Mining Sessions, on your mark, get set, go

After months of preparation, lists, phone calls, more lists, emails and documents galore, the Stonecircle team is finally ready to hit the road to begin delivering the Mineral Exploration and Development sessions with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM).

Last week, Cindy Crowe, Daniel Wemigwans and Alex Ker flew into Ottawa to join Jennifer David, Greg Smith and Kory Goulais for our workshop team training and orientation. Stonecircle will be providing selected First Nations in north eastern and northwestern Ontario with a 'Mining 101" information session to give community members a better sense of what mining is, what kind of minerals they can expect to find in their region, what is the mining cycle or mining sequence, and what are the levels of engagement and involvement that First Nations can consider if there are mining interests in their territory. Barbara Green Parker is under another contract with MNDM to deliver workshops in the far North of Ontario and joined our workshop by teleconference for part of the day.

Tracey Dawson-Kinnonen from MNDM was there for the morning to review the powerpoint presentation that has been developed by the Ministry and the team members spent the afternoon going over planning and logistics such as community protocols, budgets, travel arrangements and reporting.


Three other team facilitators (Ron Ryan, Fred Weihs and Chris McKay) were away on other projects but will be trained by our project managers in the next week or so.

Alex Ker will be facilitating the first workshop next week in Seine River and the remainder of the workshops (up to 31 in total) will follow throughout the summer and into September. Let the road trips and airmile collecting begin!