Notes to the Future: The Giant Mine Postcard Project

Falconbridge Nickel Mines owned Giant for most of its life. The company was very supportive of the community. Its contribution legacy includes Gerry Murphy Arena; Tommy Forrest Ball Diamond; Fritz Thiel ball parks; Ski Club Biathlon Range; the Dog Derby prizes; Annual Giant Picnic; and sponsorship of numerous other community organizations and events over many years. And Snare Hydro. Yes, Giant helped build Snare Hydro to power the mine and Yellowknife.

Giant was a wonderful place to grow up; raise a family; be a part of close knit community. Many of my best memories are of working and living at Giant.

The campsite (townsite) is where most single employees and most senior employees and their families lived. We got our drinking water from the bay near Baker Creek; swam in the lake in front of the houses; ate the fish from the bay; picked berries in the Baker Creek valley and up the Crestaurum Road; grew vegetable gardens and hunted ptarmigan and rabbits between the houses and the mine. Giant was home to many.

I worked in the Main Office, at Giant Mine from 1976 to 1985. I met many life-long friends there, including the person who was to become my husband. Falconbridge was the best employer, very generous and compassionate. Life was good.

Groups of us who worked there formed teams and played baseball (slow-pitch), curled and bowled. Giant was a very generous and compassionate company to work for and I have many wonderful memories of my time there.

I was 19 when I started working at Giant in 1967. I was single and lived in one of the bunkhouses. Wages were good and the food in the cafeteria was great. After I married, we moved back out to the campsite (town site) in 1979. I liked living on the water front – it was quiet. There was a great sense of community. I raised my children there – they had complete freedom and it was safe. I have very fond memories of the place — we were happy there.

After YKDFN Elder Eddie Sikeyea led the feeding the fire ceremony at the signing of the Giant Reclamation Cooperation Agreement in 2013, I thanked him for his magnanimous words and gestures recognizing the harm done and the responsibility we share to care for this site. I also resolved to be a voice in holding various orders of government to account for their responsibility to always care for this toxic site and keep the arsenic trioxide from the water, land and all living things. In fact, I believe it is the responsibility of all Yellowknifers to never let governments abandon their responsibility for keeping this site safe.

The legacy of Giant was never compliant with clean money
We ripped up the earth, like hungry bears after honey
In the nifty fifties, voices of caution were few
Warning bells were ignored while our Northern towns grew

Watchdogs were sleeping, cries of hidden costs lost
Toxicity mounted, gold was the big boss
Science proposed rules to be followed
Unprofitable prophecies would not be swallowed

From dawn till dusk gold digging marched on
Until all the good gold was gone
Lethal arsenic unleashed, not openly discussed, no thought for the children then or to be
There would be a windfall, why all the fuss, it was all me, me, me

We will suffer sorely for golden lessons unlearned
For worshipping false profits while our future gets burned
Let’s try to be smarter
Make hurting the land a non-starter
New mines must be honestly compliant
If it can’t be done cleanly, why mine it

Humans are a study in contrast. We can hold goodness in our hearts and yet do evil acts. We can love some people and yet hate others. The legacy of Giant Mine is also a study in contrast.

For years, I had to drive by Giant Mine to get to and from home. In winter, turning the curve just after the main gate there used to be an ice rink, illuminated at night with lights hanging above the rink, if I remember correctly. This is so long ago. Slowly driving by after work, I watched men laughing and playing hockey on that rink. I remember thinking this is the ultimate Canadian postcard, playing hockey outside long after dark in the middle of winter. Then the strike came. I was a young Justice of the Peace presiding over legal matters related to Giant Mine… and then driving home, seeing some of the same faces by the main gate that I had seen in court earlier in the day. The magic of a peaceful hockey game on a cold winter night and the angsts of court room drama with prosecutors and miners denouncing each other. A study in contrast.

Later, we uncovered the extent of the environmental damage at Giant Mine. I eventually made a documentary on Giant Mine as part of the Toxic Legacies Project (The Guardians of Eternity). For my research, I interviewed YKDFN members, activists, scientists, residents, researchers, former employees. Everybody had strong opinions, all expressing some form of disappointment, bitterness, sadness or anger at all government levels and the owners of the mine. Yet, YKDFN members also shared beautiful childhood memories. Coming home after school to N’Dilo on the school bus and getting the dog sled ready to race across Back Bay to visit aunties working in the cafeteria at the mine. Warm baked goods awaited them. Indeed, a study in contrast.

Early years of joyful Christmas visits to Giant families, summers picking berries along Baker. Later, an underground visit with a mining friend showing me the ropes.

Then seeing and learning about the impacts on the land, bare pink granite and dead standing trees; raven nests where eggs didn’t hatch. Knowing the benefits of the mine to our community and our family business.

Discovering startling levels of toxic metal accumulations in peoples’ hair and fingernails. Realizing the multi-generational and cultural impacts on Indigenous families.

Decades of great frustration with regulators and industry. Wondering if my and others’ cancer was related to our early decades of exposure; knowing the skin rashes people suffered in the 50s and 60s.

Now demanding cleanup, but still the struggle to move government and industry to get more responsible mining regulations.

The future??