There are two operating gold mines in Yellowknife, located on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Giant Mine, operated by a series of owners over several decades, has been the source of particularly severe social and environmental impacts. There is high arsenic content in the ore, and in the early years of the mine, large quantities of arsenic were released into the air through the roasting process. Cattle were killed from arsenic contamination. The local First Nation people report that two children died as a result of drinking water melted from snow. There are still high arsenic concentrations in the soils of the area. In later years most of the arsenic was captured on site and included in material backfilled into abandoned shafts of the mine.

The owner of the mine in the 1990s, Royal Oak Mines, was a notoriously nasty operator. Five years ago there was a tragic strike at the mine. Royal Oak brought in "replacement workers", something that isn't often done in Canadian mine strikes. The community was bitterly divided; the divisions are still felt today. There was violence on the picket lines; nine miners died in a tragic explosion underground. In 1998 Royal Oak went bankrupt, and in a deal with the creditors the federal government assumed liability for the environmental problems at the Giant Mine site. Workers lost severance and pension funds to which they were entitled. Today, the vast stores of arsenic-contaminated waste underground at Giant represent a long-term environmental threat to Great Slave Lake, and no one really knows how to deal with the problem, or how much it will cost.

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Great Slave lake is Canada's second largest fresh water lake. Currently residents are advised not to drink the water due to arsenic contamination from mining operations.

Great Slave Lake Geographical Information:

Latitude: 61 deg. 30 min North
Longitutde: 114 deg. West
Surface Area: 28,568 sq.km (11,030 sq.miles)

Factmonster on Great Slave Lake

Can you imagine the problems that would be created if North America were almost solely dependent on tar sand and shale for oil ? Maybe we ARE just scratching the surface!