Company plans to train 200 Inuit over three years

If you live on Baffin Island and want work, look to Mary River.

That was the message delivered by Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. when company executives held a series of public meetings around the Baffin region last week, ending in Iqaluit April 2.

Currently about 150 people – including about 50 Inuit – are working at the Mary River site on northern Baffin island, preparing for the company's shipment of 250,000 tonnes of iron ore to smelters in Europe this summer.

This bulk sample is supposed to prove the commercial viability of the mine, which the company hopes to open by 2014, then operate for at least 25 years.

The $4.1 billion project promises to be one of the largest iron mines in the world. Hundreds of workers would be on site to help cut down a mountain of high-grade ore, crush the metal into pellets and transfer the product along a 143-km railway line to Steensby Inlet, where it would be loaded into some of the biggest freighters in the world.

More than 300 people will be on site by this July and August.

But that's nothing compared to the peak of construction, expected in 2011, when 1,800 workers are to be on site, with 2,700 people on payroll.

Have no construction experience? It may not matter. The company plans to train 200 Inuit over the next three years to help build the mine.

"We'll certainly train more if there's interest," said Rod Cooper, Baffinland's chief operating officer, in an interview.

"The goal is to maximize Inuit employment."

The company has hired Qikiqtaaluk Logistics, a subsidiary of the Inuit-owned Qikiqtaaluk Corp., to help with recruitment. It has also opened liaison offices in six communities.

Besides heavy equipment operators, the company will also need people to help cook, clean, provide security and perform other duties.

Once online, the mine expects to employ 760 people. Of those, 450 would work at any given time at the mine and port.

Work on site would follow a two-week on, two-week off schedule. In Iqaluit, some of the 30-odd residents who attended the public meeting wondered how the company plans to help workers cope with the stress these extended absences would place on marriages.

The company will likely hire professional counsellors, said Cooper.

And there's talk of hiring an elder on site. Some young workers have never been away from home.

"That person could be a mentor, an ombudsman," Cooper said. "That's something we're toying with."

Jeremy Hamburg of Iqaluit wondered why the company doesn't accommodate families and children, like the old Nanisivik mine.

But Baffinland has little choice but to run a fly-in operation, said Derek Chubbs, vice-president of sustainable development. He explained that North Baffin's land-use plan prohibits the company from starting a new town.

Madeleine Redfern asked what the company plans to do to make women feel safe at the site. Mining, after all, is mostly seen as men's work.

Cooper replied the company has anti-harrassment policies, and that "from a management point of view, I'd prefer to have a mine full of women."

"Quite frankly, women are gentler on the equipment," he said.

Joe Tikivik told the executives he has heard of some employees caught drinking and doing drugs on site. He said he approves of the company's strict rules against such behavior, and that "these people deserve to be fired."

He also said he's keen to see more Inuit working soon.

"You're tired," Tikivik said to the executives, through an interpreter, near the end of the three-hour meeting. "But I'm an elder, and I'm anxious to get going."