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DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION - A new manufacturing facility is about to open in Fort Resolution.

Deninu Ku'e First Nation (DKFN) is starting to construct boxes to hold core samples drilled by mineral exploration companies.

Acting Chief Louis Balsillie of Deninu Ku'e First Nation holds the first core box built at a new manufacturing facility in Fort Resolution. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

The band has hired three workers for the project and to renovate an existing building for the new facility.

Acting Chief Louis Balsillie said it is hoped equipment can be moved into the building this week.

"We're just setting it up," he said last week.

Work began on the project in September. Production is hoped to begin next week.

Balsillie said the workers were so eager to begin they began working outside cutting out plywood for 200 boxes. Those will be put together inside.

Just one of the boxes has been assembled so far.

The boxes measure 1.37 metres long by .22 metres wide and 3.8 centimetres high.

The project is being supported with $100,000 from the federal government's Aboriginal Human Resources Development Agreement.

The new facility will be housed in a renovated section of the old Eagle Tech Manufacturing Ltd., a band operation which once built bathtubs for the NWT Housing Corporation. That operation closed about nine years ago.

Balsillie said he got the idea for the core box facility after visiting in June to the Thor Lake exploration property for rare earth minerals - located about 100 km southeast of Yellowknife - and seeing many empty core boxes.

The acting chief asked where all the boxes came from and was told Winnipeg.

"Things started clicking in my mind," he said.

Balsillie said he talked to Tamerlane Ventures Inc. about the idea.

Tamerlane is exploring the old Pine Point property about 100 km west of Fort Resolution and intends to open a lead/zinc test mine.

"They started giving me some pointers on how to go about it," Balsillie said.

Tamerlane Ventures has agreed to buy some of the boxes.

"We certainly intend to purchase the core boxes from them when the drilling program resumes," said David Swisher, the project manager with Tamerlane Ventures.

Drilling at the Pine Point site was temporarily suspended in August, but Swisher said it is expected to resume early next year.

Swisher said supporting the Fort Resolution core box facility is part of Tamerlane's commitment to local communities.

"This is an example of what Tamerlane has said all along about working with aboriginal partners to encourage partnerships and business development," he said.

Balsillie said the DKFN is still working on an agreement with Avalon Ventures to purchase the boxes for the Thor Lake property.

The acting chief is not sure how many boxes the new facility will produce.

"I'm hoping we can get 200 a day, but we'll have to work, work, work," he said.

Balsillie said Thor Lake and Tamerlane use a combined total of 16,000 to 17,000 core boxes a year.

It is hoped the core box facility will be a self-sustaining business and may be able to expand in the future to service other exploration companies, he said.

Balsillie said trappers' boxes will also be made out of leftover plywood.

The new facility does not yet have a name, but the acting chief said the community will be asked to suggest one.