn't the available space on the tarmac to store the materials going north.
“We have companies saying they need storage space and we need to identify where they can set up shop in Nakina as the staging area.”
Greenstone is preparing for a variety of growth scenarios depending upon what Cliffs and the other Ring of Fire miners decide to do.
“We have a multitude of deals on the table hinging on announcements,” said Quenneville.
“We're right on the cusp,” said Daiter, with developers, aviation carriers, fuel suppliers, all waiting on standby for Cliffs' decision on the refinery site location.
“We're ready to rumble if Cliffs decides they want to set up here.”
