Could an agreement and funding for a Ring of Fire road be at hand?
With an election call coming on Wednesday, Premier Doug Ford, Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford and Aroland Chief Sonny Gagnon will be gathering at Queen’s Park for a Jan. 28 press conference.
The very bullish and pro-mining premier made three trips to the Greenstone-Aroland area this past year, mentioning on those occasions that a major development announcement was in the offing.
In recently pitching the government’s Fortress Am-Can strategy, Ford and Mines Minister George Pirie confirmed the province has been in talks with Aroland on the first 80 kilometres of that road. Survey teams are already working in the area.
Getting Aroland’s consent and buy-in to come aboard, possibly as a road development partner, is critical to the construction of a proposed north-south industry haul road and community access road network to reach the remote James Bay mineral belt.
A permanent two-lane road would also connect those two isolated communities to the provincial highway system for the first time.
Martens Falls and Webequie are already road development partners with the province in overseeing their respective segments of the proposed road corridor.
The Greenstone-Aroland area would be the southern terminus for a road and a major transshipment point to send mined ore, like nickel from Wyloo’s proposed Eagle’s Nest mine, by rail to Sudbury for processing.
The Australian mine builder wants to start mine construction in 2027, coinciding with construction of the road.
