Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

NWT/NUNAVUT
So you're ready to land your plane, float plane, helicopter, or -- depending on the remoteness of your chosen area -- boat, or snow machine on land inside a land claim for staking.

Above is a Northwest Territories land administration map showing the boundaries of aboriginal land claim agreements. - photo courtesy of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada

Even if the Crown owns the subsurface minerals of the land, the surface area can be privately owned under a land claim agreement. Before you plant a stake, you need the permission of the land claim holders.

So, whose land do you want to stake on?

When Robin Goad first arrived at the site of what would one day be his prized cobalt-gold-bismuth deposit just north of Whati, the Fortune Minerals Ltd. founder already knew which First Nations group he had to talk to.

"We like to think we are a progressive company," Goad said. "So once we immediately found the presence of mineralization, we started engagement with the Tlicho -- at that time called the Dogrib Treaty 11.

"We let them know that we wanted to conduct drilling, that we wanted to work with them and that exploration is a long process," Goad said.

Stakers are encouraged to be proactive early on in building relationships and sharing information with potentially-affected aboriginal groups in Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada's Citizen's Guide to Mining in the Northwest Territories.

The Mining Recorder's Office will not issue a claim to Crown subsurface minerals on land that is privately surface-owned without a letter or land use license from the landowner, granting access.

In Nunavut, the main landowners are the Crown, and Inuit organizations. The organizations that hold title to Inuit-owned lands are the Kitikmeot, Kivalliq and Qikiqtani Inuit Associations. All of these are parented by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.

Each of the organizations has a land administration unit, which permits all access to Inuit-owned land.

In the NWT, four aboriginal groups own private lands through land claims: the Sahtu Dene and Metis, Tlicho, Inuvialuit and the Gwich'in. However there are half a dozen land administration corporations in the Sahtu settlement region alone, including the Norman Wells, Tulita, K'asho Got'ine, Yamoga, Ayoni Keh, and Deline Land Corporation.

There is no universal set of rules regarding permission to enter lands so prospectors should go to the appropriate land administration office directly.

"In the Northwest Territories you have all these different groups that have different views on how the process should be handled," Goad said, listing the fragmentation of the land and lack of standardized policy as great challenges of exploring in the territory.

"There is no recipe for community consultation, no set procedure," Goad said. "That's one of the problems, having to make it up as you go along."

"Engagement is very important. And it starts early. And it's cumbersome, and there's no rules."

In 1995, after several presentations and introductions to community leaders including former Tlicho grand chief Joe Rabesca, Fortune Minerals received a letter of support from the community and was subsequently granted a work permit for the NICO project.

Next stage: Getting a work permit for your staked claim.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.