The leaders of B.C.’s three main political parties spent nearly two hours on Oct. 14 vying to be the province’s next premier. BC NDP Leader David Eby, Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson and Green Leader Emily Lowan faced more than a dozen questions each from moderator Shachi Kurl during the only debate of the election campaign.

Not one of those questions focused on environmental issues or climate change. Nor did any of the leaders question each other about their proposed environmental policies during the open debate portions of the broadcast.In fact, the only leader to mention the climate crisis was Lowan as she introduced herself to the audience. “I am the only leader on this stage that feels the decisions being made in the legislature, especially as it relates to the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis,” Lowan said, claiming she is the only one of the three party leaders who “has worked a minimum-wage job in the past decade.”

The lack of discussion about climate issues in the debate marked a continuation of an election campaign that has been focused on affordability issues. The NDP is promising to hike taxes on top income earners, cap prices on groceries and gas and freeze car insurance rates for three years.

The BC Conservatives are promising to cut income taxes for everyone, slash regulations in a bid to spur economic development and boost funding for police.

Both parties are promising billions in spending on health care and infrastructure without a lot of detail on where that money will come from. The province currently faces a deficit of nearly $14 billion. 

Meanwhile, the BC Green Party’s 2026 campaign is also focusing heavily on kitchen-table issues. Lowan has proposed a wealth tax the party estimates would bring in billions of dollars that could be used to improve housing affordability and health care access.

The top concerns for voters are either cost of living and affordability or jobs and the economy, with health care and housing typically rounding out the top three. Fourteen per cent of respondents to a recent Angus Reid poll put environment and climate change as their most important issue when considering who to vote for in this election. Just three per cent of respondents told pollster Research Co. the environment is the most important issue facing British Columbia today.

Compare that to October 2019, when Angus Reid found climate change was the top issue among Canadian voters.

What politicians are saying — or not saying — is likely tied to what voters have been telling pollsters lately.

Eby announced his party’s climate commitments over the Thanksgiving weekend, 19 days into the campaign. Most of them are already government policy or continuations of the NDP’s previous commitments, including protecting 30 per cent of the province’s land base by 2030. The Green Party put out its climate platform on Oct. 10, which includes a promise to halt new fossil fuel projects and end “subsidies, tax preferences and public financing that encourage the expansion of fossil-fuel production.”

The BC Conservatives have yet to mention climate policy during the campaign, except to state “unrealistic climate objectives” have stymied B.C.’s ability to launch a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. 

So why aren’t climate issues as prominent as they once were for many voters? 

Voting in a polycrisis

Voter priorities have shifted even from this summer, as wildfires cast a pall of smoke across much of B.C. and climate change was front of mind for a substantial portion of B.C. voters. In July, Angus Reid found 25 per cent of B.C. respondents listed climate change as their top concern, putting the issue in third place behind cost of living and health care.

And there are plenty of issues for British Columbians to fret over these days, Jamie Lawson, an associate professor of political science at the University of Victoria told The Narwhal. Many voters are experiencing what academics call a polycrisis. That’s when multiple crises are happening at the same time, Lawson added, citing the examples of democratic decline, climate change, a cost of living crunch and the threat of artificial intelligence eating into employment opportunities.

“The thing about a polycrisis is that it implies that pressing problems go well beyond your top three,” he said. 

“I think at the moment, a lot of people who do indeed care about the climate are faced with making choices. … They may be no less concerned about climate, but we might be in a case of trying to save the furniture.”

Economic anxieties tend to crowd out worries about climate change, according to Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who studies climate and energy policy. That’s partly because issues like the cost of groceries and gas are immediate and personal, while the impacts of climate change can seem less personally affecting.

“People know how much they’re paying for eggs, but nobody knows if their house is going to be the one that will burn down,” Harrison said. “There’s this uncertainty about who will bear those risks.”

Meanwhile, some politicians have leaned into the idea that addressing one crisis at a time is the best approach, Iglika Ivanova, senior economist and co-executive director at BC Policy Solutions, said. 

“People are worried about their jobs and about prices, so we need to deal with these immediate concerns,” Ivanova said of the way top politicians have been framing the current moment. “Once we sort that out, only then can we look at climate change.”

The political tendency to focus on the short term is short-sighted, she argued.

“It almost seems like they’re looking for an economic initiative that would generate money as soon as possible, rather than taking a longer-term view on what kind of an economy are we building?”

Lawson sees the federal government’s push to fast-track major projects across the country looming large over the B.C. election.

“I think the way the NDP and the Conservatives [in B.C.] have really pressed for this accelerated extraction reflects the way in which the Liberal Party federally has gone flat out for maximizing and diversifying that kind of extractivist economy,” he said. 

The NDP, for instance, has pledged to double B.C.’s critical mineral exports, while the Conservatives are promising broad deregulation to make it faster and easier to build projects like LNG facilities.

‘It’s so short-sighted,’ economist says of cutting climate policies out of B.C. election campaign

While the Conservatives might not want to talk about climate policy, Harrison thinks the NDP stands to benefit when voters are thinking about climate issues.

“Historically, climate and environment have been an issue that the NDP has had an advantage over the Conservatives on,” she said. “I think it’s reasonable for climate-concerned voters to say, ‘Tell us what you’re going to do on this issue that we care a lot about and that reflects a crisis that is only getting worse.’ ”

On the other hand, after years of not living up to some of its promises — climate-focused and otherwise — the NDP may have trouble convincing some voters the party will do as it promised if it forms government again. During the 2024 election campaign, the NDP promised to bring in a cap on oil and gas emissions, finish implementing recommendations from the 2020 old-growth forest strategic review and deliver a $1,000 grocery rebate — none of which happened in the past two years.

“Will some of the most climate-concerned voters vote again for the NDP because they fear that the Conservatives will be worse?” Harrison wondered. “Will they vote Green or will they stay home?”

Plenty of British Columbians may be fed up with the NDP but Lawson noted the Conservatives have gone through a lot of upheaval in the past couple of years, including the recent resignation of former leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay just 113 days after taking the reins of the party and only two days before Eby made the snap election call.

He also cautioned governments do not always do what they said they would while on the campaign trail.

“The B.C. party system is in flux and we’ve never, in recent years, had platforms that gave reliable insight into what governments do afterwards.”

Regardless of who forms B.C.’s next government, climate and environment should be central to its policies, Ivanova argued.

“Climate change is impacting us already and it will only impact us more,” she said. “It has immediate costs today and then there’s also health issues around wildfire smoke and all sorts of things that I think we ignore at our peril.”

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Poll after poll says B.C. voters are most concerned with affordability and health care. But interim BC Conservative Party Leader Lorne Doerkson had a different answer when asked what his top priority would be if his party wins: scrapping the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

“I will repeal DRIPA,” Doerkson told reporters in Vancouver on Sept. 22.

The act’s future has been a hot-button issue for much of the year. After years of touting the law as a major step toward working with First Nations in a better, more equal way, NDP Leader David Eby abruptly changed his tune in December 2025. His about-face came after a ruling from the British Columbia Court of Appeal that found the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable — meaning First Nations can take the province to court for failing to uphold the law.

In response, Eby vowed to change the law, a commitment he stood by at the start of the election campaign. 

“We do have to respond to that court decision, it’s not up for debate,” he said on Sept. 25. “We’ve been working with First Nations over the summer to see if we can find a path forward that we all agree on.”

Eby’s plan to change DRIPA proved unpopular with many First Nations leaders. When the election campaign began, the BC Assembly of First Nations called on B.C. politicians “to reflect on the divisiveness, misinformation and fearmongering that has defined this last year.”

“It is in the best interest of all British Columbians to reject these divisive politics and support First Nations by upholding the human rights of First Nations Peoples under DRIPA and returning their focus to the issues that matter most to British Columbians,” Terry Teegee, Regional Chief with the assembly, said.

Discussions about DRIPA are often rife with misinformation. Critics have claimed the law jeopardizes private property rights (it doesn’t) and gives First Nations a veto over proposed developments (also untrue). Campaign trail soundbites and promises from politicians aren’t likely to improve things.

“A lot of the challenges … have been created by the politicians themselves jumping out ahead of this issue for their own political benefit,” Adam Olsen, a former BC Green Party MLA, told The Narwhal. “It’s not for the benefit of British Columbians because the benefit to British Columbians is a calm, thoughtful, constructive relationship.”

“Politicians have an obligation not to promote racism against Indigenous people because when they are elected, they’re going to be the ones that are implementing reconciliation,” Cynthia Callison, a partner with Callison & Hanna Law who has advocated for First Nations in B.C. for 29 years, said in an interview.

Let’s cut through the rhetoric and dig into some of the claims about what the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act is, what it does and what lies ahead.

Fact check: Does DRIPA give First Nations a ‘veto’ over development?

When B.C.’s Declaration Act was introduced, the government stressed it did not amount to a veto for First Nations on issues like resource development. DRIPA does not alter provincial requirements regarding consultation with First Nations, and the provincial law has no impact on Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, which recognizes and affirms Indigenous Rights. 

DRIPA isn’t explicitly about industrial projects or resource development, but conservative political parties and others have claimed the law makes it more difficult for proposed projects to move forward.

“It isn’t taking one side or another in a project,” Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council, said in an interview. “It’s saying, ‘This is a list of things that should be contemplated and discussed and worked through as you go through these processes to get towards final investment decisions.’ ”

Some of the confusion may come from the fact that provincial project evaluation processes often involve asking First Nations to grant consent to a project. But consenting or not doesn’t make a nation the statutory decision-maker, Callison said. Legally, final say on whether projects are granted provincial permits rests with B.C. cabinet ministers.

“Now, are they going to consider whether First Nations consented or not? Yes, they are, but they’re also going to consider other factors,” Callison said. 

Ministers also consider potential economic benefits and environmental impacts when deciding whether a project gets the go-ahead. The FortisBC LNG expansion, approved right before the election call, for example, involved consulting eight First Nations; some of which consented, and some that didn’t.

DRIPA is about more than getting shovels in the ground, Smith pointed out. Applied properly, it makes projects more certain as they are less likely to hit legal hurdles or on-the-ground opposition.“It’s about how do we get a working relationship that is increasing investment opportunities, as opposed to chasing them out of British Columbia,” he said. “Unfortunately, because of the lack of clarity, political opportunism has made it look like DRIPA is chasing these investment opportunities out of town, where really, if applied properly, it can enhance them.”

Fact check: Has DRIPA always been controversial?

It may seem hard to believe now, but when the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act passed in the B.C. legislature in 2019, every MLA voted in favour of it. It’s rare to see such unanimity in the legislature.

At the time, the government described the act as “a path forward” for relations between First Nations and the province. The idea was that the legislation would hold the government legally accountable to its stated commitments on reconciliation and to align provincial laws and regulations with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

For years, there was little controversy or even public discussion about DRIPA. During that time, B.C.’s Declaration Act Secretariat — a government agency created to guide the law’s implementation — worked with First Nations and issued annual reports on its progress.

“They have focused on social issues like education and emergency services and child welfare,” Callison said.

The secretariat is also responsible for determining which laws and regulations get top priority to be aligned with the UN declaration. The Declaration Act offers few concrete details for what the province is bound to do and when, and that vagueness has contributed to misunderstandings and self-interested interpretations. 

“Everybody has their own subjective view beyond the legislation that’s in place,” Smith said. He believes DRIPA was introduced with the hopes it would be “sort of a silver bullet” for some of the tougher conflicts between the provincial government and First Nations — some of which resulted in lengthy and costly court battles. Instead, he said DRIPA has become “a political football” tossed around by party leaders, First Nations representatives, industry groups and think tanks.

Too often, it’s the perceived downsides of DRIPA that get put in the spotlight, he added.

“I really wish people would start looking at what are the opportunities as opposed to what are the shortcomings and what are the potential perceived failures around this.”

DRIPA provides a rubric that can help First Nations and companies navigate the ins and outs of project development, from the planning and assessments needed to determine whether a proposed project goes ahead, to what will have to happen when a mine or logging operation winds down. A handful of projects have already moved ahead under a specific section of the law.

Fact check: Does DRIPA create uncertainty for industry?

Members of the BC Conservative caucus have repeatedly claimed that DRIPA creates a climate of uncertainty that makes companies rethink their investments in the province. However, DRIPA’s stated goal is to “provide certainty and stability” about how projects can move toward approval by clearly defining the responsibilities of the provincial government and First Nations. And there are several examples of natural resource projects that have seen this benefit.

Section 7 of the law allows for joint decision-making agreements with First Nations regarding industrial projects on their traditional territories. These agreements enabled by DRIPA have helped advance a few natural resource projects, including the Eskay Creek revitalization, the Red Chris mine and the Galore Creek mine.

DRIPA’s goal of giving companies a set of expectations and a framework for engaging with First Nations on proposed projects was a good one, Smith said.

“My years in working with different industries on the coast of British Columbia have told me that industry just wants to know where they can and can’t operate,” he said. “DRIPA should have been a powerful tool to help illustrate that a little bit more.”

If anything, Callison argues, it’s the B.C. government’s handling of DRIPA that has created uncertainty. The 2025 ruling that caused Eby’s flip-flop was in response to a legal challenge brought by the Gitxaała Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation about the province allowing mining claims on their territory without their input. 

“Why did the Gitxaała case happen? Because the province did not make it a priority to amend the free miner system under the Mineral Tenure Act, and so the First Nation went to court,” Callison said.

A year of political punting and lingering uncertainty about DRIPA’s future has not improved economic confidence in B.C., according to Smith.

“It’s slowing down our ability to actually build certainty because we don’t know whether this legislation is going to get tinkered with or not,” he said.

Fact check: Does DRIPA threaten people’s ownership of homes and businesses?

The claim that DRIPA threatens private property rights in B.C. has come up again and again and again over the past year.

“That’s untrue,” Callison said. “Nowhere in DRIPA are they saying that reconciliation includes taking private property away.”

This claim is likely due to people conflating two separate court rulings — the Gitxaała decision and the Cowichan decision — which were issued just four months apart in 2025. 

The Gitxaała decision is the one that spooked Eby, in which the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled First Nations can take B.C. to court for failing to uphold DRIPA. 

The Cowichan decision dates back to 2014, when the Cowichan Tribes filed a case with the B.C. Supreme Court, asserting Aboriginal Title over lands along the Fraser River, in what is now known as Richmond, B.C. The lands claimed included a traditional summer village site, known as Tl’uqtinus, and the tribes’ suit asserted rights to fish and gather food in the claimed area. Although the claim was brought in B.C., it was launched prior to DRIPA becoming law and turned on Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, not provincial law.

In August 2025, 11 years after the case was filed, B.C.’s Supreme Court affirmed the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal Title under the constitution. The Cowichan case only named governments and government agencies, and the tribes have repeatedly said they have no intent of trying to take away any private property as a result of the court ruling. What the ruling made clear is the B.C. government cannot ignore the tribes’ federal Aboriginal Title rights but must negotiate with them to reconcile their Title with the interests of existing property owners.

“I haven’t heard one First Nation come out and say, ‘Well, yeah, we’d like to cancel people’s title and get rid of fee simple ownership,’ ” Callison pointed out.

The B.C. government appealed the ruling, and Eby has said his government will “go to the wall” to protect the rights of private property owners. He has also linked the Cowichan Tribes and Gitxaała cases, calling them “dramatic, overreaching and unhelpful court decisions.”

But DRIPA and the Cowichan decision actually have little to do with each other legally, besides being related to Indigenous Rights. Again, the Gitxaała case concerns the province’s actions — allowing mining claims to be staked on First Nations territory without notification or consent — and whether violating DRIPA makes them legally accountable. Meanwhile, the Cowichan case is about federally recognized rights that guarantee Indigenous Peoples access to traditional territories and to cultural practices.

Fact check: Would repealing DRIPA resolve all of these issues?

The BC Conservatives and others who support DRIPA’s repeal imply that getting rid of the law will clear away all friction of Indigenous Rights, Aboriginal Title and consultation obligations with First Nations. That is almost certainly not the case.

“That’s not the end of it; that’s the beginning of it,” Olsen said. 

“Simply just repealing it isn’t going to do anyone any service,” Smith agreed. “I wish the opposition parties would be a lot clearer about what the alternative is, because they all know there has to be an alternative.”

DRIPA’s repeal could prompt public protest from some First Nations, Smith added, while others would continue ongoing discussions with companies interested in operating on their land.

“A lot of us have deals that are in the making right now that we simply can’t stop because there’s an election,” he said. “So while the government’s in caretaker mode, we’re still talking with a lot of the industries that are looking at investing in collaboration with First Nations.”Getting rid of DRIPA would not eliminate the constitutionally guaranteed right of First Nations, which can be hashed out in the courts, and have been, Callison pointed out. 

Legal responsibilities aside, reconciliation should remain a priority for whichever party forms the next B.C. government, she added — something those parties should keep in mind as the election campaign rolls on.

“Why not take a little lesson out of history? If you are elected, you’re going to have to reconcile with Indigenous people in British Columbia.”

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In March 2025, the government of Nova Scotia repealed a ban on uranium exploration and mining that had stood for more than four decades. That May, it opened a request for proposals on three sites known to hold uranium deposits, with a deadline in June. Nobody applied.

But for the people who live near Millet Brook in Hants County, N.S., one of the sites chosen for exploration, the matter is far from settled.

“The lack of applications has provided some immediate relief, but it has not provided the sense of finality that many residents are hoping for,” municipal Councillor Kayla Leary-Pinch said. “For them, the concern was never solely about whether a company would come forward through this particular call for proposals. It is about the fact that the moratorium was removed in the first place and that the door remains open for uranium exploration in Nova Scotia.”

As councillor for Vaughan and Upper Falmouth, N.S., her district in the municipality of West Hants covers the Millet Brook site. 

“Until there is greater certainty about the long-term status of Millet Brook, I think that concern will remain,” she said. 

Those concerns include potential environmental impacts, especially to groundwater, as well as private property rights and what exploration now could mean for mining in the future, Leary-Pinch said.

“There is frustration with how quickly the issue moved forward and a feeling that communities were reacting to decisions rather than being meaningfully involved before those decisions were made,” Leary-Pinch said. 

Like many other governments in Canada, Nova Scotia is passing policy meant to supercharge resource extraction. The uranium moratorium, which dates back to 1981, became a legislated ban in 2009. The province repealed the ban as part of Bill 6, An Act Respecting Agriculture, Energy and Natural Resources, an omnibus bill that also amended the Petroleum Resources Act to allow fracking. 

It’s been more than a year since the ban ended and it’s still on community minds. On Sept. 8, 2026, two petitions were tabled at the provincial legislature with over 2,000 signatures asking for a “permanent legislative ban” on uranium exploration and extraction. These new signatures bring the grand total to 10,652 signatures collected since October 2025, NDP MLA Kendra Coombes said.

Despite half a century of scattershot uranium interest, Nova Scotia has never developed the industry. Now, the federal government, along with dozens of countries worldwide, is pushing for what’s often called a nuclear renaissance. Canada is among at least 38 countries that have pledged to work toward tripling global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. 

Part of uranium’s appeal is energy density. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a single uranium fuel pellet produces as much energy as one ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. But that energy comes with a long-term cost. Canada has long been trying to find a permanent home for decades’ worth of nuclear waste, with a proposed $26 billion underground repository in northwestern Ontario still years from approval.

NS premier says uranium mining is essential to economic growth and clean energy transition

When the request for proposals was live in June 2025, a unanimous council vote made West Hants one of four municipalities, along with Annapolis, Lunenburg and Pictou, to request a pause on exploration. Premier Tim Houston responded with a letter saying the government was committed to moving forward “on all natural resource projects so long as they can be done thoughtfully and safely.”

The world needs uranium for nuclear energy and cancer treatments, Houston’s letter said. 

 “Uranium hasn’t changed but mining has,” it said, echoing the Mining Association of Nova Scotia, an industry group representing mining and quarrying companies. The group’s website says uranium mining today “is very different” from when the ban was put in place: specifically, it says a shift toward solution mining, also known as in-situ leaching, “produces basically no tailings or waste rock.” 

Uranium is essential to Nova Scotia’s economic growth, the premier said, adding that a blanket ban without discussion is lazy public policy.

“The sad reality is that when you look at the [gross domestic product] per capita across all 60 American states and Canadian provinces, Nova Scotia ranks last,” Houston said. “The worst performing economy in North America.”

But so far, uranium mining has not been an economic driver in the province. The June deadline came and went with no bids to pursue exploration.

In an email to The Narwhal, Lynette MacLeod, communications director for the Department of Natural Resources, said the repeal of the ban didn’t approve any uranium mining or exploration projects. 

“It removed a legislative prohibition and allows the province to better understand the occurrence of uranium using modern science and regulatory safeguards,” MacLeod said.

MacLeod said the province is not exploring for uranium but is doing research using existing data and core samples. She was clearer about the province’s broader mining ambitions.

The department’s focus is ensuring “Nova Scotia remains one of the most competitive jurisdictions for mineral exploration investment in Canada,” MacLeod said. The province is “expanding investment attraction efforts with our partners [and] supporting exploration through targeted funding programs.” 

That means implementing the provincial mining strategy; completing NovaMINE, a government website detailing regulatory requirements and listing the status of mining proposals and projects; digitizing the province’s assets and data; and continuing regulatory modernization, she said. 

Uranium has been on the federal critical minerals list since it was released in 2021, but it’s only been on Nova Scotia’s list since May 14, 2025, the same day Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton announced a request for proposals for exploration sites at Millet Brook, East Dalhousie and Louisville.

“We’ve lifted blanket bans and we’re targeting minerals that are in great demand for the clean energy transition in Canada and around the world,” Rushton said in a press release. “We’re also focusing on minerals that will help us grow our economy and create good-paying jobs for Nova Scotians.”

The economic promises of uranium have never been enough to convince Nova Scotians it’s worth the cost, Karen McKendry at Halifax’s Ecology Action Centre said. Exploration by companies such as Shell and Esso in the late 1970s prompted a public inquiry that held 44 meetings across the province. The majority of submissions opposed uranium mining, and the government imposed a moratorium in 1981. In 2009, the NDP government led by Darrell Dexter turned that moratorium into a permanent legislative ban.

“We’ve learned that it very much is a radioactive zombie,” McKendry said. “It’s come back. This is the third time we’ve had a big fight around uranium.”

Even without a proposal on the table last year, people put up signs expressing opposition and began organizing in the areas most promising for exploration, she said. Locals heard there was a company considering a proposal, she said, and so they posted online to make their opposition clear.

“I think it scared them off,” McKendry said. “One thing that’s somewhat real in the mining industry is what they call social licence. Do you have community buy-in for the kinds of things you’re proposing?”

Experts say opposition and low quality make NS uranium unappealing to industry

Exploration is a high-risk economic activity, Erin Adlakha, a professor in the department of earth science at Saint Mary’s University, said.

“Fewer than one per cent of exploration targets ever become mines, so companies must rigorously vet historical data to ensure they are spending capital wisely,” Adlakha said. The province’s request for proposals was only open for four weeks, she said, requiring companies “to digest historical data from the late 1970s and 1980s, evaluate land access constraints, build a technical exploration strategy and allocate capital, on very short notice.”

Mining companies also want political stability, according to Brad Redden, the president of the Society for Safe and Responsible Resource Development, a non-profit dedicated to protecting communities and the environment in Nova Scotia’s resource sectors.

“These guys plan a long way into the future,” Redden said, adding it can sometimes take decades to bring a new mine online. “The Houston government won’t be forever, and when they’re gone, the Liberals or the NDP are going to be in power.”

While some parts of Canada have what companies consider stable mining policies, companies are very careful about volatile situations such as this one, he said.

Redden, who has worked as an exploration geologist and held public office as a municipal councillor and deputy warden in Annapolis County, said he is skeptical of the province’s interest in uranium. 

“I don’t think they genuinely thought there was uranium here,” he said, adding that fracking and uranium were probably bundled together on the same bill as part of a bigger industrial drive. “It’s a political statement to say we’re open for business.”

He said he wouldn’t work on a uranium project in Nova Scotia, because he doesn’t think the deposits here are good enough. Uranium in the province tends to sit in thin, centimetre-wide fractures rather than deep deposits and grades are far lower than in Saskatchewan’s uranium heartland, Redden said.

He offers as an example Cigar Lake in the Prairie province, which at a grade of 15 per cent is “the world’s highest grade uranium mine” according to its owner. Redden said this translates to 150,000 parts of uranium per million parts of rock. By comparison, New Ross, N.S., “has some higher-grade areas …but they are still less than one per cent,” or 10,000 parts per million. 

“Most of the grades reported in Nova Scotia are much lower, in the hundreds of parts per million,” Redden said. The Mining Association of Nova Scotia says the site at Millet Brook “is known to have 1.3 million pounds of 0.2 per cent uranium.”

The more important difference, Redden said, is that in Nova Scotia, uranium deposits tend to be closer to population centres than they are in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin.

Last year, in his response to the West Hants council’s request for a pause, the premier noted provincial investments of more than $227 million in West Hants during his time in office.

“I have no doubt that your council has many more wants and needs,” the Houston letter said. “We would love to be able to meet every ask, but to do that, we need the resources to move forward.”

However things move forward at Millet Brook, Leary-Pinch said the people of West Hants deserve to be consulted about what the province intends to do in their backyard. “Many of the residents I have spoken with want to see the moratorium on uranium exploration and mining reinstated.” She said the absence of bids this time around was never the point. For the people of West Hants, she said it’s about closing  the door on uranium for good.

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A small town on northwestern Ontario’s border with the U.S. is quietly preparing for a worst-case scenario. It’s one that could mean a dramatic change for the community’s water supply.

Fort Frances, home to about 7,500 people, sits where Rainy Lake empties into the Rainy River and flows north into Lake of the Woods. Fort Frances’ drinking water comes from Rainy Lake, which is bisected by the Canada-U.S. border — and vulnerable to the whims of either country’s leadership. So is the town’s economy, which relies on fishing and tourism, as well as the rhythms of a border community built around the water.

Now, tensions between the U.S. and Canada threaten those rhythms. This spring, U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at a moratorium on mining in Rainy River’s watershed, and its waters that flow past Fort Frances and numerous First Nations communities around it. Last month, tensions ratcheted up, as Trump signed an order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America” amid an escalating trade dispute.

The watershed that surrounds Fort Frances is called Rainy-Lake of the Woods, and it straddles both sides of the border west of Lake Superior. About 450,000 hectares of protected forest, rivers and interconnected lakes on the U.S. side is known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, or colloquially, the Boundary Waters. In 2023, the Biden administration protected roughly 91,000 hectares of Superior National Forest just outside the Boundary Waters from mining for 20 years, citing the risk such development posed to the surrounding waters.

Mined copper-sulfide ore is processed to extract metals used in electrical wiring, electronics and rechargeable batteries. But when that ore is exposed to air and water, it can add sulfuric acid and heavy metals into nearby waters. When dissolved in water, that sulfuric acid breaks down into sulfate, which is toxic to wild rice, a plant central to Anishinaabe diet and culture — Minnesota has regulated sulfate in wild rice waters since 1973 for that reason. Sulfate also feeds the bacteria that convert otherwise harmless inorganic mercury into methylmercury, a neurotoxin that accumulates in fish and, through them, the people who eat them. 

But in April 2026, U.S. Congress reversed the protection for the stretch of Superior National Forest outside the Boundary Waters. The Senate voted 50 to 49 to lift the Biden administration’s moratorium that stood in the way of the Twin Metals mine, a project targeting copper, nickel and other metals, majority-owned by the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta. 

President Trump signed the resolution into law in April.

In a statement to other media, Kathy Graul, director of public affairs and communications for Twin Metals Minnesota, said, “Any proposed project in this region, including Twin Metals, must undergo a yearslong, multi-agency regulatory review before earning permits to begin construction of a mine. The [Senate ruling] restores this process, and projects must prove they can meet the stringent environmental standards that have long been in place in Minnesota before moving forward.”

Back over the Canadian border, Fort Frances’ water treatment plant can handle natural fluctuations in the source water — but it wasn’t designed to handle the kind of contamination mining activity could potentially introduce, Travis Rob, the town’s manager of infrastructure and growth, told The Narwhal. Addressing that risk would mean either a costly overhaul of the plant’s treatment processes, or securing an entirely new water source, which would be “neither easy nor cheap,” Rob said. “This is what has me so concerned about the proposed mining activities.” 

He and his team have talked at length about what changes to watch for in the water that feeds the treatment plant and when the town would need to act, he said. But the stakes extend beyond Fort Frances itself. Couchiching First Nation and others also receive drinking water from the town’s treatment plant, Rob said. 

In August, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued a reprieve of sorts, signing an executive order directing state agencies to stop issuing leases or permits for copper, nickel and other non-iron ore mines on the U.S. side of the watershed, and to review all existing mineral leases in the area, including Twin Metals’. 

While this might hold up Twin Metals’ plans in part, the order is not immune to legal challenges from mining companies — or future actions of the Trump administration.

A smalltown mayor and First Nation’s chief seek support amid Trump’s mining push

The proposed Twin Metals mine sits at the headwaters of the Rainy-Lake of the Woods watershed.

The project has held leases in the area since the 1960s, under different owners proposing to mine copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum group metals from a deposit up to 1,300 metres below the surface, processing roughly 20,000 tons of ore a day for more than 25 years. 

According to the company, about half the waste rock, or tailings, would be stored underground; the rest would be dried out and kept above ground. Twin Metals says its processing “will remove most of the sulfide minerals,” meaning its tailings won’t result in acid drainage, and that the mine won’t discharge water used for that processing. Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, an advocacy groups opposed to the project, has argued the risk  of acid drainage from the project’s tailings remains based on other mines, and exploration work in the watershed.

That same watershed carries north past Fort Frances, through Treaty 3 territory, the traditional lands of 28 Anishinaabe First Nations in northwestern Ontario and southeastern Manitoba, and eventually to Hudson Bay.

Gakijiwanong Anishinaabe Nation — formerly Lac La Croix First Nation — condemned the reversal in an April statement, according to NWONewswatch, saying neither it nor affected U.S. tribes were given the chance to testify before Congress voted.

Chief Carrie Atatise-Norwegian of Gakijiwanong Anishinaabe Nation, whose territory borders both the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park, has framed the stakes even more starkly. “This decision threatens the lives of our people, water resources and our ancestral lands,” she told CBC in April, after the U.S. Congress lifted the moratorium. “As stewards of our lands, [we] will be asserting, exercising and protecting our rights, jurisdiction and sovereignty as a nation.”

By May, Atatise-Norwegian was in Washington, D.C. In Minnesota Senator Tina Smith’s office, she signed a memorandum of understanding with the chairs of three U.S. tribal nations: Red Lake, Grand Portage and Bois Forte. They agreed to present a unified cross-border position on protecting the Boundary Waters and treaty-protected homelands, according to Red Lake Nation News. Atatise-Norwegian did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for an interview. 

The concerns of Gakijiwanong Anishinaabe Nation are shared by many Treaty 3 nations in Ontario. “This is not just a local issue, it is a transboundary concern that directly affects our waters, our environment and our way of life,” Ogichidaa (Grand Chief) Francis Kavanaugh of Grand Council Treaty 3, which represents 28 First Nations across northwestern Ontario and southeastern Manitoba, said in an April statement.

The day after the U.S. Senate voted to lift the moratorium, Fort Frances Mayor Hallikas emailed the office of Marcus Powlowski, the Liberal MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, urging him to speak out, and to reach out to Minnesota politicians directly. Hallikas said he also raised the issue with provincial politicians a few weeks later at the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association’s conference in Thunder Bay, but was told it was a federal issue.

In May, the Rainy River District Municipal Association, of which Fort Frances is a member, wrote to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, aligning itself with Grand Council Treaty 3’s opposition to the mine. The letter states that sulfide-ore copper mining could cause “irreversible harm to water quality, wildlife, public health and a sustainable outdoor recreation-based economy.” It calls on “all levels of Canadian government” to engage with the U.S. and Minnesota on the issue.

“Any decision that could put [these waters] at risk is not solely a Minnesota matter,” Hallikas wrote in an email to The Narwhal. “It is an international and downstream concern that directly affects peoples in northwestern Ontario.”

He drew parallels to Grassy Narrows First Nation, where industrial mercury contamination, which can cause issues like tremors, cognitive effects and neuromuscular disorders, is one of the most consequential environmental health crises in Canadian history. 

“Northwestern Ontario understands the devastating consequences of mercury contamination,” he wrote. “That history demands vigilance, transparency and precaution.”

A binational board with no enforcement power, watching and waiting

In 1909, Canada and the U.S. signed the Boundary Waters Treaty, governing cross-border water disputes and creating the International Joint Commission to oversee exactly this kind of issue.

Merrell-Ann Phare, one of three Canadian commissioners, said the commission has no enforcement authority and no regulatory authority over water quality. Its role is to resolve disputes between nations, not enforce laws.

“We take great care to stay out of the domestic issues that are happening,” Phare said, so the commissions can preserve its neutrality for the moment a request to mediate comes in.

Only governments in Ottawa and Washington can jointly trigger that kind of review, known as a reference, under the treaty. Provinces, states and municipalities have no standing to request one directly, though Indigenous nations can be named partners.

The Ktunaxa Nation is a partner to a case in B.C.’s Elk Valley, where coal-mining pollution flows downstream into Montana and Idaho, causing unnaturally high selenium levels that have led to deformities in fish. It’s a problem the nation had raised for more than a decade before Ottawa and Washington formally asked the commission to step in, in March 2024.

That in itself is a point of concern for Johann Strube, an environmental sociologist who has studied water governance in northwestern Ontario, speaking in a personal capacity rather than as a spokesperson for Grand Council Treaty 3, where he is a natural resources policy analyst. The joint commission, he said, “was founded to advance the settler-colonial interests of Canada and the United States and explicitly excluded Indigenous nations from decision-making.”

The structure of the commission, Strube said, “still doesn’t involve Indigenous nations as nation-to-nation partners.”

Megan Garner is the Canadian co-chair of the International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Board, the regional organization that operates under the International Joint Commission.

She said the board is “aware of the termination of the mineral leasing moratorium … and is watching this issue closely.” The board is determining next steps, she said, and is committed to “balanced and representative input.” 

Garner later confirmed that, as of Aug. 19, the board “has not been in touch” with the Rainy River District Municipal Association or Gakijiwanong Anishinaabe Nation, and “has not requested input or information from any outside parties” on the mining issue, despite being aware, through its advisory groups, of a range of local perspectives.

A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, John Babcock, said, “Canada continues to work closely with the United States through existing bilateral mechanisms, including those established under the Boundary Waters Treaty, in support of our shared stewardship of transboundary waters.” He said they would continue to do this “as we take up the environmental challenges of the 21st century.”

Asked whether Canada had raised any new concerns with the U.S. administration specifically about the 2026 reversal, Babcock said in an emailed statement that the department continues “to monitor the ongoing developments in the region and to advocate that any increased mining activity be properly assessed and managed,” and that “the joint stewardship of the environment is a cornerstone of Canada-U.S. relations.”

Babcock did not respond to a follow-up question on whether or not Canada has requested the International Joint Commission review the issue of mine pollution leaching into the Rainy-Lake of the Woods watershed.

Canada’s caution here, Strube said, may have less to do with the technical question of jurisdiction than with the state of U.S.-Canada relations more broadly. Whether the Trump administration would feel bound by a 116-year-old water treaty, Strube said, is an open question.

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Twilight hangs over the Inlet Raider’s empty deck as it charges up the river. Its voyage has a single, cargo-free purpose: its crew was hired to find out whether the journey up the Taku River from Southeast Alaska past the B.C. border is possible.

If they succeed, this could be one of dozens of trips carrying construction supplies and infrastructure to the proposed New Polaris gold mine along the river, currently under review by the B.C. government and among its list of priority projects for expedited review.

The boat picks up speed, blasting up a passage nicknamed “the narrows” in honour of its thin, flute-shaped banks, which can host fierce, swirling currents. Its other concern lies underneath in braided river channels that can move at least annually to a new configuration, a common trait of glacial-fed rivers like this one. 

As the motor churns, the crew’s stream of banter is replaced by a tense silence punctuated by calls of encouragement as their barge follows a sonar-equipped motorboat guiding its journey up ahead.

“Three hours of boredom punctuated by 30 seconds of sheer terror,” says a joking voice off-screen, in a video posted to the captain’s Facebook page.

A few minutes later, the Inlet Raider makes it through.

New Polaris’s owner, Canagold Resources Ltd., acknowledges the transport challenges ahead. “We never said it’s easy,” Canagold’s chief executive officer, Catalin Kilofliski, tells The Narwhal in an interview. 

“But it’s doable.”

To avoid these precarious barge trips during operations, Canagold plans to transport its gold concentrate on cargo planes. It anticipates up to 15 flights a day, carrying a total of around 27,000 tonnes per year.

The goal is to capitalize on record-breaking gold prices by reopening New Polaris, a long-shuttered mine site on the Tulsequah River.

The project is among a select group featured in a federal prospectus document delivered to attendees of Canada’s recent investment summit in Toronto. This year, New Polaris was included in the federal government’s map of critical minerals projects, thanks to its potential to produce antimony — a heavy metal deemed “critical” by Canada for its use in a variety of applications from bullets to batteries. But Canagold’s feasibility study did not establish New Polaris’s antimony reserves and it does not include antimony in its projected revenues.

Meanwhile, B.C. has included New Polaris among its 35 priority major projects slated for expedited review.

In an emailed statement, the Environmental Assessment Office said New Polaris is on the list because of its “potential to make meaningful contributions to B.C.’s long-term economic growth” along with the other projects chosen.

“No project will be expedited at the expense of protecting the environment and communities or meeting our consultation obligations, which remain at the core of the [Environmental Assessment Office]’s mandate,” it added.

The company intends to create hundreds of direct jobs annually and provide around $500 million in federal and provincial tax revenue during its operations.

But some observers remain concerned that the mine’s potential risks, from water contamination to habitat loss, aren’t worth the financial benefits.

Environmental concerns with New Polaris

The Taku River watershed is one of the largest intact river systems on the Pacific Coast of North America, and one of the few remaining places where Pacific salmon populations are booming, meaning New Polaris’s riverside mine and tailings ponds naturally come with high stakes.

The mine sits around the riverbend from the also-dormant Tulsequah Chief mine site, which was owned by another company, where contamination has been seeping into the watershed for over 50 years.

Canagold has worked to distinguish New Polaris from the tarnished legacy of its next-door neighbour. The company has signed a collaborative engagement consent agreement with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, whose territory extends across the mine site and surrounding regions on the Canadian side of the border. According to the nation, the agreement means it will have the final say on whether the project goes ahead. The nation did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment.

The company has altered its plans in response to concerns raised in its engagement with the public and with the Taku River Tlinigit. It no longer plans to process gold on site using cyanide, which, if spilled, can poison fish and watersheds. It’s also planning to dry out its tailings to reduce the risk of impacts and limit barge trips mostly to the construction phase. The barge trips will only happen in the high-water months, spring and summer, to reduce the risks of running aground — a change that means more flights and higher costs.

With gold prices above US$2,500 per ounce — a price reached for the first time in 2024 — the “projected cash flow and economics are outstanding,” according to a quote from Kilofliski on Canagold’s website.

But the company’s application hints at potential challenges ahead: the historic underground mine is leaching some levels of arsenic and antimony into the surrounding watershed, and rocks in the company’s largest targeted gold deposit appear capable of leaching more of the same. According to a report prepared for the company and included in its application, the mine’s proposed tailings facilities appear to be located within the flood zone of the Tulsequah glacier, which sends a massive deluge of water and sediment into the river below at least yearly. However, Kilofliski said in an email to The Narwhal that its facilities are “in a location that is naturally protected from the floods.”

According to a map in Canagold’s application, it appears New Polaris plans to put an airstrip atop part of a wetland and salmon spawning ground known as Flannigan Slough, although Kilofliski says it is located beside it.

These and many other issues worry Jill Weitz, intergovernmental affairs manager for the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

“It’s this incredible, critical habitat for spawning and rearing of salmon,” she says, adding that the council questions if the mine is feasible given its transport challenges, and worries that, if it goes ahead, the project could “create irreparable damage to the watershed.” 

“We’re just not willing to risk it,” she says. 

Located just 13 kilometres upstream from the U.S. border, New Polaris’s barges will spend most of their travel time in U.S. waters. And any water contamination from the mine could also make its way south, including across the traditional territory of the Douglas Indian Association, which extends across the reaches of the Taku River. In a submission to the environmental assessment process, the association said it “strongly opposes” the mine “due to fears that a mining accident and subsequent mining pollution could devastate our salmon stocks.”

This year, B.C. made a legal amendment functionally removing its requirements to consult U.S. tribes on transboundary projects by stripping their previous status in environmental assessment processes. 

In an email, the Environmental Assessment Office noted that it will still “fulfill its constitutional obligations to consult with U.S. Tribes when there is a credible assertion of Indigenous Rights in Canada, and the potential for these rights to be impacted by a proposed project undergoing assessment.”

It added that the ministry has “considered and incorporated” feedback submitted by some U.S. Tribes to New Polaris’s application process.

Still, for many southeast Alaskans who have submitted letters of opposition to the company’s environmental assessment process, New Polaris presents an untenable threat.

Kilofliski says New Polaris’s environmental assessment application proves otherwise. 

 “The conclusion is that there are no material negative effects on the environment,” he says, adding the company has proven it will not require water treatment post-closure.

These comments seem to be contradicted by some parts of New Polaris’s environmental assessment application, including one section that notes: “The primary negative residual effect of groundwater quality will occur during post-closure.” 

“This is experts talking about scientific stuff,” he says when asked why the application appeared to have included a different analysis than his own. When asked again about incongruities between his comments and the application in a follow-up email, Kilofliski wrote that the application does identify a risk of metal leaching. “If anything I said informally differs from the application, please treat the application as correct.”

The Taku River watershed

From space, the Taku and its tributary, the Tulsequah, look like winding ribbons coloured steely grey and cotton-candy-blue — a product of the steady stream of silt and minerals delivered by the churn of glaciers over the mountaintops above. 

Their combined watershed forms a mecca for Pacific salmon that return to its waters each year. “I don’t know if there’s any place like it in western North America in terms of being a salmon stronghold and being so intact,” Jonathan Moore, an aquatic ecologist and lead at Simon Fraser University’s Salmon Watersheds Lab, says. Though the majority of B.C.’s salmon stocks are declining, the fate of salmon in the Taku watershed is looking up. Moore and his colleagues have mapped out salmon’s likely escape route as watersheds warm down south, and they predict they’ll seek refuge in the Taku’s glacial waters. 

But despite its remoteness, the region is no stranger to industry. First staked in the early 1900s, what’s now the New Polaris site was mined for gold between 1937 and 1951. It shut down after a departing barge sank in the midst of a storm. That year, the Tulsequah Chief mine opened up across the river, building a temporary bridge to carry its ore to New Polaris’s mills. After Tulsequah shut down just six years later, the New Polaris site sat dormant for decades.

Canagold’s predecessor, Canarc Resources Corp., acquired the property in 1988, and the company slowly dabbled in exploration work until 2022. That’s when its former founder and chair was ousted in a a vote led by a Swiss-based investment company, Sun Valley Investments, which is now the company’s largest shareholder. Kilofliski, Canagold’s CEO between 2014 and 2018, was reappointed and soon announced the company’s intentions in a press release.

“The time has come to take New Polaris across the finish line,” he said, adding that with the company’s “refocused ownership,” its board would expedite the project “to reward our company’s shareholders.”

A history of water concerns

Next door to New Polaris, the Tulsequah Chief mine continues to leach orange-crush-tinged effluent into the river downstream. Its decades-long pollution has galvanized a bipartisan uprising of Southeast Alaskans concerned B.C.’s government could allow another Tulsequah Chief to occur. 

In a January interview with the Alaska Beacon, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said B.C.’s efforts to clean up pollution at Tulsequah Chief had been “a complete failure.”

“They know that for projects going forward, they’re kind of stained by the operation there,” she added. 

Kilofliski says such conflations are misguided. “They associate our project with the other project, the Tulsequah Chief,” he says. “In our rocks, we do not have the potential for acid drainage like you see on the other side.”

Despite their close proximity, New Polaris and the Tulsequah Chief come from distinct types of ore deposits — Tulsequah Chief’s ocean-formed sulphide rocks are more readily associated with acid mine drainage, whereas New Polaris’s rocks are generally not.

That may have exceptions: a recent report commissioned by the company has noted some rocks contain potentially acid-generating properties, potentially including some of the historic waste carried over from the Tulsequah Chief mine, though some tests are still ongoing.

And even without the ingredients to leach acid, some rocks contain metals that can escape into waterbodies anyway. Heavy metals arsenic and antimony are frequent culprits of this kind of non-acidic leaching, and New Polaris’s targeted rocks have lots of both.

According to a previous report commissioned by the company and cited in its environmental assessment application, 15 samples from the mineral vein New Polaris plans to target had “high potential” to leach metals, particularly arsenic and antimony, due to the types of rocks present.

Non-acidic leaching has caused damage in B.C. before: New Polaris’s deposits are similar to those of the Bralorne gold mine near Lillooet, where seepage from the flooded mine includes levels of arsenic that far exceed Canadian effluent regulations.

In an email to The Narwhal, Kilofliski said: “I do not know the particulars of the Bralorne gold mine seepage issues but it is probable, based on the nature of these kinds of geological deposits, that the concerns would be analogous.” He elaborated, adding New Polaris is “a modern mine” which will leverage new science and technology for water management and ecological health.

“At Canagold we are focused on learning from the lessons of the past and building a modern mining project that provides demonstrable benefits to the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, the region and Canada’s economy,” he added. 

To help avoid the risk of metal leaching, the company plans to export a partially processed product called gold concentrate, which can include impurities like arsenic and antimony that would get smelted out elsewhere. 

“We take the antimony, we take the sulphur, we take the arsenic,” he told The Narwhal. “We recover 90-plus per cent of those metals into the concentrate.”

The remaining ten-or-so per cent of the metals and other materials leftover would be thickened and deposited into a tailings pond with an impermeable covering on top, Kilofliski says, helping to keep it isolated from the environment. During the operational phase, the mine plans to run a water treatment system, but Kilofliski tells The Narwhal he is confident the mine’s concentrate-extraction approach will avoid the need for long-term water treatment.

“We have demonstrated in the environmental assessment that no water treatment is required post-closure,” he says.

In a follow-up email, Kilofliski added the application “assesses a range of scenarios, including conservative cases where water treatment after closure could be needed.” If it is, “Canagold would be responsible for providing it until we are able to demonstrate that passive treatment (that is without active/chemical water treatment technologies) is able to manage the long-term water quality requirements,” he added.

New Polaris’s environmental assessment application suggests metal leaching may not be easily contained: historic contamination has already travelled below the site in a large plume of metals that is projected to grow if New Polaris proceeds. Leaching can also escape from the mine shaft, as it has from the historic mine portal at New Polaris. Groundwater seeping from the existing mine site contains arsenic and antimony above B.C.’s water quality guidelines, and is flowing directly into the salmon-bearing Whitewater Creek, according to the application, which added seepage may grow post-closure. Recent samples from the mine’s targeted deposits and waste rock reflected an extremely high concentration of arsenic and antimony — achieving the highest possible level on a 6-point scale for mineral concentration. 

This leaching risk is cited in parts of New Polaris’s environmental assessment application as a reason that water treatment may be required post-closure. 

In his email to The Narwhal, Kilofliski said “water was tested as part of mine dewatering programs for effects to fish, and the water was not determined to be acutely toxic, despite high levels of arsenic.”

What’s next for New Polaris?

September marks a major milestone in Canagold’s decades-long pursuit to mine New Polaris. By the end of the month, the company will receive its final guidance from the province’s environmental assessment office on how it could strengthen a revised application, which, once submitted, will be final. In meeting notes discussing the company’s application, B.C.’s environmental assessment office noted “significant gaps” in the company’s application, including “a notable lack of groundwater information,” a lack of analysis about the potential impacts of glacial floods and missing information about the site’s potential to leach metals. The Ministry of Environment noted the company’s hydrological information appeared to reflect “draft documents rather than final product.”

The office has informed Canagold that submitting another application “where significant issues remain unresolved” would “lead to a high level of uncertainty on the potential effects of the project.” 

Kilofliski suggests these kinds of issues are standard for projects like this. “They are very normal,” he says, adding that Canagold plans to fill any remaining gaps before it submits its final application, adding in a later email that the company has “continued to collect samples since the submission of the application, and we are updating our water modelling.”

But some uncertainties could remain during the assessment process by design: under B.C.’s mining laws, key aspects of New Polaris’s plans, including how it plans to manage leaching on site, how it will treat water and how it plans to deal with contaminants post-closure, would be determined in the permitting stage after the company receives its environmental assessment. 

Through the assessment and later permitting stages, Kilofliski remains confident that Canagold will establish its case. “We have to demonstrate,” he says, “because our word doesn’t mean anything.” 

“We have to prove, we have to show, and we have to test. … This is how it’s done.”

Updated on Sept. 18, 2026, at 8:52 a.m. PT: This story has been updated with Jill Weitz’s current professional title of intergovernmental affairs manager for the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, as it has changed since the story was written.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The Coal Valley mine, nestled in the foothills of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, is a sprawling 200 square kilometres and has been in operation since 1978. Three hours west of Edmonton, it stretches alongside Highway 40, forming a long, narrow gash that includes large open mine pits as well as areas in the process of being reclaimed. It’s part industrial, part moonscape, part nature. 

It has been closed over the years as markets dip — most recently for three months in 2025 — and it has moved tremendous amounts of earth and coal. Currently only one of its pits is active.

On paper, the mine looks bad. There have been 16 incidents in the past three years, almost all of which were spills into the creeks and rivers in and around the site. That makes it the worst existing mine in Alberta in terms of the number of infractions. But the company behind the mine says numbers don’t tell the whole story.

The mine operates under the name Prairie Mines and Royalty ULC, and is ultimately owned by Denver-based Westmoreland Mining, one of three companies that still operate commercial coal mines in Alberta. It was the only one to respond to questions emailed from The Narwhal for an article about infractions at coal mines. 

“We appreciate your questions and the approach you’re taking with this story,” Jon Heroux, Westmoreland’s director of external affairs, wrote. “I think we can do one better than simply giving you an interview over the phone or by email.”

This is not typical of Alberta’s coal mining companies, many of which seldom, if ever, respond to journalists’ requests.

A little more than a week later, company representatives spent a day driving two journalists from The Narwhal around the site.

Alberta government wants to bring industry back from the brink

Coal was once big business in Alberta. Rich seams were found buried in the mountains and foothills, and the Prairies offered easy access to lower-quality coal that powered local electricity plants for decades. As recently as 2018, coal-fired power was the main source of electricity in Alberta.

The Crowsnest Pass in the southwest boomed (and busted) alongside the black rock at the heart of its economy, bringing wealth but also disparity, which led to strikes and even communist agitation from disgruntled workers.

But the markets changed — changes in demand, swings in prices — and so did government regulations. As the industry waned in the south of the province, the 1970s government of former Progressive Conservative premier Peter Lougheed introduced restrictions aimed at preserving beloved landscapes — and the all-important water that trickles and surges down those rocky slopes.

Three decades later in 2024, the phase-out of coal-fired electricity — a significant source of air pollution and emissions — in Alberta spelled the end of strip mines near electrical power plants, which are now mostly powered by natural gas. But that phase-out still allows for some mining. Alberta produces both thermal coal, which is exported to places that still burn it for electricity or for industrial uses, and metallurgical coal, which is used in steel-making.

Today, just three large commercial coal mines are up and running (four if you count Dodd’s, a family operation that mostly serves individuals and farms). Coal Valley is one of two that produces thermal coal mostly used in factories abroad while the third is a metallurgical mine. 

But it’s not the end of the story of coal in Alberta, at least not yet. 

The current provincial government has opened the door to new mines in areas set aside by the Lougheed conservatives in 1976, and a new coal policy — a guide to where and when mining can take place — is expected this year. This follows five years of acrimonious debate and public backlash against opening the Rocky Mountains to new mines.

According to data from the Alberta Energy Regulator, the three existing mines have struggled to keep coal waste and sediment out of the province’s waterways, a key concern for Albertans wondering what will happen to the headwaters for the Canadian Prairies if they’re contaminated.

There have been 42 incidents in the past three years, almost all of which involve water.

Further south of the existing mines clustered in west-central Alberta, new metallurgical coal mines have been pitched for the traditional mining region near Crownest Pass. The water that flows from the rocky slopes there tumbles across an astonishing expanse of prairie clean through to Manitoba, providing habitat and hydration to ecosystems, helping to irrigate crops and slake the thirst of livestock, wildlife and humans alike.

Cavernous pits and tree-lined lakes

Inside the main office at Coal Valley, the smell of coal — like fresh asphalt — permeates the two-storey space, which sits next to workshops designed to handle repairs on towering mine dump trucks. The walls are adorned with colouring sheets showing mine workers, carefully filled in by local young students, some of whom have parents at the mine.

Inside a conference room a map of the mine is displayed under a glass top on the table. Here, Scott Sturm, Westmoreland’s chief operating officer, and Steve Love, the mine’s general manager, talk about operations and reclamation, water and regulations while pointing to areas on the map. Charles Reid, senior legal and government affairs counsel, asks that the conversations not be recorded.

They talk about how the coal on site doesn’t have high levels of selenium, a compound that’s harmful to fish and human health in high quantities and a key concern in the ongoing debate about the future of coal mining in Alberta. The lack of selenium is a simple bit of geochemical luck rather than the product of engineering or human ingenuity, but it helps the company set itself apart when discussing spills. Its claims are backed up by water sampling conducted for the company by an independent contractor. 

Before setting out for a tour of the mine, they talk about the incidents listed by the regulator, including areas where spills have occurred. 

One recent incident dumped sediment in a creek, the result of erosion from a roadway and a collapsed culvert. At the site of the spill, the system designed to contain the sediment is still in place: a floating yellow barrier. Today, it’s closer to shore and smaller in size compared to three months earlier — Sturm pulls out his phone to share a photo from the time of the spill.

Sturm, a white-goateed man who looks somehow built for coal mining, says another incident in April was the result of ice blocking outflow from the mine’s long stretch of ponds. Known as Coal Creek, the long, narrow series of ponds are where debris and contaminants settle as the water slowly moves through them, ultimately discharging into a small waterway. The ice, combined with snowmelt and heavy rain, overwhelmed Coal Creek, and led to the spill.

Those spills involved sediment. And even without some of the chemical pollution concerns experienced by other mines, it can still have an impact. Sediment-laden riverbeds can smother habitat and impact fish and insect reproduction, and there is always the risk of contamination from pollutants including arsenic and heavy metals.

The company is also under investigation by the Alberta Energy Regulator for an incident related to a spill from the same area in 2025, but details have not been released.

In a follow-up email after the tour, Heroux says Westmoreland is working on “permanent engineering improvements” to the facility and says the company measures water quality after a spill. Heroux says conditions remained within regulatory limits following the spill in April and noted the company monitors surface water at 47 locations throughout the mine, as well as groundwater, streamflow and wetland conditions around the site.

“​​We also sample 20 additional locations upstream and downstream of the mine and exceed a number of the minimum monitoring requirements contained in its approvals,” Heroux wrote.

The tour pauses at the cavernous Pit 26, the only area of the mine that is currently active, a deep hole in the earth with a massive digger pulling loads from its lowest depths. There’s also a stop at the storage area where coal is washed prior to shipping to Japan. Further from the active areas, a short walk down a gravel road leads to a lush-looking lake that was once a mining pit — known as an end-pit lake, it’s part of a reclamation process those leading the tour seem particularly proud of and eager to highlight.

That former mining pit, now called Sterling Lake, is open to the public, accessed via a hike and stocked with fish for recreational angling. It has not yet been certified as reclaimed nor has the land officially been passed back to the province.

Love jokes he’s been sampling drinking water for years to ensure it’s clean.

Is a better coal mine … good?

Driving through the mine, Love talks about the grizzly sow, Betty, who dens nearby and passes her unique colouring from one generation of cubs to the next. Out the window, the landscape shifts from areas replanted with fir trees, to deep pits and cuts in the land. Across the valley, clearcuts dot the hillside, which those on the tour are quick to point out are the result of logging operations and not mining — another industry, a separate problem, within view. 

The impacts on the land are clear and immense. The emissions when the product is finally burned, meanwhile, are out of sight.

It’s clear the staff at Coal Valley who spoke with The Narwhal care about the work, the site and the surrounding environment. The willingness of the company to reach out is critical to understand the nuance of its operations and its failures. 

The company is eager to point to how quickly it reports and responds to spills, and explain how those spills aren’t an apocalyptic deluge of wastewater sludge. That may be true, but it’s also clear the mine struggles to contain water not meant to flow into waterways.

The information provided by the Alberta Energy Regulator through its compliance dashboard is often unclear about the impacts of coal mining incidents. There are few details linked to most infractions beyond “sediment runoff and sediment to waterbody,” or a figure on how much sediment was measured on a given month or day. 

The regulator is also sparing in the use of enforcement powers, including fines, to deter violations. Only about $1.1 million in fines has been doled out since 2013 and more than 80 per cent were for one major incident.

Following the mine tour, Heroux said the regulator’s data can be misread. 

“The [Alberta Energy Regulator] compliance dashboard records reportable events and regulatory activity, but it does not necessarily explain why an event occurred, its environmental significance, the company’s response or the outcome of the regulator’s review,” he wrote. “Please remember that those distinctions are important when evaluating the figures.”

Not far from Coal Valley, mine operator CST Coal has been fined $53,000 for spills that took place over the past three years, and for failing to quickly report those infractions to the regulator. In one instance it waited days. The context and the failure to report contributed to the penalties, according to the regulator. 

CST Coal did not respond to questions from The Narwhal.

Driving home from the tour down Highway 40, following the length of the mine site invisible over an adjacent mound, there’s a comfort in knowing that it’s still possible to talk across divides and see firsthand where assumptions fall apart, and where they do not. 

But at the end of the day, there remains a lingering question the industry might not be able to overcome: given the impacts on the land, on water and on emissions that cause air pollution and exacerbate climate change, is it enough that a coal mine is striving to be better than its peers?

Updated on Sept. 3, 2026, at 2:35 p.m. MT: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that coal-fired electricity has been phased out in Alberta, not across all of the Prairies as was implied in a previous version.

Updated on Sept. 4, 2026, at 10:05 a.m. MT: This story has been updated to correct a photo caption that misidentified a plant as a dandelion.

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Summary

• Nunavut hunters and trappers are concerned about a proposal to expand the Mary River mine on Baffin Island.
• Hunter and trapper organizations in three Inuit communities have raised concerns about detrimental effects to the environment, as well as a lack of consultation.
• The proposed expansion by Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. comes amid a financial crisis for the company, which owes $2.6 billion to creditors and recently received a $660-million loan from the federal government to provide it with “breathing room.”

Hunters and trappers organizations in three Nunavut communities are raising concerns Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation’s proposal to expand its Mary River mine, including the construction of a 149-kilometre rail line, will be detrimental to wildlife in Foxe Basin.

The organizations from Naujaat in the Kivalliq region, and Igloolik and Sanirajak in the Qikiqtaaluk region, are seeking consultation and a full review of the expansion plan, arguing it will impact their right to harvest.

Made up of the shallow waters off the west coast of Baffin Island, Foxe Basin is an important environment for marine species including narwhals, walruses and bowhead whales. 

Inuit in all three communities rely on the area to harvest these animals for food and as a way of life. But the expansion is likely to change that, according to John Ell-Tinashlu, chair of the Arviq Hunters and Trappers Organization in Naujaat. 

Baffinland’s proposed Steensby expansion, which received environmental assessment approval in 2012, is aimed at increasing iron ore production at the mine from 4.2 million tonnes per year to 22 million tonnes. Transportation for the iron ore would take place via the rail line from the mine, south to a proposed port on Steensby Inlet, as well as a sea route through Foxe Basin. 

“The big difference will be the numbers of ships going in and out [of Foxe],” Ell-Tinashlu says, adding the size of the ships transiting in the area to transport the iron ore each year — as well as their presence year-round — will affect the entire food chain. 

“With narwhals, when they hear the lightest noise, they quit making sounds until the [shipping noise] gets farther,” he says. “And it’s not just narwhals — bowhead whales, walruses, harp seals, ringed seals, shrimp, cod.” The increased shipping, he says, will have impacts on marine life at every link of the food chain, “from a small predator to a big predator.”  

Mirroring concerns from Mittimatalikmiut 

A spokesperson for Baffinland said the company has been approved for 242 transits through the Foxe Basin waterway each year, transporting iron ore as part of the expansion. James Gunvaldsen Klaassen, a lawyer with Ecojustice, says this will deeply affect the local narwhal population, in particular, as the ore carriers will follow the same path as the local narwhal population’s migration route — from summer in Repulse Bay, where Naujaat is located, to Foxe Basin and Hudson Strait in the fall — causing serious impacts to the marine mammals. 

The impacts of such activity are already known in communities such as Mittimatalik, or Pond Inlet, which is located on Eclipse Sound just east of Baffinland’s current port on Milne Inlet. In 2018, Baffinland began seeking approval to increase production to six million tonnes per year, with a proposed second phase that would involve increasing production to 12 million tonnes per year. 

The Nunavut Impact Review Board recommended against the increase to 12 million tonnes and former federal minister of northern affairs Dan Vandal rejected the proposal in 2022. Under its current operating licence, Baffinland is allowed to mine up to 4.2 million tonnes of ore from Mary River annually, and since 2018, has been granted temporary permission to mine up to six million tonnes per year. 

“The Arviq [Hunters and Trappers Organization] has heard from other Inuit who live in Pond Inlet and are dependent on the narwhal in Eclipse Sound that when the ore carriers travelled there the narwhal were very sensitive to noise and it disrupted migration patterns,” Klaassen says. 

“At that point, the narwhal started to go to other places and disappear from the locations they’re normally found in. Some still return, but there’s a big difference in how many come back year over year.”

Inuit in Mittimatalik have found the health of narwhals to have been impacted by the stresses associated with ships as well, Klaassen added. 

“The Arviq [Hunters and Trappers Organization] has seen this happen in the north side of Baffin and they’re extremely concerned it’s going to happen in their area as well when the shipping starts, so this is a big concern.” 

By email, Baffinland’s spokesperson Peter Akman said Baffinland is taking concerns raised by the Arviq Hunters and Trappers Organization seriously, and has invested significantly in underwater acoustic monitoring, through which it has found “while noise from project vessels is detectable in the underwater soundscape, vessel noise exposure is temporary in nature and below sound levels that could cause acoustic injury.” 

“We’ve implemented measures to reduce vessel noise and mitigate potential impacts on these sensitive species,” Akman said. “Our approach includes reducing vessel speeds to minimize noise and disturbance, implementing a designated marine shipping lane, avoiding ecologically sensitive areas and scheduling vessel transits to avoid breaking ice at the beginning of the shipping season.” 

Akman added Baffinland also requires vessels to maintain minimum distances from marine mammals and to follow strict protocols including observing a speed no faster than nine knots, maintaining fixed routes and avoiding ecologically sensitive areas. 

“Hudson Strait connects Foxe Basin to the Labrador Sea, forming a marine ‘superhighway’ for narwhal, bowhead and beluga whales. Foxe Basin also supports the largest walrus population in Canada,” Sam Davin, lead specialist for conservation and shipping at World Wildlife Fund Canada, says. “More ships will mean more pollution, noise, black carbon and a greater risk of ship strikes.” 

In the case of narwhals, Davin said the marine mammals are among the most sensitive to underwater noise and are “more stressed than ever as industrial activity and shipping in their habitat intensifies.” 

“A Fisheries and Oceans Canada study, supported by WWF-Canada’s Arctic Species Conservation Fund, found that cortisol levels of narwhal in Eclipse Sound, near Pond Inlet, increased by 200 per cent from 2013 to 2019,” he said. “Already under intense pressure from rapid climate change, these species will be placed under even greater stress if proposals to dramatically increase shipping and related infrastructure in the Canadian Arctic proceed.” 

Davin added, “There is no scenario in which a project of this scale does not have a significant impact on marine mammals and other species in the region.”

Former Nunavut premier opposes expansion, cites lack of consultation 

Paul Okalik, former premier of Nunavut and lead Arctic specialist with World Wildlife Fund Canada, said he understands Arviq Hunters and Trappers Organization’s concerns about the Steensby expansion as he got involved in advocacy against the Mary River Milne port expansion in 2018. 

As well as proposing to increase production to 12 million tonnes per year under its phase two expansion, Baffinland wanted to build another railway to move all of that ore to the Milne port, rather than by road.

“I had grown up 800 kilometres south of the current project, and we had only been exposed to narwhal in early spring, before ice breakup,” he recalls. After the mine received approval to increase annual production to 6 million tonnes, he says, “we were starting to see narwhals in the summer months — in August — because they were being displaced and dispersed.”

“Since [Baffinland was] not approved for expansion on the eastern front through Milne port, they now have started to focus their attention on trying to ship ore through Steensby, and that’s going to be brutal for Naujaat, in particular, where they depend on narwhal in the summer months.”

According to Okalik, a key difference between the Milne port expansion and the one proposed at Steensby is that Inuit from Mittimatalik were consulted about the former, while Inuit in Naujaat were left out of the 2012 approval of shipping through Foxe Basin. 

“Fortunately for Mittimatalik and the surrounding communities, they were able to take part in the hearings and have an influence on the decision of the proposed phase two [expansion at Milne port] and they were able to push back and say, ‘This is not acceptable to us,’ ” Okalik says. 

“For the Steensby port and railroad project, there has never been any hearing. There has never been any input from Naujaat to influence that decision that took place in 2012 because they were never approached, they were never able to take part in any hearing. That’s a really flawed decision in my opinion, because any community that’s going to be impacted deserves to have a say and influence on the impending project.” 

The lack of consultation with Inuit in Naujaat in 2012 — and in the 14 years since — is why Ell-Tinashlu said the Arviq Hunters and Trappers Organization is working with Ecojustice to call on the Nunavut Impact Review Board and Inuit associations for a complete review. 

They have seen some response since organizing a news conference for this call with the Igloolik and Sanirajak hunters and trappers associations in Iqaluit on May 15. Klaassen confirmed the Arviq Hunters and Trappers Organization participated in Nunavut Impact Review Board meetings in Iqaluit as part of their assessment of the cumulative effects of the Mary River project in early June. On June 29, the review board announced a final virtual information session on July 14, acknowledging some in-person sessions in May had been impacted by weather and travel issues. 

However, Klaassen emphasized the organization continues to “have some concerns about its scope and whether it will lead to any meaningful changes in relation to the project’s impacts on their livelihood and harvesting rights under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.” 

According to Akman, consultation on Steensby “has been extensive” and the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s original scoping of potentially affected communities was public and included the community of Coral Harbour, which is also in the Kivalliq and close to the proposed shipping lane. 

Akman said Naujaat did not elect to participate in the public review at the time and as a result was not integrated into Baffinland’s community and stakeholder engagement plans for this expansion. He also said the Arviq Hunters and Trappers Organization has never reached out to Baffinland for a meeting but the corporation is working to address concerns raised by hunters who are part of it. 

Akman added that Baffinland itself led direct engagement efforts in all Qikiqtani communities affected by the mine between 2023 and 2024 to develop the necessary applications following the environment assessment authorizations. 

“Following the submission of our applications, the federal government commenced an extensive engagement process with the same affected communities, completing several rounds of written and in-person exchanges between March 2025 and January 2026.” 

In the case of Igloolik and Sanirajak, Akman said Baffinland has organized in-person consultations to discuss environmental monitoring and mitigation measures for the expansion 48 times since 2023. The engagement has involved discussions about “community access to vessel routing information, marine mammal and caribou protection measures, incorporation of Inuit knowledge and the inclusion of approximately nine proposed snowmobile and ATV crossings along the railway at locations identified through consultation with Inuit to support safe travel and land use.”

In a May 2025 response to the Canadian Transportation Agency’s consultations on the Steensby expansion, the Igloolik Hunters and Trappers Association said consultations have been piecemeal and the association has “serious unresolved concerns,” which is why it believes permits for the expansion should not be issued at this time. 

The Igloolik Hunters and Trappers Association also said the original review and assessment of the expansion is over a decade old, and therefore outdated. It called for new assessments instead, arguing that under federal legislation, a mining company has five years to begin operations. After that, a re-consideration of the terms and conditions is required. 

“These ‘sunset clauses’ exist because environmental conditions and knowledge change over time, sometimes necessitating reassessment,” the association said in its response. 

“This same logic should be applied to Baffinland’s plans to build a port and railway to Steensby Inlet.” 

For both Klaassen and Ell-Tinashlu, consultations remain but a first step in the process — what they would like to see is concerns about the expansion addressed and alternatives found for the impact the Steensby expansion will have on the way of life for Inuit in Naujaat, Igloolik and Sanirajak. 

“We’re in a tough situation and we need Canada, our government, to step up,” Ell-Tinashlu says. 

“This shipping route will run for 40 to 45 years if they go ahead and our Foxe Basin animals will be absolutely gone.” 

Baffinland debts put future of mine, expansion into question

Baffinland’s current financial crisis has also put the future of its proposed expansion into question. As the biggest industrial development project and largest private-sector employer in Nunavut, the Mary River mine contributes nearly a quarter of the territory’s GDP. 

The Milne phase two expansion, had it been approved, would have generated $2.4 billion for Inuit organizations including Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association over 17 years of operations, according to Baffinland. 

In addition, the corporation had said it expected $680 million in revenues generated for the Government of Nunavut annually as well as a total of $1.7 billion in revenues for the Government of Canada over the life of the mine. 

Baffinland anticipated the total gross domestic product generated in the Canadian economy over the Milne project’s life span to be over $30 billion. 

However, as recently reported by the CBC, as of May 14 the corporation currently owes a total of $2.6 billion to creditors.

On June 30, Baffinland received a $660 million loan from Export Development Canada to provide the company with “breathing room,” according to a news release, and continue operations at the Mary River mine site. The company remains under creditor protection, according to a news release, which could lead to “recapitalization or potential sale of the company.”  

“Ultimately, what the Arviq [Hunters and Trappers Organization] would like to see is a different route for this railway and port,” Klaassen says.“Arviq [Hunters and Trappers Organization] is not opposed to the operations at Mary River. It must be done responsibly and carefully. … The big concern is not to shut down that operation, but to make the route much better and more carefully arranged so that the rights of Inuit are protected and the environment is protected.”Klaassen also says as an organization made up of Inuit from Naujaat, Arviq has constitutional rights based on the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the ability to assert those rights in court if necessary. While no legal actions have been filed so far, he says they continue to be “a distinct possibility.”“We’re talking about a way of life and food security for the Inuit living [in Naujaat],” Klaassen says. “Those must be protected, otherwise it’s going to be a disaster.”

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The winding drive northward from Vancouver along the Sea to Sky Highway is a series of postcard moments — lush coastal rainforest, glimmering ocean and approaching mountain ranges. It’s easy to miss the closed Britannia mine nestled into the jagged northwest slopes.

The site, in Squamish Nation territory, was once a steep rockface sloping into the Pacific Ocean. In 1904, the Britannia mine opened and would grow to be one of the largest copper mines in the British Empire by the 1920s and ’30s. Little attention was paid to the environmental impacts of mining at the time. By the late ’90s, it became one of the most contaminated industrial sites in North America.

The mine shut down in 1974 and by 1975, the local historical society opened what’s now known as the Britannia Mine Museum. 

On a recent Saturday night this Pride Month, another evolution was underway, with 14 drag kings, queens and things strutting, lip-syncing and sashaying through the century-old Mill No. 3.

The Britannia mine had to transform to continue to exist, drag queen Dust Cwaine says, sitting on a giant tire and staring out at a rusty piece of discarded mining equipment. “When we look around, all you see is history.” 

The venue for tonight’s drag show, “Old Town, New Queens,” is the historic 20-storey mill, which once used gravity to help process ore, rock that contains minerals, dug up from the over 200 kilometres of tunnels inside the mountain. Large pieces would tumble down from the top of the mill, to be crushed, grinded and processed into the consistency of sand. A mixture of that powdered ore, water, aromatic oils and bubbles became a cakey copper concentrate, to later be sent out and processed with high heat and purified into copper.

From 1904 to 1974, the Britannia mine produced more than 45 million tonnes of ore. Tonight, the booming sounds of rock being crushed and grinded are far in the past, replaced by drag king Kyle Wiley turning it out to AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long.

Britannia’s copper mill could have been left to “rust and rot” like others across the country, Derek A. Jang, the museum’s director of programs and guest experience, says before the show. His radio beeps and crackles as staff prepare for the evening and try to grab his attention.

Typically, when a mine in B.C. is closed or decommissioned, plans focus on returning the area back to what it was. The local community doesn’t always get a say.

Some closed mines have been remodelled in unique ways. The Sunken Garden in Victoria’s famous Butchart Gardens was once a limestone quarry. There’s an old silver mine in northern Ontario that has lived many lives including a bookstore, flower shop, grocery store and now a tea room. In Pennsylvania, an abandoned limestone mine has become a resort where visitors can ride all-terrain and other recreational vehicles through the darkness of underground tunnels.

The community of Britannia Beach shared its vision to turn the mine into a museum years before the last shift whistle blew on November 1, 1974, Jang says. The opening of the museum the next year was thanks to intentional efforts by a number of groups, including the Britannia Beach Historical Society.

Tonight, the old mine likely looks very different from what the founders ever imagined.

Community groups like Queer People in Mining, Sea 2 Sky Allies and Pride Squamish have booths set up in the gravel courtyard outside the mill. Rainbow hearts and balloons direct the crowd. Inside, there’s an archway — much like the one Madonna danced through in her iconic video Express Yourself — next to a sound system, smoke machine and stage lights.

“As a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community myself, I don’t always feel seen when I go to different museum attractions,” Jang says, adding that Britannia exhibits have been dominated by images and stories of working white men. “This event, in some ways, is a bold way of saying ‘Let’s change that.’ ”

It took years of relationship building with the local 2SLGBTQ+ community for the museum to see the mine go from tunnels to tutus. Trevor Wulff, president of Pride Squamish, says the nearby town he grew up in wasn’t always a welcoming place. “It’s really amazing because it’s all about community … everyone deserves a sense of belonging,” Wulff says, looking around as a crowd of many ages and genders slowly grows.

It was important to think about how to make the event welcoming for young people, Jang says. He heard from community groups that youth “have very few opportunities to see queerness in action.”

Drag artists played with themes of tech advancements, “Giants at Werk,” a nod to Britannia Museum’s summer exhibit on big machinery and the mine’s legacy of pollution.

“We’re adding to a new history while honouring and respecting the past,” Dust Cwaine says in an interview during intermission, as performers Homo Hardware and Peter Packer prepare for their acts.

Decades ago, when the Britannia mine was operational, its lights illuminated the nights of Howe Sound. The night of the drag show, sunset slowly seeped in through the mill’s 14,416 panes of glass adding to the dramatic glow of Homo Hardware’s iridescent, shimmering wings.

Drag is “a vehicle for self expression,” Homo Hardware explained on a phone call before the show. “There are so many different ways that people can use that, whether that’s a more direct, literal message about a cause, or something a bit more abstract.” What makes drag so effective, they said, is the energy and connection that comes from being in a live performance space.

In the second act, drag thing Rose Butch lip synced to Hillary Duff’s Come Clean. The lyrics hit a bit differently than usual, invoking the environmental impacts of mining. Duff’s voice reverberates through the rafters — “I’m shedding, shedding every color / Tryna find a pigment of truth beneath my skin” — as Rose Butch parts through bubbles floating across the stage.

In one far corner of the mill, bright blue streaks of copper reacting with water shine bright. Rose Butch moves up and down hidden in a star-speckled cloud, holding an umbrella dripping with tinsel until their big reveal: the clouds part into a dress draping them in sequined bright blue skies.

The mine was once called “the single worst point source of metal pollution on the North American continent,” causing devastating effects to marine life in Howe Sound. Acidic water containing heavy metals leaked into nearby waterways for decades. Water leaving the site has to be treated at an estimated cost of $3.7 million per year, according to an email from the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. That treatment process has to happen in perpetuity — meaning the public will foot that bill for the foreseeable future.

That history isn’t lost on the organizers of the event. We’re all here because of the continuous efforts to keep the land clean, Dust Cwaine says. Work continues today to ensure “this place doesn’t poison our waters and poison our nature … It has this complicated existence … I think putting drag in it is this incredible juxtaposition.”

Just a few hours ago, Jang was wearing a plain black Britannia Mine Museum polo shirt, as he prepared for the show. Now, he’s on stage with a flashy new look, sharing another evolution of the mine — and a hope for more to come. The waters surrounding the mine site were once severely damaged, he tells the crowd, but there’s been incredible work done to bring back aquatic life and restore the ecosystem. 

“In the 2010s spawning salmon returned to Britannia Creek, for the first time, in what we suspect to be over 100 years,” he says to an eruption of cheers, through which Jang continues. 

“I worry [young people] think they’re inheriting a broken world that is beyond help … I hope that in some way Britannia Mine Museum can play a role in inspiring the next generation of great thinkers to remember that work is going to be hard, but solutions can be in reach.”

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Morning light streams into the tiny, five-seat helicopter as it hovers above the Tranquil Creek watershed in Clayoquot Sound, B.C. It turns into what seems like a collision course with a cliff, but a landing pad appears just in time.

After a minute of careful positioning, the chopper touches ground on a bed of freshly cut grass and branches, allowing Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation’s natural resources manager Saya Masso and lead guardian Tattuuskulth (Tatt) Charlie to step outside.

They’ve come to see a mine shaft with an entranceway small enough that Masso ducks down to look inside. It looks like a relic from the gold rush, but there are a few conspicuously new things stashed at the entrance: a shiny white construction hat, plastic bags and a long orange hose coiled in a pile. 

For Masso and Charlie, they’re quiet reminders that what began here more than a century ago has yet to conclude.

In February, Canadian mining company Imperial Metals received a permit to explore for gold at the long-dormant Fandora mine site on Vancouver Island’s west coast. For the next five years, the company is allowed to pick and prod underground in the hopes of accessing the site’s mostly untapped resources. 

Masso is worried about Hiłsyaqƛis, the name for the Tranquil Creek watershed in Nuu-chah-nulth. Problems at this remote site in the middle of rain-drenched temperate forest could easily metastasize. 

“Positive change is gradual,” he says, “but negative change can happen so quick.”

Clayoquot Sound is home to the some of the largest intact old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, and remains a key refuge for massive red cedars, orcas and Pacific salmon. About 20 kilometres from the mine site, these lands and waters now underpin the tourism economy of Tofino, B.C. First Nations including Tla-o-qui-aht have spent decades protecting the region, helping to shape its economic future. According to Tourism Tofino, visitors spent $430 million in the region in 2024. 

Tofino Mayor Dan Law was careful to clarify the municipality has no jurisdiction over a prospective mine outside its boundaries, but says a mine in the sound “seems like a no-go.”

“Clearly, the wealth of Clayoquot Sound is not in resource extraction,” Law says from his office on a tree-lined street in the heart of town.

Masso puts things a little more bluntly. “A gold mine will never open in Clayoquot Sound in this tenure,” he says. The Tla-o-qui-aht have opposed Imperial Metals’ efforts to search for gold on the site for more than a decade.

“It goes against our spiritual plan, our cultural plan, our tourism plan, so we’re asking ministers and leaders in B.C. to help turn this around, to put a pause on it, put an injunction on it,” Masso says.

The Tofino Chamber of Commerce also opposes the plan. 

“This would be extensively damaging to our business community,” Graydon Clerk, executive director of the Tofino Chamber of Commerce, says. The association recently sent a letter to the province outlining its concerns.

Imperial Metals did not respond to The Narwhal’s multiple requests for comment. 

B.C.’s Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals told The Narwhal the permit doesn’t allow activities beyond the current exploration plan. Anything more would require a new decision under the province’s Mines Act.

“The Ministry remains committed to strong environmental oversight, safe mining practices and ongoing consultation with First Nations and partners,” it added. 

Pressure from the growing price of gold

East of Clayoquot Sound, a broader debate over Canada’s future is unfolding.

“Canada has what the world wants,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told a room of the world’s elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, signalling his government’s open-for-business ethos. And the world wants gold.

Gold is among Canada’s largest exports, after oil and gas. Thanks to skyrocketing prices, the precious metal has boosted the profile of Canada’s stock exchange and contributed to the country’s claimed success diversifying its exports away from the U.S. To facilitate a resource-sector renaissance, Canada, B.C. and other provinces have promised to push major projects through — and quickly.

The Tla-o-qui-aht are no strangers to the treasures beneath their territory. Copper and gold from the region have long been used in ceremonies and to adorn regalia. “They had monumental value,” Tla-o-qui-aht Chief Elmer Frank tells The Narwhal in an interview. 

By the late 1800s, word had gotten out, and prospectors flooded the region as the north’s Klondike Gold Rush wound down. The efforts were buoyed by B.C.’s mining laws, which allowed settlers to stake out mineral rights simply by driving posts into the ground.

The Fandora mine site was first staked in the 1930s, but in 1940, the mine had yet to produce the equivalent of a large gold bar. It has sat mostly dormant for half a century. 

Meanwhile, Tofino grew. 

In 2000, Clayoquot Sound was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, marking it as a global priority for conservation. The town’s new boom was in whale-watching, five-star hotels and fancy restaurants. Today, Tofino’s population surges from about 2,500 year-round locals to more than 12,000 during its summer peak.

But in February, as gold prices soared, British Columbia approved a five-year permit for Imperial Metals, under its wholly-owned subsidiary, Selkirk Metals Corp., to see whether Fandora’s reserves are worth the cost of constructing a mine. 

Documents obtained by The Narwhal show the company plans to dig a series of metre-wide trenches, some as long as two football fields, to determine if trace amounts of gold in the soil signal riches below. The company has also mapped out six drill pads, each roughly the size of a small house, some as close as 110 metres from the river. Drilling will likely require thousands of litres of water for each hole. On the company’s proposed exploration map, there are three “helicopter drill pad water sources” listed in Tranquil Creek’s tributaries. According to its permit, “road-access drilling” will not use water from Tranquil Creek or its tributaries. 

In its permit application materials, Imperial Metals noted it will seek to reuse and reduce water as much as possible. The company’s permit also requires it take steps to accommodate traditional harvest and cultural practices during its exploration work, among other requirements.

In the documents, Imperial Metals noted the intensity of this project in its first year will depend on how much funding the company obtains. “We may only drill one or two holes,” it added. Its permit allows it to drill another 15 house-sized drill pads in yet-undisclosed locations across the Tranquil Creek watershed and its adjacent valley.

The documents also suggest gold on the property extends farther than previously understood. “After a long hiatus in exploration, modern soil geochemistry was completed on the property, which successfully extended the anomalous gold horizon along strike of the known veins,” an August 2025 Notice of Work document obtained by The Narwhal states.

Imperial Metals did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions about its plans.

A mine surrounded by tribal parks

As the lead guardian for Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, Charlie doesn’t miss a beat when asked which of his many tasks he prefers. 

“Hands down, my favourite is trail building,” he says.

Trails extend throughout the nation’s tribal parks, which now encompass Tla-o-qui-aht’s entire territory, more than 1,000 square kilometres. Within tribal parks, industry and economic development aren’t categorically excluded. But their acceptance is contingent on support from the nation and other locals who aim to ensure industry doesn’t come at the expense of what ecosystems and communities need to thrive. 

“It’s a vision that the region can stand behind,” Masso says. 

The province has yet to recognize tribal parks within its own legal system — and where some form of recognition exists, it has been hard-won.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, members of Tla-o-qui-aht and ʕaaḥuusʔatḥ (Ahousaht) First Nations discovered logging giant MacMillan Bloedel had plans to clear-cut almost all of Meares Island, home of ecologically important intact forests. In response, Tla-o-qui-aht declared its first tribal park across Meares in its entirety. The province granted the company’s logging permits anyway.

A blockade led by the Tla-o-qui-aht ensued, sparking the first of a series of blockades in Clayoquot Sound which eventually led to the War in the Woods. In 1985, the B.C. Court of Appeal decided the nations’ yet-to-be-recognized Aboriginal Title should outweigh the company’s right to short-term profit.

According a paper published by lawyer and professor Douglas Harris, the decision helped shape a key turning point. Indigenous Rights claims were no longer a point of curiosity for the courts. Now they had legal weight.

Today, Meares Island remains off-limits to logging, protecting the District of Tofino’s sole source of drinking water. But elsewhere in the territory, including in the Tranquil watershed, areas within tribal parks had no such safeguards.

That is, until recently.

‘Consent of affected First Nations is not a legal requirement,’ B.C. government says

In spring 2024, B.C., Tla-o-qui-aht and neighbouring ʕaaḥuusʔatḥ announced a set of protected areas across Clayoquot Sound and throughout the Tla-o-qui-aht Nation’s tribal parks. “It’s a monumental occasion,” Masso said at the time. 

In theory, the conservancies would recognize some principles of the Tla-o-qui-aht’s tribal parks within B.C.’s laws, and they came with commitments: B.C. promised the areas would have no commercial forestry within their boundaries, nor any mining activity. 

To Masso, it remains a partial victory: The Tranquil Creek conservancy B.C. put forward has a big hole in the middle, shaped seemingly to avoid overlap with Imperial Metals’ mining claims.

Masso says he remembers the province’s reassurances. “They said, ‘This is just the first step,’ ” he says. “‘We’ll make more as we do more work to resolve overlaps or tenures, and we’ll add it.’ ”

But that hasn’t happened. 

Instead, Masso received an email from the province in December 2025, which revealed Imperial Metals was about to return. After a few years of what Chief Frank described as “one-way” consultation, the company was on the precipice of receiving a renewed exploration permit.

Masso was stunned. “We said, ‘Wait a second, they’re considering issuing this,’ ” he says. “We wrote a very stern letter reminding them that they couldn’t.”

Two months later, the province approved Imperial’s permit anyway.

In an emailed statement, B.C.’s Ministry of Mines and Critical Minerals said its decision was based on the exploration activity alone. 

The ministry added “Consent of affected First Nations is not a legal requirement” but that it “seeks to reach consensus in decision making and considers all input from First Nations in that process.”

“Input received informs decision making,” it added. 

ʕaaḥuusʔatḥ, whose territory overlaps with areas within Imperial Metals’ Fandora claim, did not respond to The Narwhal’s interview request. 

Indigenous consent and the country’s relationship to it are an increasingly charged lightning rod in Canadian politics. In 2019, B.C. committed to integrate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, into its own laws, including the principle of free, prior and informed consent.

More recently, the B.C. Court of Appeal found the province’s mineral tenure system inconsistent with UNDRIP, as incorporated into provincial law through the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). The province appealed the ruling, which is now waiting to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. In the meantime, Premier David Eby attempted to suspend parts of the Declaration Act, a move that was widely criticized and stopped, in part, by the NDP government’s own members. The government says it will revisit the issue in the fall legislative session.

Sara Ghebremusse, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Allard School of Law, cautions against efforts to go backwards, particularly given the growing body of international and national law recognizing the weight of Indigenous Rights. 

“This is going to be a long-term issue,” she says.

The cost of gold

At the Fandora site, gold comes wrapped up with sulphides. Under certain conditions, the compound turns water into acid that can leach heavy metals into the watershed.

To curb that risk, mines generally store waste rock underwater and away from oxygen. But in rain-drenched Clayoquot Sound, accumulating pools of tailings could overflow, meaning if built a mine would likely require long-term drainage systems and monitoring. 

“Water is always a problem,” Scott Dunbar, a professor of mining engineering at the University of British Columbia, says. “If an accident occurs, the first question is always ‘Where did the water get out?’ ”

For the time being, Imperial’s exploration permit requires it to mitigate the potential for acid mine drainage through identifying and safely disposing of rocks capable of causing it.

Gold is also famously stubborn for clinging to its host rocks, which means heavy-duty chemicals are used in extraction. Cyanide leaching is the most common method of choice. Companies aim to isolate the obviously noxious chemical and keep it contained, but tailings that are left over are likely contaminated.

Meanwhile, the Tranquil Creek watershed is already on life support. 

After the valley bottom was logged extensively in the 1960s and 1970s, loggers moved into the hills, destroying root systems that held the region’s crumbly till in place. Landslides ensued, helping turn Tranquil Creek, a key spawning ground for Pacific salmon, into a danger zone capable of suffocating salmon eggs beneath gravel or washing them out to sea. By 2017, resident Chinook and chum salmon had almost disappeared.

With the Redd Fish Restoration Society, Tla-o-qui-aht is working to restore the watershed, including installing a series of costly but effective human-made log-jams to slow the water and building terraces in the landslides to choke off the gravel taps. Collectively with other groups, about $6 million has been spent restoring the Tranquil so far. Recent years of boosted salmon returns are providing some hope.

Charlie warns of the risks of backsliding in the Tranquil. “Mining is one thing that will just throw it over the edge,” he says. 

In a recent article in the publication Ha-Shilth-Sa, Imperial Metals CEO Brian Kynoch noted the mine would “most likely” be underground, not in an open pit, and that it would target only “narrow” gold veins. He also said Imperial Metals “remains committed to engaging respectfully with First Nations and local communities as the project moves forward.”

Kynoch has previously described the project as “artisanal.”

But the company has a checkered past: In 2014, the company’s “crown jewel” gold and copper mine, Mount Polley, became the site of the largest mining waste disaster in Canada’s history when its tailings dam breached. More than 25 billion litres of water and mine waste, including lead, cadmium and arsenic, spilled into the surrounding watershed. Later reporting showed the province warned the company about stability concerns in its tailings dam at least five times before the disaster occurred. 

In 2018, the company faced significant financial challenges and there was concern it might file for bankruptcy. But even if a mine is never built, Imperial could profit from the claim. In B.C., mining companies stand to be compensated if they withdraw claims to make way for new protected areas. In 2022, Imperial Metals received $24 million to relinquish its claim area in the Skagit Headwaters. 

“It doesn’t make any sense at all to let them drill it if the only end result is to compensate them to not mine,” Masso says.

Imperial Metals did not reply to The Narwhal’s request for comment.

‘It’s still a beautiful place’

Once we’re back in the helicopter’s bucket seats, the chopper ascends from the cliff face and travels on through the Tranquil watershed. 

Uniform patches of short, stubby trees extend across the valley bottom, but the forests transform as we fly higher, farther from the reach of roads and access points. Soon the chopper tips toward the deep blue bowl of a mountain lake, its water still and inky blue. 

“It’s still a beautiful place,” Masso says. “Even if it’s still in recovery.”

From up above, Tofino’s growth is hard to ignore. Multimillion-dollar vacation homes sprawl across the coastline. Masso peers out the window, thinking about an old photo of Tofino in the 1960s with just a scattering of homes. He knows more change is on the way. 

“Imagine another 80 years from now,” he says. “People are gonna say, ‘Look at what it was like.’ ”

Tourism has its challenges: Tofino is short on water and housing. Charlie and the other Tla-o-qui-aht Guardians sometimes spend days cleaning up after visitors who leave their trash on the beach and backcountry. 

But these are the challenges that Tla-o-qui-aht and the town of Tofino are choosing to grapple with, and there is work underway to smooth out the industry’s edges. Local businesses, for example, are now encouraged to collect a one per cent “responsible visitor fee” from customers to support restoration and protection in Tla-o-qui-aht’s tribal parks program. 

“We live together,” Tofino Mayor Law says. “We see this as a present and future relationship.”

Back on the ground, Masso and Charlie get ready to return to their day’s business. Masso is thinking about the coming heat and wildfires, and asks to see the helicopter company’s firefighting equipment. Moments of pause are few and far between. 

Masso had hoped the nation’s tribal parks would ward off ill-fitting visions of the region’s future. 

“We could spend our time building longhouses and rebuilding rivers, doing positive things for our children,” he says.

“But now I have to spend the next couple of years opposing a gold mine.”

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“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold,” penned the poet Robert Service about the Klondike Gold Rush. Between 1897 and 1899, around 100,000 people voyaged to the Yukon with the dream of striking it rich.

But perhaps the strangest thing yet: 127 years later, Yukon mining is still governed by laws drafted for the Gold Rush era. 

In 2025, placer miners — like that gold-panner you’re probably already picturing — harvested $449 million in gold revenue from the territory while the Yukon government took home $33,000 in royalties — taxes earned from said mining.

Yes, you read that correctly: $33,000. Another way, perhaps, to say “fool’s gold.”

The Placer Mining Act was created in 1906 when gold was worth $15 an ounce. It requires placer miners, who extract heavy minerals from loose sediment — typically in rivers or streambeds — rather than digging them out of solid rock, to pay the government 37.5 cents for every ounce of gold they get. Today, the price of gold ranges from $6,150 to $6,500 an ounce.

And antiquated royalty laws are just the tip of the iceberg.

The Yukon’s mining legislation is “grossly outdated,” Sebastian Jones says. A fish and wildlife habitat analyst at the Yukon Conservation Society, Jones says the Yukon’s mining legislation should be “top of mind” for Canadians to understand at a time when all eyes are fixed on critical minerals in the North — and when new mines are being approved by the Yukon and federal governments.

Up here, the habitat of threatened Woodland caribou is already under pressure, while First Nations are dealing with the environmental damage of legacy mines and determined to enforce their territorial rights.

More than one Yukoner warned me that writing about mining in the Yukon is like opening a can of worms. Or a whole barrel, for that matter.

How is mining regulated in the Yukon, which mines are being approved and what’s really at stake?

Grab a can opener, folks.

Let’s get into it.

Two acts govern mining activities in the Yukon — both fundamentally fail to address First Nations land treaties

The rules that govern mining in the territory are divided into two documents: the Placer Mining Act, which governs those surface miners, and the Quartz Mining Act, which governs the extraction of minerals from within rocks by blasting, drilling or heap leaching. (We’ll get into heap leaching in a bit.)

A major gap in the Yukon’s outdated mining acts is any mention of the modern-day context of First Nations self-governance and rights. 

Eleven of the 14 First Nations in the Yukon have signed land-claim agreements under the Umbrella Final Agreement, one of the most important political and legal frameworks in the territory, which came into effect in 1993. The agreement recognizes seven regions and recommends land-use planning within those regions — legal agreements with First Nations governments and the Yukon government to define what activities, mining included, will be allowed where and by whom.

Since 1993, only two land-use plans have been completed in the Yukon, with a third currently in review.

What does this have to do with mining and outdated mining legislation? Well, pretty much everything.

What is free-entry staking and why does it matter?

Free-entry staking, yet another colonial holdover from the Gold Rush, allows anyone — literally anyone over the age of 18; you don’t have to be a Yukoner or even a Canadian — to stake and record a mineral claim that gives them the right to explore for minerals in the area.

Mining claims staked during the Klondike Gold Rush, for example, still have legal jurisdiction, even if they aren’t being actively developed or exploited.

These staked claims are creating enormous legal complexity. And it’s a big part of the reason why land-use planning has been delayed.

First Nations governments, including the Na-Cho Nyäk Dun, have called for a cessation of all mining activities on their traditional territory, including the exploration and development of existing and proposed claims, until their land-use plan is completed.

Meanwhile, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation has taken it one step further. They’re suing the Yukon government for the mismanagement of hundreds of idle mineral claims that were staked before their land-claim agreement was signed in 1998. The First Nation argues the idle claims weren’t properly cleared out or cancelled, and have since caused environmental damages on their traditional territory.

Is change on the horizon?

In 2021, the Yukon government, led by the Liberal party, began meeting with First Nations, industry and other stakeholders. The goal? Develop new legislation to replace both the Placer Mining Act and Quartz Mining Act.

In September 2025, CBC North got its hands on a 30-page draft document using the territory’s access to information laws. The plan was to make major changes to the free-entry system. Staking a claim would no longer automatically grant mineral rights. Only after a certain amount of exploration was done could prospectors apply for mineral rights, and if they wanted to go ahead they’d need authorization from the Yukon government and First Nations.

But then came an election. In November 2025, the Liberals lost power after three successive terms. The conservative-leaning Yukon Party took the reins, winning the largest majority in the territory’s history. It’s unclear if any parts of the draft document are still being considered.

Premier Currie Dixon, leader of the Yukon Party, campaigned on bolstering the mining industry and tells me modernizing the Yukon’s outdated laws is a priority for his government. He cites a long list of issues from the way mines are assessed, regulated and monitored, along with processes for ensuring that companies adhere to regulations. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to find a way to engage with First Nations through a process that will lead us to a new mineral legislation sometime in 2028,” he says.

What projects are being approved?

For those concerned with Indigenous Rights and environmental issues, the new legislation can’t come soon enough — particularly as the Yukon government approves new mines.

In mid-April, the Yukon and federal governments approved the Kudz Ze Kayah mine, a proposed zinc, copper and lead mine, owned by Vancouver-based BMC Minerals. 

The proposed mine is located 115 kilometres south-east of the community of Ross River on the traditional territories of the Kaska First Nations. The Ross River Dena Council has expressed fierce opposition to the project.

The Kudz Ze Kayah mine, Jones says, would be “right slap in the middle” of a threatened caribou herd’s range. The Finlayson caribou, a woodland caribou herd, was recently declared a “living ecological person” by the Ross River Dena Council, which grants caribou the inherent rights to thrive in their natural range and be legally protected from industrial harms. 

Yukoners are also paying close attention to the Coffee Gold Mine, located 130 kilometres south of Dawson City on the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Selkirk First Nation and on the claimed traditional territory of White River First Nation. It’s getting closer to obtaining the necessary permits to start building.

Who is going to clean up the mess?

While past and present Yukon governments continue to tout the economic development benefits of mines, the territory is paying millions of dollars to clean up a long list of failed and abandoned mines. 

In 2024, the Yukon government paid nearly $190 million for mine remediation. That didn’t include the cost of the Eagle Mine disaster, one of the biggest mine failures in the territory’s history, which occurred on June 24, 2024.

The Eagle Mine, formerly owned by Victoria Gold, is located near the community of Mayo in north-central Yukon on the territory of the Na-Cho Nyäk Dun First Nation. It’s a gold mining operation that uses a technique called “heap leaching.” 

To understand what that looks like, think of a pour-over coffee. Heap leaching involves crushing rock, piling it on top of an impervious liner pad and then pouring a cyanide-liquid over the heap that selectively targets the gold, dissolving it into a liquid that pools in the pad. It’s relatively common in the Yukon because it’s cheaper than drilling or blasting. Companies extract the ‘liquid gold’ from beneath the pile and pump it out to be processed. The remaining ore stays piled and enclosed by containment berms.

The Eagle Mine disaster happened when one of those protective berms suddenly collapsed, causing a massive landslide of cyanide-contaminated ore. An independent review found that 1.8 million tonnes of contaminated material spilled into nearby Haggart Creek and the surrounding groundwater.

All operations were immediately halted, while Victoria Gold, unable to afford environmental clean-up, entered into a court-ordered receivership and filed for bankruptcy. It took a full month after the initial failure for the government to begin groundwater remediation. 

Kate White, leader of the NDP, the official opposition party in the Yukon, describes the events of the Eagle Mine failure as “the biggest environmental disaster” the territory has seen. “No one knows the full cost … no one will know what has leached into the water,” White says.

The costs to clean up the mess are projected to reach upwards of $377.5 million by this fall, with a $220-million payout from the Yukon government. 

In December 2025, the Na-Cho Nyäk Dun filed a $150-million lawsuit against the Yukon and federal governments, claiming treaty obligations were not upheld and the Eagle Mine was not adequately regulated. In a letter penned to the Auditor General of Canada, the Nah-Cho Nyäk Dun blamed the Yukon government’s “lax approach to permitting, compliance, monitoring and enforcement of mineral activity in the Yukon.” The First Nation is also calling for a public inquiry.

Yukon’s modern-day ‘mineral rush’ despite century-old legislation

It’s hard to keep up with the number of mines currently being advanced in the Yukon. The list is long and projects are at various stages of development.

In Whitehorse, residents don’t have to look beyond the city limits to encounter drilling sites. Gladiator Metals, a B.C.-based company, has been looking for copper, silver and gold in Whitehorse since 2023. In April, the Yukon government approved the company to expand exploration, with some drilling sites located only 800 metres away from residential areas.

The Casino Mine — what would be one of the biggest open-pit copper, silver, and gold mines in the Yukon’s history — is currently under review by the Yukon’s environmental and socio-economic assessment board. The mine is owned by Western Copper and Gold Corporation, a Vancouver-based company.

And then there’s the Mactung mine, owned by Fireweed Metals, which is one of the world’s largest-known deposits of high-grade tungsten. 

What is tungsten? It’s an exceptionally hard, heat-resistant metal that’s sought after for industrial and military manufacturing. Tungsten replaces lead in ammunition. It’s used to make rocket engine nozzles and aircraft parts.

The Mactung mine, located at the end of the North Canol road near the Yukon-Northwest Territories border, is drawing major investment from the Canadian and U.S. governments.

In 2024, Canada and the U.S. Department of Defense announced they’d be investing a combined $35 million toward studies and designs for improving the North Canol road and connecting the electrical transmission line to power operations.

Over a century may have passed since the Klondike Gold Rush, but perhaps it’s never really ended in the Yukon — it’s just traded gold pans for open-pit mines. Today’s national agenda is resulting in a new rush for critical minerals yet the Yukon’s mining legislation remains a century behind.

Updated June 9, 2026 at 9:35 a.m. PT: A previous version of this story stated that in 2025, placer miners harvested $449,000 million in gold revenue from the Yukon. The correct figure is $449 million.

Updated June 11, 2026 at 4:25 p.m. PT: The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board was previously misidentified as “the Yukon environmental and social assessment board.”

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Summary

• Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment has approved two permits for Kinross Gold’s Great Bear mining project, which Grassy Narrows First Nation is concerned will cause environmental harm and worsen the mercury crisis the nation already endures.
• The ministry previously approved a similar permit, but the company withdrew it after Grassy Narrows brought its concerns to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
• The nation is now looking to appeal the new permits, arguing they present the same problems as the first one.

Ontario’s Environment Ministry has, for a second time, approved permits for a gold mining exploration project that a nearby First Nation says could worsen the region’s decades-old mercury crisis.

And that nation is, also for a second time, looking to appeal the permits.

The nation, Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation), successfully took the first step towards appealing a similar permit for Kinross Gold’s Great Bear mining project in 2025, with the Ontario Land Tribunal agreeing with the First Nation’s evidence for environmental concerns. Kinross withdrew that permit before the appeal could be heard.

Kinross applied again for similar permits in 2025, one for taking water and the other for discharging it, which the Ministry of the Environment issued on April 17. The nation is arguing the ministry was unreasonable to issue the permits due to the potential impacts of discharging sulphates from the wastewater into the environment, which leads to methylmercury production, a potent neurotoxin.

Richard Lindgren from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and one of the lawyers representing Grassy Narrows, told The Narwhal in an interview the nation submitted its application for leave on May 7.

It was submitted to the Ontario Land Tribunal under the Environmental Bill of Rights appeals framework. In it, Grassy Narrows and a team of experts argue the approvals would worsen the mercury crisis the community suffers from as a result of a pulp and paper mill discharging approximately 10 tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon-English River system in the 1960s and ’70s.

Grassy Narrows holds an annual “River Run” for mercury justice each fall, and has been demonstrating at events with both provincial and federal politicians, seeking resolution and recognition for the mercury contamination that has resulted in things like tremors, cognitive effects and neuromuscular disorders. 

In a separate case, Grassy Narrows took the province to court this month over similar sulphate discharge concerns from the Madsen gold mine, owned by West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd., also upstream of the nation. A decision has not yet been released.

Meanwhile, in February, the Ontario government under Premier Doug Ford designated the Kinross Gold project under its One Project, One Process framework for fast-tracking development.

The Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Mines did not respond to a request for comment from The Narwhal. Samantha Sheffield, director of corporate communications for Kinross Gold, said in an email to The Narwhal the permit approval process took “nearly three years to complete,” and “resulted in strict conditions for environmental protection.”

She said the company provided Grassy Narrows with more than $750,000 in funding to assist in reviewing the permits, and conducted extensive consultation with the First Nation.

The Narwhal reached out to representatives from Grassy Narrows First Nation but did not receive a response by publication time.

Grassy Narrows is concerned mine approvals will increase mercury levels in fish

In April, Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks issued two approvals to Kinross Gold, the first being a five-year water-taking permit which allows Kinross to draw 2.9 million litres — more than an Olympic swimming pool’s volume — of surface and groundwater combined per day. 

The second is known as an environmental compliance approval, and is for the treatment and discharge of that water back into the environment.

Lindgren said the nation and its experts reviewed the new permits and “still found them wanting,” adding they “still raised concerns about excessive discharge of sulphate that will facilitate or stimulate methylmercury production, which will lead to bioaccumulation in fish and consumers of fish, including the people of Grassy Narrows.” 

Sulphates released in mining wastewater are gobbled up by bacteria in river bottoms and other areas, which then react, turning mercury already present in the environment into methylmercury. This methylmercury accumulates in fish and other aquatic species within the river system, and can extend up in the food chain to top predators, such as humans, through a process known as biomagnification. 

Fish are an important food source for the Grassy Narrows community. “It’s not as if members of Grassy Narrows can just go to the local grocery store and substitute other food for fisheries,” Lindgren said.

“They have a treaty that guarantees them the right to continue to hunt and trap and fish, etc. So that’s a concern — that allowing the discharge of these deleterious materials into the watercourses will adversely affect their constitutionally protected rights.”

Mining approvals based on existing levels of mercury, which experts say are too high

An update to the environmental compliance approval, posted on Ontario’s environmental registry, indicated that, in response to concerns about mercury and impacts on fish, the Ministry of the Environment “adopted a conservative approach to address sulphate discharge.” That approach is requiring that “any discharge must meet the background concentration of the receiving environment” — in other words, the same level that’s already in the watercourse.

The nation and its team of experts say the history of mercury contamination in the area sets that benchmark level higher than it would otherwise be.

“So there’s a lot of concern that, you know, the so-called background limits are artificially high and will allow for the additional input of sulphate and the additional creation of methymercury,” Lindgren added. 

Sheffield, with Kinross, said the permit imposes limits designed to “maintain naturally occurring background levels in the environment, in accordance with provincial policy.” She said the company accepted the limits in response to the concerns raised by Grassy Narrows First Nation, “to demonstrate a precautionary approach, despite the absence of scientific evidence supporting the asserted risks.”

The scientific concerns Grassy Narrows brought forward previously — and is again raising alongside newer and more extensive evidence — were accepted by the Ontario Land Tribunal when it granted the nation its first leave to appeal.

As the project proceeds, Sheffield said, “Kinross will continue to engage with all interested Indigenous communities, including Wabauskang, Lac Seul and Grassy Narrows, in the same spirit of open dialogue and respect. In everything we do, we prioritize the health and well-being of the people, land and environment.”

To proceed to the appeal stage, Grassy Narrows must pass a two-part test under the Environmental Bill of Rights: showing that, according to law, it was unreasonable for the ministry to issue the permits and that issuing them could result in significant harm to the environment.

“It’s the same test and the same argument this time around,” Lindgren explained, and they’ll be relying on the same experts — including Brian Branfireun, a Western University professor and leading expert in mercury and methylmercury for more than 20 years — to argue their case.

The tribunal still has to grant that leave to appeal, which would give the nation the chance to broaden their argument around the potential impacts of the permits granted to Kinross.

Lindgren said that if the two-part test is passed, the nation will file an appeal to have both permit approvals revoked.

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