Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
For those who lived and worked at Giant Mine, times were good and then very bad, as the two previous instalments of this three-part series has illustrated. But for at least one group, there is no wavering: the mine is a symbol of environmental degradation and loss.

Johanne Black, director of YKDFN's land and environment department, and Ndilo Chief Ernest Betsina both say they're hopeful the deconstruction of the Giant Mine headframe will provide some healing to the Yellowknives Dene, who were never consulted during the mine's creation in an area that had traditionally been used for hunting and picking berries. - James Goldie/NNSL photo Sunset at Giant Mine, as the last of the once-iconic headframe waits to be torn down. The safety of workers at the site of the Giant Mine Remediation Project was the primary motivation behind the deconstruction. - photo courtesy of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada

While Giant Mine, under Falconbridge Ltd. ownership, may have been a positive place for employees to work and live, others have been critical of the mine since the very beginning.

"Before the mine started developing there was fresh fish, that was a good fishing area, good moose-hunting area and especially the berries," said Ndilo Chief Ernest Betsina with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. "That was a very favourite place to pick blueberries. 'A sea of blue' they would refer to it as."

The mine was developed without consultation with the Yellowknives Dene or effective environmental protection measures. Betsina said there was nothing to stop "tons of arsenic trioxide from spewing out of the roast stack on a yearly basis," which resulted in the death of least one child in Ndilo who consumed arsenic-contaminated snow in the 1950s.

Oral history from the community tells of more fatalities.

"In the wintertime people liked to have some tea so they would take the snow and melt it to make some tea or cook with the water, and it was contaminated. And the children being more vulnerable, their bodies could not fight it and so they passed away," he said.

This is one of the reasons the Yellowknives Dene supports the Giant Mine headframe being torn down.

"Our elders have consulted on this and have stated that the reminders of Giant Mine are not good reminders," said Johanne Black, director of Yellowknives Dene land and environment department. "They don't see a problem with them taking the shaft down. They were all for it. The visual reminder was a haunting reminder for them of ... environmental legacies and the deaths that have occurred."

According to Black, when the mine first opened there were some jobs for Yellowknives Dene workers but many did not want to work underground.

"They didn't want to be near those types of hazards that existed underground," she said. "There was no training benefits at that time for any of the First Nations to get into higher positions."

When the nine men were killed during the labour conflict of the early 1990s, Black said it opened up old wounds in Ndilo as the community remembered its own lost lives.

"It will never ever leave our thoughts," she said.

The Yellowknives Dene would like to one day see a memorial erected at Giant Mine, honouring all those who have died in relation to the mine's operations. Furthermore, Betsina said, the Yellowknives Dene would like to see revenue sharing and employment opportunities from the site's lifetime management program. They would also like a formal apology from the federal government.

"We want a public apology from the federal government for all the legacy, all the wrongdoing that happened with the mine," he said. "Other (Yellowknives Dene) chiefs have asked for that and now it's my turn."

In 1999, Royal Oak went into receivership and Giant Mine was transferred to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. The federal government was now responsible for determining how best to manage the 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide dust produced by Giant Mine and collected since 1951 until the mine's closure in 1999.

After several years of research and consultations, aboriginal affairs announced it would not remove the dust, instead freezing it in underground chambers.

One of the people overseeing the Giant Mine Remediation Project is deputy project director Natalie Plato.

"A lot of people think we've actually started remediation, when in fact we haven't," she said.

An environmental assessment was initiated in 2008 by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board which lasted until 2014.

"Coming out of the environmental assessment process we got a number of measures or instructions of things we have to complete before we can get a water licence. So that's what we're working on now, so we can get a water licence to actually begin remediation," she said.

The project decided to take down the aging C-Shaft headframe because it posed a potential physical risk to workers on site.

"We didn't want workers to get injured from something falling," Plato said.

Because of its sensitive location, the headframe's deconstruction was slow and methodical. It was not demolished in a single afternoon but rather over several weeks. Most of the structure is now gone.

Ken Hall, who lived on the Giant Mine site with his family, Cynthia Creed, who moved there with her husband, and Harry Seeton, a former mine employee and at one point union head, all admitted it was necessary but still a shame to lose the headframe and the fond memories of Giant Mine it still conjures for them.

But for Black and other members of the Yellowknives Dene, the headframe coming down is another important milestone in the process of healing old wounds and protecting their territory from environmental disaster.

"The city itself may deplete around us, residents may leave and go elsewhere, but the Yellowknives Dene will always be here," she said.

"They will never leave."

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