BEHCHOKO/RAE-EDZO
A half-dozen Tlicho citizens have been selected to take part in a Mine Training Society program that will make them qualified underground miners upon completion.
Introduction to Underground Mining graduate Gerald Zoe, center, receives a certificate from Hilary Jones, right, general manager of the Mine Training Society in Behchoko on March 27 as instructor Pat Tymchatyn looks on. - photo courtesy of Mine Training Society
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The group is among seven participants who graduated from the organization's second delivery of the Introduction to Underground Mining program in Behchoko last month.
The Underground Mining Program, a 12-week followup to the prerequisite, begins May 6 in Yellowknife.
"There's competition to get into this program because once you get into the Underground Mining Program and finish your traineeship, if you do well, you have a job. No, you have more than a job. You have a career," said Hilary Jones, general manager of the Mine Training Society. "It's a core program that our mining partners need because they all go underground."
For the first time since the program was first delivered in 2008, the Mine Training Society has partnered with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, and has selected some of the 16 participants from that region of Nunavut.
Participants have also been selected from Yellowknife and Lutsel K'e.
The program, which leads to underground miner level one credentials, includes job readiness training, an introduction to life at a mine, safety training, and mine rescue training.
A simulator in the Franklin Avenue Aurora College Trades and Technology Centre is used to replicate rock falls, fires, blowouts, and other scenarios with participants.
Hands-on training is conducted at a Department of Transportation quarry.
"So they have a good grounding and then they go and do a traineeship. So by the time they've finished all their training, they've had 32 weeks of training with 840 practical hours under their belt, which makes them very employable," Jones said.
The traineeship takes place in rotations at six locations, including on site at Ekati, Snap Lake and Diavik diamond mines.
Avalon Rare Metals Inc. is also looking to take on participants when the company begins construction of its proposed Nechalacho rare metals mine at Thor Lake, Jones said.
In a recent report titled Measuring Success: The Positive Impact of Diamond Mining in the Northwest Territories, the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines cites partnerships between industry, aboriginal groups, government and the Mine Training Society, as factors in higher-than-anticipated Northern employment at the territory's diamond mines.
The society received $11.4 million in cash and in-kind investments between 2004 and 2012 to provide training to 1,400 Northern residents.
Tlicho graduates from the 2013 Introduction to Underground Mining program included Matthew Vukson, Conan Zoe, Aaron Steinwand, Harley Daniels, Calem Lafferty, Gerald Zoe, and Adam Shane Mackenzie-Zoe.
