The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The planned and potential enlargement of HudBay Minerals' Northern Manitoba footprint is well underway. Last year, to no one's surprise, the company confirmed that its metal-rich Lalor deposit near Snow Lake would be developed into a mine. Since then HudBay has entered into agreements with junior miners that it hopes will lead to new mines at Reed Lake, also near Snow Lake, and in Sherridon, the tiny town northeast of Flin Flon. Beyond HudBay, junior miner Alexis Minerals is looking to restart the old New Britannia gold mine in Snow Lake in early 2011. And other juniors are eyeing the possibilities of new and relaunched mines at Amisk Lake near Denare Beach, Tartan Lake near Flin Flon and Puffy Lake near Sherridon. We all know that publicly traded mining companies have a vested interest in making their deposits sound as propitious as possible, so with the probable exception of Lalor, a grain of salt is in order here. But presupposing that this region is on the cusp of a plethora of new jobs in the resource sector, it would be naive to assume that Flin Flon is in store for any sort of dramatic growth. First consider that if Lalor does indeed create the roughly 400 jobs anticipated, it still won't make up for the roughly 450 positions that have and will be phased out by HBMS's closures of the Flin Flon smelter and Trout Lake Mine. Up to 100 HBMS employees already work at Snow Lake's Chisel North Mine. When Lalor opens, it is expected that they will transition over to the new mine. Assuming that the remaining 300 or so Lalor jobs all go to people who live in Flin Flon-Creighton, our immediate area is still down some 150 well-paid positions compared to when the smelter and Trout Lake were going at full tilt. The pending expansion of the 777 Mine will help, but that project is only expected to generate up to 40 new jobs. What about the potential other mines in Snow Lake and Sherridon? Based on their location, they would most certainly include camps at which miners would live during whatever schedules they work. Some mine camps employ workers for multiple weeks at once before letting them go home for long stretches of time. This means that residential proximity to said mines becomes almost a non-factor. People in Flin Flon and Snow Lake, for instance, have been known to live here but work at mines in northern Saskatchewan and even way up in the Territories. Men and women from across northern Manitoba and beyond may have a realistic chance of competing for jobs at these hoped-for mines. The same goes for Lalor, the only mine we know with certainty will proceed, as it too will include a camp. The prospective mines closer to Flin Flon Ð Amisk Lake and Tartan Lake Ð would without a doubt bode well for our immediate area given that the junior miners involved will not likely need or want mining camps. But overall, the real benefit from any mining boom may be felt on a regional, not local, basis. Speculation that Flin Flon is on the brink of dramatic growth is premature at best. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, some growth for our city would be healthy, as no one wants to see us stuck in a perpetual population nose-dive. But massive, rapid growth that would alter the face and character of the community is certainly not desirable to everyone. A lot of us happen to like Flin Flon the way it is. Local Angle runs Fridays.
