Hearings on Baffinland expansion in Nunavut close with criticism from Pond Inlet

After three years, four hearings, two cancellations and other restrictions imposed by COVID-19, the fate of Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation's proposed Mary River expansion project is now in hands of the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB).

The most affected Nunavut community does not embrace the mining company's plans for growth. 

"We don't want to sacrifice our culture and tradition for jobs and benefits," said Enookie Inuarak, of Pond Inlet's hunters and trappers organization, on the final day of the NIRB hearing in Iqaluit. 

Inuarak said it sounded like the company was "trying to buy us," with repeated statements about jobs and money, and threats about putting the mine into care and maintenance if the expansion didn't proceed.

Six days of hearings wrapped up on Saturday afternoon. The NIRB will now start to form a recommendation on the expansion project for Daniel Vandal, the minister of northern affairs, who will have the final say on whether it can go ahead.

Baffinland wants to grow its production, increase shipping, and build a railway to bring ore to the Milne Inlet port. 

The hearings in Iqaluit exposed the clash between Inuit culture and development associated with the mine's expansion.

Pond Inlet's lack of support for the project already blew up in February with a blockade at the mine site's airport. But at the hearings, more representatives from the community of about 1,800 shared their concerns.

Caleb Sangoya's parting message was that Baffinland should start thinking like Robert Peary, who reached the North Pole in 1909 with Inuit help, instead of John Franklin, whose entire 1845 expedition perished on its own in what is now western Nunavut.

Clyde River's mayor, Alan Kalluk Kormack, said Baffinland doesn't seem to care if Inuit lose their culture and traditions.

The benefits from the mine — hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in royalties and contracts — came up less during the discussion than concern about the mine's impact on narwhals.

One speaker from Pond Inlet talked about a time when narwhals would swim by in vast numbers through Eclipse Sound. 

However, this past summer, sound-leery narwhals waited until for the end of the shipping season season to come, and then it was too late for hunters to cache their harvest.

"How is [my son] going to get the skills of a hunter?" asked Sula Enuaraq of Pond Inlet, referencing coming back from a hunt with her son empty-handed.