Editorial Use it or lose it

There’s a fellow in the U.S. who has staked mining claims on Mars. Putting aside the question of under what jurisdiction those claims would be filed, in Canada a basic tenet of gaining mineral rights is that some assessment work has to be done on the property in question. Mining in space could well become a reality within the next quarter century but, based on the Canadian standard, the American who claims property on Mars might find it difficult to keep his claims in good order.

Use it or lose it is the sensible standard used for mining claims here, and it’s a standard that will probably be used elsewhere in the solar system.

For many Canadians, Baffin Island could as well be Mars. Few know anything about the Arctic island and fewer still will ever get to see it. Yet Canada has staked its claim of sovereignty here and in the rest of the Arctic archipelago. At stake in the north, however, is more than mineral rights. A potentially vital passage from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans — the Northwest Passage — is controlled by whomever controls the islands.

Like the Mars claim-staker, Canada can’t simply say “It’s mine.” A claim has to be maintained by investing something in it.

In the case of Baffin Island, the Canadian department of national defence announced recently that detailed planning for establishing a northern training centre at Nanisivik, population 261, on the northern tip of Baffin Island at the eastern entry to the Northwest Passage has begun. It is one project designed to increase Canadian Forces operations in the Arctic and reinforce Canada’s claim to sovereignty in the north.

It is also another example of how mining stakes Canada’s claim to new territory well in advance of more “official” recognition. Nanisivik is, after all, the site of Mineral Resources International’s big lead-zinc-silver mine, in operation since mid-1976. (Ironically, it was an American company — Texas Gulf Inc. — which pushed for development of the mine in the late 1960s.)

The Nanisivik mine staked Canada’s claim to the northern outpost, and only now is it turning over that role to the military. It is the latest in a long tradition of mining ventures that have opened Canada. In the case of Baffin Island, the tradition goes back to 1576 when Martin Frobisher landed there and carted back loads of worthless pyrite which he, like many others before and since, mistook for gold.

It was gold mining that prompted Canada’s first military presence in the north when, in 1898, the army’s Yukon Field Force was sent to the Yukon to assist in the maintenance of law and order during the Klondike era. Subsequent military operations in the north have continued to be a major factor in verifying Canada’s claim to sovereignty over the north.

But the presence of private enterprise is what really verifies Canada’s claim to the north. To a large extent that presence is because of the mining industry. Witness not only Nanisivik but Cominco’s Polaris lead-zinc mine on Little Cornwallis Island even farther north than Baffin Island, Echo Bay Mines’ gold mine at Contwoyto Lake or even Curragh Resources’ lead-zinc mine at Faro, Y.T. Each one of those mines, and others, are hard evidence that indeed, we do use the north.

And, as far as the mining industry is concerned, we don’t intend to lose it.