| chapter 6

The Revival of Québec’s Iron Ore Industry: Perspectives on Mining, Development, and History

Jean-Sébastien Boutet

Tes ancêtres t’ont conduit à moi pour me raconter les images de tes rêves.

—Joséphine Bacon1

These words, borrowed from a remarkable Innu poet, introduced the implementation strategy for Québec’s northern development plan—initially labeled Plan Nord—for the first five-year period (2011–2016). One can emphatically question the pertinence of associating this expression with a technocratic agenda conceived to engineer social, economic, and ecological progress for Québec society. Yet it is possible to ascertain elements of continuity with previous generations of policy-makers who gazed northward and nurtured bold dreams of resource exploitation in the subarctic hinterland.2 Through repeated invocations of the necessity for renewal in a changing and more competitive world, the provincial government hoped that “the scope of the Plan Nord will make it in the coming decades what the [hydroelectric] development of La Manicouagan and James Bay were to the 1960s and 1970s.”3 In the realm of northern development, innovative visions for the future thus meet the aspirations of yesteryear; for proponents of the resource industry, past megaprojects are always lurking, never fully erased or forgotten yet often simplified and reformatted to accommodate contemporary priorities.

Subarctic Québec is once again at the heart of a treasure hunt for the control of its “blooming iron ore scene.”4 Targets for the exploitation of major deposits in the Labrador Trough (Fig. 1),5 a geological region “set to transform into a major force in the iron ore sector” worldwide,6 point to the revival of a decisive episode in the history of large-scale resource development in the province, a period that in fact predated the harnessing of Québec’s most powerful rivers. This new iron ore rush is stimulated, not unlike the first round of mineral activities of the postwar period, by the developing needs of emerging world powers. Known around the globe for their impressive size and good ore content, the vast iron formations of northern Québec on which China and India are hoping to “feast”7 could comprise the long-term strategic reserves that these countries need in order to meet increasing domestic demand for finished steel. As competition for the control of iron deposits heightens globally, Québec proposes, once again, to hand over its best mineral reserves in the North to interests located outside of the region. At the same time, government administrators aim to integrate—on paper, at least—the virtues of profitable subsurface exploitation with improved environmental protection and substantial economic benefits for local indigenous communities and the province more generally.

Figure 1: The Québec-Labrador peninsula, with the geological formation of the Labrador Iron Trough. Map by Charlie Conway.

This chapter argues that a retrospective synopsis of mineral activities in the Labrador Trough, at Schefferville in this particular case, can and should inform Québec’s present ambitions for industrial growth in the north. Plan Nord, the province’s latest twenty-five-year northern development plan, was formulated without comprehensive citizen engagement (and while bypassing the process of seeking approval from many indigenous communities) in a region that the government continues to treat primarily as a “bank” of natural resources where few benefits are derived for the rural peripheries and their inhabitants.8 The first section adopts a state-corporate historical approach as it recounts the opening of the Ungava region to industrial interests through iron ore exploration (mid-1930s) and the beginning of operations at the Schefferville mine (1954). In the second section, the story of the mine closure shifts the perspective toward Innu and Naskapi individuals, who remember how indigenous and mining worlds ceased to interact after 1982 at Schefferville. Finally, the third section explores the contemporary context and provides an overview of the development projects that currently define the renewed quest for iron ore extraction in the Québec-Labrador borderlands.

The diverse, multi-layered interpretations of the mining past (section 2), understood in conjunction with the historical context that confirms the supremacy of state and corporate interests throughout the period (section 1), show the asymmetrical yet complex nature of the relationship of indigenous groups living in the area with industrial modernity. This relationship continues to be marked, informed, and shaped by the region’s deeply contested mining history, a stark reminder for contemporary developers and policy-makers (section 3) that, despite mining’s instability and apparent ephemerality, the mining past of the region lives on. Amidst these unresolved legacies, this analysis suggests that mining proponents’ assertive guarantees of a durable, prosperous, and equitable industrial future for societies inhabiting the provincial north and the rest of Québec ought to be met with equal scrutiny and skepticism.

The First Phase of Iron Mining in the Labrador Trough

Les Américains possèdent les capitaux qui nous manquent. Ils mettent nos ressources naturelles en valeur, réveillent une richesse endormie.

—Robert Rumily9

During the late interwar years, Québec politicians sought to extract wealth from what they considered to be the subarctic hinterland’s dormant mineral assets. In the Ungava region, the provincial administration subjected the geological formation known as the Labrador Trough to a certain preferential treatment, notably by granting exploration permits and large mining concessions to outside interests. However, this bold redefinition of geographical space in favour of foreign corporations collided heavily with the indigenous populations’ prior occupation of their homelands.

In 1939, Québec conferred to McKay (Quebec) Explorers (MQEC) an impressive exploration concession of more than 10,000 square kilometres located in the Whale River and Swampy Bay River watersheds. A few years previously, explorers and geologists, typically accompanied by knowledgeable indigenous guides, had identified ore bodies with potential commercial value. At the time, the first government of Québec premier Maurice Duplessis (1936–39) imposed on this concession a modest annual rent of $1,000 and $2,000, for the first two years respectively, which could be renewed at a slightly augmented rate in subsequent years.10 Following MQEC’s failure to develop the concession, Jules Timmins, a prosperous mining entrepreneur heading the Toronto-based Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines, entered a partnership in December 1943 with the influential American steel magnate George Humphrey, who was at the helm of the Cleveland mining firm M. A. Hanna.11 Together these veritable “movers and shakers of mining empires”12 controlled the Hollinger North Shore and Exploration Company (HNSE) and secured their access to the great property located at the heart of the Ungava Peninsula.

The recently formed HNSE venture received additional support from the Québec government via a special law passed in its favour three years later, in 1946.13 In the course of that year, the legislature introduced the Loi pour faciliter le développement minier et industriel du Nouveau-Québec, which defined a “mining exploitation lease valid for eighty years and covering an area of 300 square miles” on the shores of Knob Lake, the future site of the mining town of Schefferville.14 When shareholders incorporated Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) in Delaware in 1949, in order to assemble the capital essential for kick-starting the Schefferville operations, HNSE subleased these mining rights to the newly formed American-led iron and steel conglomerate.15

In the world of corporate executives, the region that was traversed by numerous Aboriginal trading and transportation routes remained at the time completely cut off from the large industrial markets and freight networks so crucial to moving the ore riches out of Nouveau-Québec. Knob Lake deposits somehow had to be linked to the St. Lawrence navigational waters (later on, the St. Lawrence Seaway) and thereby to the great manufacturing towns of Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, or Philadelphia. The railway engineers’ answer to this technical challenge, 575 kilometres of steel rails and wooden ties to be laid over marshland, through mountains, and across forest, presented an enormous logistical and financial puzzle for IOC. Indeed, throughout the construction phase, the economic feasibility of this project often hung in the balance, as the anticipated profits from the mine (projected from identified ore resources) were constantly re-evaluated against the growing upfront capital expended on the infrastructure needed to transport the bulky, heavy, and relatively low-valued iron commodity to manufacturing markets.16

In order to support this major transportation program, in March 1951, the provincial government proceeded not through leasing but by means of direct sale of a thin strip of land stretching from Sept-Îles (on the Gulf of St. Lawrence) to Knob Lake. This band of territory, extending hundreds of kilometres deep into the boreal forest and bisecting the Innu homeland, would host the railway to Schefferville, to be built and operated by Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway Company (QNS&L), one of the several subsidiaries formed by IOC. In exchange for $4,000, the railway company led by Jules Timmins became the “absolute owner” of this piece of land, free of any additional charges.17

In addition to guaranteeing the company woodcutting rights along the railroad right-of-way, Québec also conceded to QNS&L a shore lot near the coastal settlement of Sept-Îles for the establishment of a train terminal, a classification yard, and a modern seaport. Through one of its energy subsidiaries, Gulf Power Company, IOC gained control over sections of the Ste Marguerite River and the Menihek Lakes where it installed hydroelectric power plants destined to supply electricity to the terminal in Sept-Îles and the mine and townsite at Schefferville.

Several Innu labourers obtained casual work on these various construction sites, and played an especially crucial role in the resupplying of railway work camps.18 This labour, if it remained very temporary and seasonal, nonetheless allowed a handful of families to confront the difficult conditions afflicting the trapping economy of the immediate postwar period. In general, however, mining officials engaged in the radical transformation of human and natural landscapes without the explicit consent of local populations. The newly damned Ste Marguerite River, for example, had constituted for decades a vital transportation axis for hunting groups based on the coast of the St. Lawrence who wished to reach the interior of the territory during their long winter hunts. Yet for federal bureaucrats employed by the Indian Affairs agency in Sept-Îles, this land takeover was clearly a matter for optimism. According to the prevalent paternalistic dogma, the employment opportunities that were generated through the development and operation of the Schefferville mine would consecrate the local communities’ gradual retreat from the life on the land, thus encouraging a more sedentary lifestyle and the introduction of wage dependency. Going as far as threatening, in a few extreme cases, to suspend aid for families who refused to seek paid employment, the Canadian government urged the Innu residing near Sept-Îles—but in an even more decisive manner, the Naskapi of the Ungava region—to relocate to the town of Schefferville, a booming region that was traditionally part of a number of families’ comprehensive harvesting activities and networks. There, federal bureaucrats promised, people would find “better housing, education, and so forth,”19 with job opportunities “that will last one hundred years.”20

In Québec City, the provincial government of Maurice Duplessis argued that the new rail link from Schefferville to the coast “opens the Ungava region to commerce and civilization, as well as to the industry.”21 For the premier, Québec’s natural resources had for many years remained “underutilized,” and this unfortunate state of affairs had engendered substantial losses for the province. By promoting portions of the hinterland to mining interests and welcoming the implementation of modern infrastructure, the government hoped to profit in return from this “marvelous industrial development that will contribute powerfully, not only to the complete valuation of the Nouveau-Québec region, but also to the progress and prosperity of the province in general.”22

To what extent did the creation of public wealth from iron mines imagined by the Québec state in fact materialize? In general terms, the level of mining revenues flowing to the province—expressed as the percentage of government incomes drawn from the mining sector through taxes, royalties, mining rights and permits over the total value of mineral production—fell by roughly one-fifth during the second Duplessis mandate (1944–59).23 Notwithstanding improvements of the taxation regime undertaken by the Liberal administration of Jean Lesage in 1965, which successfully increased returns on production to the public, revenues generated through mining rights, particularly in the iron ore sector, remained weak.24 At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, $2.4 million generated through mining rights in the iron ore sector accrued to the Québec treasury every year; by comparison, the total value of iron production reached nearly $185 million, on average, during the same period, 1967 to 1972.25 This relatively marginal amount obtained from mining rights was proportionally lower than that registered in the Québec mining industry as a whole, with consequences for government finances given that iron ore was one of the most important mining sectors in the province.26 Yet at the same time, Hollinger and Hanna Mining were cashing in on substantial revenues received through the transfer of their mining rights (originally granted by the Québec state) to IOC. These monies, according to Paquette, were “worth more than five times that which was drawn [via mining rights] by the owner of the mining domain”27—the provincial Crown.

For Duplessis and his administration, engaged in the rhetoric of economic autonomy for Québec, liberalism in mining policy represented a somewhat paradoxical situation closely tied to the evolution of international markets. During the Second World War, the United States became aware of the impending exhaustion of its iron ore supplies located in the Mesabi Range (Minnesota). North American appetite for iron grew steadily as a consequence of the war—consumption increased two and a half times between 1935 and 194528—and its aftermath. But by 1953, as domestic demand grew due to Cold War (and Korean War) militarism and the rise of postwar consumer society, US production was on the decline.29 Starting in the 1950s, American (but also European and Japanese) steelmakers restructured their commercial operations and sought control over strategic ore deposits worldwide.30 The American steelmaking industry gained access to some of the most attractive reserves by formalizing financial links with mining companies, thus ensuring a reliable access to iron ore inputs at a cost that it could better regulate. By contrast to its European counterparts, who were “relying mainly on European iron ore producers,” American steelmakers were “procuring iron ore from their own captive mines.”31

In this context, producers and investors saw in the Labrador Trough a good business opportunity, by virtue of the region’s advantageous geography—a relative proximity to US steelmaking centres—which complemented the presence of stable political institutions and a favourable fiscal and regulatory environment. Bethlehem Steel and National Steel, in conjunction with four other major American steelmakers, eventually took majority ownership of IOC on February 1, 1962. The beginning of the company’s operations, in 1954, had strongly helped to “reshape the Canadian iron ore industry,” since merely half of a decade later, Schefferville ore accounted for more than 60 per cent of iron production in the country.32 Notwithstanding the modest impact of such growth on direct and indirect labour opportunities—in 1966, the effect of economic expansion on employment in the iron ore sector was lower than for each of wood felling, the manufacture of women’s garments, and the fabrication of newspaper in the province as a whole33—the iron ore region, in Schefferville and elsewhere, never really experienced the development of a diversified, mature industrial economy. The narrow, external linkages between the mining and steelmaking sectors (exemplified by the IOC venture) instead confined the region to an export-driven enclave of minimally processed iron ore.34 Located downstream of extractive activities, yet institutionally dissociated from the provincial mines, Québec manufactures could not capture the fiscal benefits typically associated with corporate integration, nor were they in a position to secure primary inputs at a better cost.35 Ultimately, the exploitation of iron ore did not generate significant multiplier effects for the regional and provincial economies, despite the fact that mineral production underwent a veritable explosion in the immediate postwar period, and even though the added value produced by this sector and the fabrication of primary steel in Québec jumped from $30 million to $188 million during the quarter century 1944 to 1975 dominated by both Unionist and Liberal administrations.36

The birth of national steelmaker Sidbec-Normines was in fact engineered to remedy some of the structural deficiencies that plagued the provincial iron ore industry, notably by favouring domestic processing, but the launch of this partially state-owned entity in 1976 turned out to be poorly timed.37 A crisis was about to hit global steel markets: in the period 1974 to 1977, worldwide production of steel fell by 5 per cent, and the stocks of iron ore began to accumulate (including in the Labrador Trough) as metal prices were depressed.38 Québec iron operations, incapable of competing with Venezuelan and Brazilian counterparts who exploited higher-grade iron deposits and incurred cheaper labour costs, inevitably felt the effects. In 1985, the subarctic municipality of Gagnon, “là où la chaleur humaine remplaçait l’astre du jour,”39 was bulldozed and effectively erased from the territory. The Schefferville mine, keenly recognized for the quality of its iron ore at the turn of the midcentury, also succumbed to the crisis. On November 2, 1982, IOC president Brian Mulroney announced to employees and authorities that the company would wind down operations,40 an outcome that clearly showcased the precariousness of the community’s reliance on a single export production. Despite their initial desire to shut down the municipality, provincial and federal authorities decided not to condemn Schefferville to the same fate that was about to descend upon Gagnon three years later.41 Between 1985 and 1998, town lots were in fact amalgamated to the Innu reserve of Matimekush through official Government of Canada purchases of Québec land register.42

Memories and Mining Landscape at Schefferville

The mine closed in 1982. The company packed its bags and took off. Open pits, destruction everywhere; our animals driven away. We made the company rich. Where’s my share? Where’s my thank you? There was none of that.

—A Naskapi individual43

Throughout the operations of the Schefferville mine, between 1954 and 1982, indigenous miners remained confined to very marginal positions within the company hierarchy. Relying on a variety of strategies, these labourers worked to adjust and maintain their own practices in order to combine the labour at the mine with their life on the land. Yet overall, Innu and Naskapi groups could not realize the vision of government agents and utilize their paid employment at the mine as a mechanism to “climb the ladder” of industrial society; nor were they in a position to lay the foundations of a multi-sectorial, diversified regional economy that would outlast the life of the mine and bring about growth and development. This situation would have serious consequences for the viability of these two communities in the post-mining phase.

People’s memories of the abandonment phase reveal the shock and the traumatic nature of the mine closure at Schefferville. As the Innu and the Naskapi express their disapproval of government and company actions, which created “a lot of troubles” for them,44 they also recount, often with nostalgia, how people looked forward and continued to adapt and maintain their own life practices amidst the upheavals that characterized the failure of the modernization project. In view of these diverse interpretations of the past—inextricably linked to the contingency, complexity, and challenges of current everyday life—an intricate picture of local history, of indigenous homelands, and of the legacy of industrial development emerges. At Schefferville, local life stories generally reveal a deep sense of loss underlying Innu and Naskapi perspectives about the mine closure and the mining experience more generally, an experience which, in the final analysis, continues to defy any singular interpretation or meaning.

Several Innu and Naskapi individuals remember the closure and deindustrialization period in terms of severe disruption and the abandonment of their community by IOC and the government. These authorities, in their view, had operated illegitimately on a territory that did not belong to them in the first place. The sudden desertion by the mining company was especially disconcerting, according to people whom I interviewed at Schefferville, considering the immense wealth extracted during the operations years:

We weren’t even told and we didn’t even know what they were using the ore for, why it was so precious to them. And years later, once they had distracted our way of life, we learned that the ore was in demand in foreign countries. They just came, took what they needed, and left.45

Back then the company took out much iron from here, a lot of iron, an enormous amount of iron, because for them it was like gold. It brought a lot of money, back then, it was very profitable.46

Since the late interwar years, industry proponents had strived to first redefine and then exert control over the Québec-Labrador region in order to appropriate the riches of the subsurface. Now that the process was complete, Innu and Naskapi people were more or less left to pick up the pieces.

During the life of the mine, the somewhat marginal employment opportunities did provide, as some recall, non-negligible compensations for the local residents. This idea is articulated, for instance, by an Innu individual who explains that “according to my own knowledge, it did not bother the Innu to see the company dig holes in the ground and occupy our territory, because the company gave us work.”47 Yet as the company withdrew from Schefferville and wage labour was lost, it left few enduring benefits for the local communities, other than a small pension for a handful of long-time employees. “We got a certain amount from the company,” a Naskapi elder recalls. “Certain people worked for so many years, and they received different amounts. But [the IOC managers] didn’t care, they just left. They didn’t care about us, and all the people, when they left from here. They didn’t give any benefits to the people, or any other contributions.”48 People remember with some resentment that many indigenous workers were not in a position to even receive a pension after the company departed, because they were never employed—by choice or by constraint—as full-time labourers: “We got laid off and on, so some people like me didn’t get the full benefits that the company offered after it left. There weren’t a lot of benefits from the IOC. No other benefits were given to the people and the communities; it was only them and their money.”49

Some indigenous people maintain particularly vivid memories of the material removal of municipal buildings and houses in the years that followed that abandonment of the mine. As geographer John Bradbury describes, the relinquishment and destruction of infrastructure, considered by companies “as part of the production sector of the mine or mill,” was a common strategy that served to sever a corporation’s financial responsibility from the mining town or municipality in the closing phase of large industrial projects.50 At Schefferville, IOC proceeded, in conjunction with the province, with a series of demolitions in order to dissolve its financial obligations (in addition to servicing all of Schefferville’s debt, the company still contributed up to 80 per cent of municipal taxes in the post-closure years of 1984 and 1985).51 The provincial government led by the Ministère des Affaires municipales was also eager to shed its Schefferville responsibilities and recommended a $6.5-million compensation and demolition plan to shut down the municipality and remove a good portion of the infrastructure,52 including the local hospital, “for which Indians [were] by far the most frequent users.”53 This particularly dramatic event remains seared in the memory of many Innu and Naskapi individuals who have continued to reside in the vicinity of the once-cherished health facility.

Figure 2: Abandoned mine with equipment near Schefferville. Photo by Jean-Sébastien Boutet.

In addition to the loss of town services and infrastructure, as well as shrunken employment and economic development opportunities, the communities near Schefferville have had to live, and continue to live, amidst a deeply scarred landscape. For the Innu and the Naskapi, the post-mining environment acts as an incessant material reminder of three decades of intensive land and resource exploitation by a company that naturally prioritized shareholder dividends and the needs of the American economy during the Cold War period,54 but generated minimal returns for the local population. As a consequence of development, their homeland became littered with tailings piles, industrial wastes, leftover equipment, and pollutants that were abandoned in the wake of the mine closure (Fig. 2), but only marginally remediated many years later, when the IOC undertook a modest clean-up operation in the early 2000s.

Figure 3: Abandoned mine near Schefferville. Photo by Jean-Sébastien Boutet.

At least some people in Schefferville are particularly moved by the former mining pits, which extend hundreds of metres deep over several hundred square kilometres across the subarctic landscape.55 The removal of trees and other “overburden,” the blasting of hilltops, the digging of holes, the large tailing piles and debris, and the oxidizing iron-rich earth have contributed to create a red-coloured, cratered, barren, and dangerous landscape (Figs. 3 and 4), which one Innu resident metaphorically depicts as extraterrestrial scenery. Another hunter and former chief describes the major changes to the Innu territory that resulted from open-pit mining, as he speaks of the unrecoverable beauty of the land near Schefferville: “We were already coming here before there was a mine. We came here to hunt. It was quite undulated here; there were beautiful mountains, beautiful rivers, beautiful lakes. It was nice here, before the mine.”56 In a similar vein, the same Innu who associates the mine with Martian landscape also emphasizes the profound changes to the territory compared with before industrialism, when people frequented the region for hunting and trapping activities. “When they came here ten years before [the mine], everything was pristine,” he suggests. “Ten years later they made large holes. It’s something to see the landscape where people hunted, and a decade later they see these big holes. It’s something to see all that.”57

Figure 4: Berms with warning sign bordering an abandoned mine near Schefferville. Photo by Jean-Sébastien Boutet.

For some individuals, then, the disfigured, deeply altered landscape evokes resentful memories of the company’s actions. When probed about the overall record of IOC and its long-term legacy for Schefferville and the region, a few residents simply point to the impressive, scattered mining pits as a kind of self-explanatory evidence for the disruption, the abandonment, and the reckless attitude of the mining managers:

I would love to go up and show you over there in the mountains, all the holes that are there. I would show you how they left it all like that, and then ran away. It’s still like that today.58

They left, and after that the pits were flooded and everything. They just left everything.59

By contrast, though not necessarily contradiction, other individuals at times emphasize their awe at this surreal landscape, and even their appreciation of the physical and human immensity encapsulated by such scenes of emptiness (Fig. 5). Driving a truck with his grandson around the old mine, an elder repeatedly evoked his enjoyment of the landscape, whether we were passing by the rock waste and tailings, the open pits, or the surrounding lakes and rivers meandering through the abandoned sites.60 Initially, these comments can seriously challenge one’s own preconceived notions of another people’s relationship with what is often denigrated as a kind of post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland. As an Innu from Matimekush seems to indicate, the mining landscape is indeed largely indicative of the ravage, squander, and unequal appropriation of resources by outside interests. But interestingly, these memories do not lead him to abandon or disdain the Innu territory around Schefferville. Rather, he makes use of powerful imagery and unusual metaphors in relation to the mining panorama to explain his own difficulty of living, as he understands it, “between two cultures”—or, of the struggle in sharing the land and livelihoods with strangers who, in the past, were mostly if not uniquely interested in reaping financial benefits from it.61 As he set up his white canvas tent in the middle of the mined-out and desolate barrens, he seeks by this occasion to reaffirm his own Innu identity and demonstrate his people’s enduring presence on their homeland: “It makes me feel good, to hang out here on the barren mountain. It doesn’t discourage me. At least it tells me one thing: that even if I’m on a mountain without vegetation, I am on my territory.”62 Even as some areas of Innu and Naskapi homeland were pretty much obliterated by the mining activities, it does not follow that the territory has become insignificant or worthless for the people who continue to inhabit it and who frequently visit it under various circumstances.63 Thus, reflecting and sharing stories about Schefferville, for this Innu man there is even a favourite time of the day to revisit the old mining sites. Right before sunset, the light reveals most effectively the scale of destruction and yet the strangely poetic beauty of this continuously modified, tirelessly engineered environment transformed by mine workers over more than a quarter century.

Figure 5: Abandoned mine near Schefferville. Photo by Jean-Sébastien Boutet.

The decrepit industrial landscape, the various townsites (some of them now entirely derelict), and the corresponding diversity of life stories that are shared and kept alive thus interact in complex ways with people’s present activities near and around Schefferville to create a fluid repository of interpretations of the longer past that include not only the closure but all phases of historical mining in the region. These place-based understandings do not seem to be strictly reducible to stories of appropriation, dispossession, destruction, and abandonment by an indifferent, perhaps egotistical, cast of mining characters. Several indigenous residents who continue to move extensively over the degraded territory, for example, do speak regretfully of the hazards associated with winter travels across a territory that was mined out and left virtually unremediated. At the same time, these very individuals may also continue to make use of the old mining roads to access the family cabins for hunting, fishing, or spending time on the land, while some also yearn—in the arduous context of a post-development economy—for the relatively plentiful jobs and active community life that the company once provided. If the dilapidation of the landscape and town continues to inflame people’s discontent as they reminisce about the IOC company today, and if feelings of bitterness associated with past exploitation clearly linger (the mining holes are, in many ways, the physical embodiment of the “hit-and-run” model of resource exploitation that struck Schefferville at midcentury), these attitudes also coexist with subtler affirmations of personal and collective agency and, in some cases, of a vanished mining history that is in a sense still missed today.

The bare territory that typifies the former mine—repulsive, stunning, majestic, or mysterious—as well as certain abandoned areas of the municipality in fact continue to evoke nostalgic sentiments of a more active or entertaining past. When people revisit or come across former workspaces (an old shed, a rotten wooden bridge, a water-filled pit, and an overgrown road) they sometimes are led to share memories of a time when Schefferville was teeming with people and bustling with noise and activities. Such evolving human-material relations, grounded in memories of the changing landscape, do not only refer back to the harsh and unjust working conditions at the mine, the complicated coexistence of mining labour and activities on the land, or the difficult and fluctuating ecological conditions that coincided, according to local perceptions, with a disappearing caribou herd and the overfishing of surrounding lakes by workers brought in from the south. They also speak to an employment period that enabled working families to support their relatives and be involved in various ways with wage employment, and through which Innu and Naskapi employees sometimes nurtured close friendships with their fellow indigenous and even non-indigenous workers. One Innu evokes this sense of loss regarding the lively old days with friends that have either passed on or moved back to southern regions: “I knew many white people with whom I worked. I knew a whole bunch of them. Many of them have probably died. I also knew some bosses; at the end they were almost sixty-five years old. They must be dead today. It’s troubling when I think about those I knew. They’re almost all dead now.”64

The abandonment of the town and some of the infrastructure near or on the reserves, as well as the emptiness of the sites that people of a younger generation formerly used for leisure activities, also call to mind sentiments of regret about a time when people actively participated in social and athletic activities. As he encounters the material leftovers dating back to the mining years, an Innu vividly reflects on his more youthful days when the company was in operation:

When I think about the desolation here in the village, the desolation following the exploitation of the mine, when before the cultural and social life was so lively. It was lively here. My playground was everywhere, all the sidewalks that you see there; that was my playground. The hospital, for me, because it was asphalted, it was nice, there were some nice hills for someone who wanted to bicycle there. I could circulate freely when I lived in Matimekush.65

It is not uncommon for people in Schefferville, especially elders who used to work at the mine and befriended other workers, as well as adults who benefited from leisure and organized sport infrastructure in their youth, to remember elements of the social past with melancholy, given that many of these relationships and spaces died out soon after the IOC departure.

Overall, people’s interpretations of the closure phase point to the failure of modernization through industrial mining at Schefferville. They also reveal the importance of considering long-term perspectives on the history of resource exploitation and the uneven development that characterized large-scale development in Québec’s iron belt. Several individuals who live in the area today recall with much offence and distress the multiple rounds of infrastructure removal and the gradual disappearance of significant social spaces. They remain especially puzzled by the fact that a great number of houses, the cultural centre, and even a hospital were torn down during a period when there were outstanding needs in the domains of health, housing, infrastructure, social life, and youth support in Schefferville. As a former Naskapi leader explained to me, “they demolished the hospital, at a time when people really needed essential services, like health services. . . . Us, the owners of this territory, we were asking the government for more housing while the company that made money was demolishing houses. That scene was not respectful. It was a destructive scene.”66 The people of Schefferville painfully reminisce about the removal or abandonment of the swimming pool, the movie theatre, the bank, a few restaurants and bars, churches, the bowling alley, the town gymnasium, the ski hill infrastructure, and the asphalted roads and sidewalks (practically only the hockey arena was left standing). These mixed emotions of “anger, betrayal, resentment, exasperation and anxiety”67 are quite a contrast with the official discourse that accompanied the closure of the mine, at the time largely justified to employees and the population at large in quite narrow technical and economic demonstrations.

For one Innu individual, the demolition exemplified the authorities’ familiar paternalism toward indigenous populations, in this case fuelled by the belief that Innu and Naskapi communities could not possibly maintain and administer the buildings and town services without the backing of IOC, the municipality of Schefferville, or other government bureaucracies.68 But he, as well as many others, believes that at a bare minimum, some of the installations could have been left for the local communities as compensation, and even new infrastructure might have been built for them upon IOC’s departure. In the demanding context of the reconstruction years, when local residents attempted to carry on with their lives independently of an industrial economy, many maintain that the company should have been compelled to implement a mitigation program and leave behind some sort of positive legacy in order to offset the heavy social and environmental costs, perhaps in the form of roads to facilitate access to the territory and support hunting activities, financial donations to help out with the expensive airplane outings and especially the caribou hunt, or at the very least a proper rehabilitation and restoration of the mining sites.

Discussion

Et voilà que, trente ans plus tard, ces gens-là reviennent! C’est drôle, il y a seulement un an ou deux, ma communauté et moi n’existions pas dans le nord du Québec!

—Réal McKenzie69

In light of these perspectives on mining, development, and history pertaining to the initial phase of extraction in the Labrador Trough, several concerns arise regarding the legitimacy and the soundness of the mode of industrial expansion favoured by Plan Nord and other such bureaucratic plans for the north. Nowadays, a new generation of miners actively looking to revive the historical deposits and bank on new discoveries cannot completely silence this problematic past,70 especially the unfortunate period that followed the closing of mining pits and the abandonment of villages and communities like Schefferville in the 1980s. This history is, in a very real, everyday sense, etched into the land, remembered in a manner that, as I have argued, is deeply textured. “Mines,” in the words of anthropologist Jamon Alex Halvaksz II, “are not merely extracting minerals, but are also marking time and space with their appearances.” They “transform the landscape, but these transformations remain subject to multiple interpretations.”71 But, ready as they may be to turn the page on this story, industrialists of today want to be reassuring about the future, confidently asserting that previous development errors will not be reproduced. As one mining executive explicitly defended, “we cannot underestimate this history, which belongs to the region. We certainly took it into account, to ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes.”72

Much as was the case on the eve of the iron ore rush that took place at the midcentury, when federal bureaucrats encouraged Innu and Naskapi societies to adopt industrial livelihoods, nowadays mining-related employment is perceived and marketed—despite of all of its known historical shortcomings—as the device par excellence to engineer social, economic, and ecological progress for the region. According to this view, a new “‘home grown’ generation of people who will regenerate the mining industry in Quebec” is about to emerge: indigenous peoples inhabiting the region “will now see a brighter future thanks to Plan Nord; especially the grade schoolers who will learn more and more about mining as they continue their education,” as well as “all Quebecois [who] will be given a chance to cash in on some of the province’s fortunes.”73 While affirming that “women, the Aboriginal peoples and young people living in the territory that the Plan Nord covers are among the target populations to develop qualified local workers who take their place in sectors that are often non-traditional or little known,”74 government planners nevertheless give little consideration as to how these communities’ involvement with other sectors of the economy referred to as “traditional”—typically outside of formal, monetized networks of production and exchange—will be encouraged and supported. This approach in effect disregards the historical strategies used by indigenous groups such as the Schefferville Innu and Naskapi who, as I have explained elsewhere, often adjusted their practices to harmonize as best as possible their work at the mine with the crucially important life on the land.75

As for the contemporary mining industry, it generally sees “the development of Plan Nord [as] a very proactive initiative at the right time,”76 in particular because of the considerable government resources assigned to the implantation of modern transportation and power networks. In this regard, the province’s industrial expansion into the subarctic will be largely financed by Hydro-Québec and the public treasury ($60 billion is expected to be allocated to northern development in the next quarter century). With at least $1.2 billion reserved specifically for infrastructure upgrades and new construction during the initial five-year period (2011–16), “the government will first invest in projects that afford access to areas with the greatest economic development potential” in the domain of mining and energy.77

Given that miners never exhausted its ore reserves, it is not surprising that the Labrador Trough still holds much potential provided the economic conditions are favourable. As the region stands on the cusp of becoming “the gateway to northeastern Quebec, helping to play a vital role in Plan Nord,”78 mining and steel conglomerates are knocking on the door, hoping to redeploy in the area with renewed intensity. Three large mining companies currently control roughly 40 per cent of the iron ore production worldwide and almost 80 per cent of the seaborne export trade; these statistics alone suffice to show the rapid consolidation of the sector, given that this triumvirate, Vale (headquartered in Rio de Janeiro), BHP Billiton (Melbourne–London), and Rio Tinto (London–Melbourne), was responsible for less than half of the seaborne trade in 1997.79 From this veritable iron cartel emanates a strict control over ore prices, which have surged ninefold since 2000.80 This phenomenon has created “major cost-inflation pressures”81 and is a source of irritation for governments and steelmakers, whose leverage dwindles with growing demand for base metals in China—a country that now produces nearly half of the global crude steel output.82

From the perspective of the steelmaking industry—never entirely powerless thanks to enormous capital resources, a high level of corporate concentration, and the fact that, in the final analysis, the dependency relationship with the mining industry is reciprocal—a clever solution can serve to counter this hegemony: the vertical integration of enterprises. For the Labrador Trough, this ownership of upstream supplier firms by downstream producers represents an interesting return to a bygone era, since the period that preceded the iron crisis of the 1980s in Nouveau-Québec was in effect characterized, as the first section indicated, by the systematic acquisition of captive mining sites by large American steel interests. As the mining and steel industries formalize their integration, a restructuring of the industry is clearly looming on the horizon (if in fact it hasn’t already begun, in particular among state-owned Chinese steelmakers83). It cannot be ruled out that, as a result of these companies consolidating their hold on the territory and the ore reserves, the Labrador Trough may once again be closely tied to the progress of distant urbanization and global consumer society.

Certainly the most prominent actors have changed over the course of sixty years. Bethlehem Steel and National Steel closed their doors at the turn of the twenty-first century and have been replaced by new multinational producers. The arrival of ArcelorMittal (Luxembourg), one of the leading steel-mining conglomerates in the world,84 in the region of Fermont is symptomatic of this evolution. Already in command of the largest mine in Québec, with operations set up at the historical deposits of Mont-Wright and Fire Lake, the company recently divulged a massive expansion program evaluated at more than $2 billion. Forecasting a “breakneck” pace of development, ArcelorMittal seeks to increase substantially the capacity of its processing plant and magnify by a factor of two its ability to move ore and waste, notably with the support of an impressive fleet of 400-ton Caterpillar 797 trucks, the largest available on the market.85 According to a company manager, “the commitment of the Quebec government” to the reindustrialization of Nouveau-Québec was a decisive factor in ArcelorMittal’s decision to allocate this capital to the Mont-Wright expansion, making it clear that without Plan Nord, “the money might have gone to the United States, Mexico, Brazil or any of a number of African and European operations.”86

At the earlier stages of both embryonic production and advanced exploration, Indian multinational Tata Steel (Mumbai) is a second potentially important player on the Québec portion of the iron ore trough. This Asian steelmaker, which figures among the ten largest producers in the world, is looking to secure “strategic captive iron ore” to supply its transformation operations in Europe.87 In partnership with Calgary-based New Millennium Iron (NML), Tata Steel owns 80 per cent of a direct shipping ore project already in production near Schefferville,88 a development that proposes to reactivate existing historical deposits, notably in the Timmins area which straddles both sides of the Québec–Labrador border.89 Pursuing a long tradition of appropriating Innu and Naskapi territory in the name of corporate interests, NML recently renamed the geological formation stretching over more than two hundred kilometres west of Schefferville the Millennium Iron Range, “a huge iron ore district” over which the company now claims “control.”90 Tata is also studying the possibility of formalizing other investment partnerships with NML, with the goal of exploiting the much more imposing taconite deposits—these veritable company builders that rank among the largest iron deposits in the world, according to NML91—of Lac Harris (KéMag) and Howells River (LabMag). Pending the outcome of the ongoing feasibility study, the two partners hope to make use of the same railway installations constructed by QNS&L in the early 1950s, in addition to envisaging the laying of a 600- to 700-kilometre-long slurry “ferroduct” designed to transport fine grained concentrate to the port of Sept-Îles.92 Necessary upgrades intended to transform the port installations into state-of-the-art shipping facilities are expected to be financed by a public-private partnership (several companies, including NML and Tata, are involved as part of an investment consortium) supported by the recently launched Atlantic Gateway and Trade Corridor Strategy, a federal initiative meant to “provide a quick, reliable, and secure transportation network between North American markets and markets in Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia.”93

A third steel giant is presently deploying its operations in the region. Already active as a minority partner on the Newfoundland side of the southern Labrador Trough, at the Bloom Lake mine and concentrator, WISCO International Resources Development & Investment (WISCO), a subsidiary of Chinese steelmaker Wuhan Iron & Steel Corporation, is at the helm of a longer-term, more ambitious project, also at the advanced exploration stage, which “centres on a huge iron deposit.”94 With the objective of exploiting the Lac Otelnuk formation 170 kilometres north of Schefferville, the steelmaker entered a joint venture with Toronto-based junior miner Adriana Resources, and together they expect “to make the Otelnuk project nothing less than the biggest mine in Canadian history.”95 To justify the enormous investments required, Adriana’s president and chief economic officer has suggested that “if we’re right in our estimates, the mine life will be in excess of 100 years,”96 an expectation echoed by the Québec government.97

Alerted by these clear echoes of past mining discourses in the region, obvious questions come to mind: To what extent have things effectively changed? Are observers and local communities confident that similar development mistakes will not be repeated? After all, Québec’s Plan Nord assures that, in contrast with the previous phase of northern development, benefits will materialize “for all Quebecers” this time around, thanks in part to the creation of many new employment opportunities, particularly for indigenous labourers.98 In order to fill these positions locally, “the objective is to ensure that the workers are ready to work when the projects are launched,” which means that “Aboriginal and local communities [must] participate rapidly in the process that leads to the acquisition of the desired skills.”99 This government strategy mirrors the approach favoured by mining companies, who strive not only to hire Aboriginal individuals already settled near industrial sites, since this allows them to save “a lot of money”; but also, in light of the unfolding “cultural revolution” of corporate responsibility that is taking place in the industry, to secure a social licence to develop and operate mines in the region.100 As to distant Asian and European steelmakers, they find themselves in need of “Canadian management” and administrators who “are used to dealing with Aboriginals, [who are] used to working in the north,”101 in order to help them navigate the complexities inherent to the establishment of a mine in remote and isolated indigenous territories.

Apart from technical accounting discussions regarding modest alterations to royalty regimes, public officials, industry representatives, and Québec civil society have generally not engaged, however, in a fundamental rethinking of the business model—the common “dig-and-sell” paradigm102—that has guided, and continues to guide, mining development in the provincial north. If the means to carry out this overhaul remain to be invented and implemented, some industry observers, authors, and critics have theorized and in some cases empirically examined possible alternatives.103 In economic terms, they have proposed:

• the creation of a resource rent tax and an associated sovereign wealth fund;
• revenue sharing with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit groups on whose land mineral development is occurring;
• regional economic diversification, in particular through the establishment and support of a balanced industrial base and smaller scale, revenue-generating ventures;
• the development of local and/or state-owned manufacture industries;
• a more careful examination and potential veto over foreign mergers and takeovers;
• government and/or Aboriginal control over the number, size, and scale of concurrent mining projects, and the staggering of operations over longer time horizons;
• transparency and systematic publishing of statistical information pertaining to industrial mining operations, including financial agreements and corporate taxes paid;
• support and development of the land-based and social economies of the north.

In the environmental realm, analysts have argued for:

• supervision of the weakly regulated mineral exploration industry and in particular, replacement of the free entry licensing system;
• stricter environmental permitting and the implementation of cumulative impact assessments and follow-up monitoring;
• close evaluation of rehabilitation and restoration plans, posting of steeper financial assurances, and more stringent auditing and certification processes related to mine closure;
• greater government oversight over land permits, implementation of integrated land management, and creation of zones of exclusion from development;
• comprehensive recycling, energy efficiency, and consumption reduction programs, including the fight against planned obsolescence.

Finally, in the social and political domains, experts have highlighted the potential for adapted work and training programs such as job-sharing arrangements for indigenous workers and, perhaps most importantly, active and meaningful participation of communities not only at the notification and assessment stages but also through the prospection, exploration, design, construction, implementation, monitoring, follow-up, and remediation, and also the partial ownership of industrial projects that have secured local support. These policy proposals have not really garnered serious considerations from regulatory authorities or the industry, which are generally intent on exploiting the region as rapidly and efficiently as possible so long as the social licence has been obtained.

Conclusion

By the mid-twentieth century, the “exploration” and gradual abrogation of indigenous homelands situated north of the forty-ninth parallel was already a long-standing phenomenon in the Québec-Labrador peninsula. These territories were travelled as early as 1578 by European crews looking for the Northwest Passage, before being visited, between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, by a series of missionaries, English and French traders, and, toward the end of that period, exploration parties assigned to diverse scientific and geological duties. As we have seen, the colonial process accelerated through the mining boom of the postwar period, when powerful American mining and steel interests formed corporate alliances, under the auspices of a generally proactive, interventionist state, to lay their hands onto the strategic iron ore reserves in the Labrador Trough. The end result turned out to be deleterious for the regional economy at large and for the well-being of local indigenous populations.

The initial search for valuable iron deposits in the interwar years led to the opening of the Ungava region to intensive mineral development, in part thanks to the provincial government’s espousal of a liberal economic program that limited the ability or willingness of the state to sustain an endogenous manufacturing sector linked to primary extractive activities.104 But, contradicting their own laissez-faire principles, government administrators adopted a hands-on approach to produce a mineral policy largely favourable to corporate interests. This state-sanctioned support of industry facilitated the incursion of massive foreign capital into the North, with the launching of modern infrastructure projects, notably in the domains of energy, mechanical transportation, and urban planning, and the consequent appropriation of indigenous homelands.

In the early 1980s, the development of the resource-dependent, mature mining municipality of Schefferville, located at the heart of the Labrador Trough, went tumbling to a sudden yet brutal crash. Despite the challenges thrown at the local communities to survive the death of their unique industry, many people, including most members of Schefferville’s two indigenous groups, resolved to pursue their lives in this economically frail region. As authorities worked rather ineptly to promote alternatives to mineral production that could rescue the regional economy, Innu and Naskapi residents were forced to reorganize their livelihoods through the region’s deindustrialization phase.

The post-closure phase did not come without immense obstacles and uncertainties, as one of the main sources of employment for the Innu and the Naskapi in Schefferville vanished virtually overnight. Indigenous residents remember with particular bitterness the difficulties associated with mine closure, holding both IOC and government authorities responsible for the failure to deliver on their promises of long-term prosperity for their communities. Notwithstanding their very real grievances and misfortunes, the dismantling of a wage economy at Schefferville implied that people had to find, much as during the preceding development and production years, alternate ways to make a living—only this time around, literally outside of an evanescent mining world that, for better or for worse, stopped exerting its overwhelming influence on the local people, their economies, and their environments.

In this chapter, I suggest that the mine’s influence never fully disappeared from the memories, the imagination, and even the lived experiences of Innu and Naskapi residents. At Schefferville the past is certainly made, as Halvaksz illustrates in a different context, of the more constructive “aesthetic qualities of mineral extraction (the attractive constructions of town life, mining equipment, roads, etc.).”105 Yet the mine also exhibits, to borrow an evocative metaphor from Sandlos and Keeling, a zombie-like character, where the industrial sites “continue to exert some sort of malevolent effect during their afterlife.”106 I contend that the undead nature of the mine is a powerful legacy of industrial extraction in the region.

Indeed, the past figured prominently in the minds of the Innu individuals who erected mine and rail barricades in Schefferville in the summer of 2010, contesting the redevelopment of the nearby iron deposits. For Innu leader Réal McKenzie, the lessons and details of this history were a central motivation to this action, as people engaged in the protest asserted that they did not “want to live the IOC story again.”107 In addition to physical blockades, the Innu communities of Matimekush–Lac John (Schefferville) and Uashat mak Mani-utenam (Sept-Îles) have launched a $900 million lawsuit against IOC/Rio Tinto to seek financial compensation for historical and ongoing damages resulting from the “colonization and dispossession” of their ancestral territories.108 Through this judicial action, the Innu are hoping to recoup some of the profits earned by the IOC since 1954, thanks in part to company infrastructure such as the QNS&L railway, which, according to the Innu groups who filed the proceedings, continue to “violate their ancestral rights.”109 This prosecution should serve as an unambiguous reminder that, at the dawn of a new mining cycle and amidst the resource boom, these past mining developments continue to represent a deep historical wound for some societies that are about to experience the revival of the iron ore industry in Québec. In contrast with the dominant optimism that has seized the region, one Innu from Schefferville anticipates the future in his community in rather cautious terms, guided by his long experience with mining activities: “What do I see in twenty-five years? . . . I see the closure of this mine that is opening today. Then we will live through a second closure. They will say: ‘Schefferville, goodbye.’”110 By failing to engage the public and indigenous communities in a comprehensive consultation process and mineral policy overhaul, it is precisely this multifarious story (of colonization and dispossession) that public officials and corporate executives have not heard while planning to reindustrialize subarctic Québec.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Innu and Naskapi individuals from the regions of Sept-Îles and Schefferville who agreed to participate in the interviews and helped out with the project; as well as the Social Economy Research Network of Northern Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Abandoned Mines Project led by Arn Keeling and John Sandlos.

Notes

1 “Your ancestors have led you here to recount the images of your dreams.” Québec, “Plan Nord: Building Northern Québec Together, The Project of a Generation” (Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune, 2011), xv. All translations from French to English are mine.

2 See, for example, Caroline Desbiens, “Défricher l’espace de la nation: lieu, culture et développement économique à la baie James,” Géographie et cultures 49 (2004): 87–104.

3 Ibid., 6.

4 Alisha Hiyate, “The New Normal,” Mining Markets 4, no. 3 (September 2011): 5.

5 In this chapter, I am concerned primarily with mineral developments occurring on the Québec portion of the Labrador Iron Trough.

6 Ocean Equities, “Iron Ore: The Labrador Trough” (London: Ocean Equities, January 18, 2013), 1.

7 David Ebner and Brenda Bouw, “Tata Joins Race for Canada’s Iron Ore,” Globe and Mail, March 8, 2011.

8 According to Markey, Halseth, and Manson, the concept of “resource bank” refers “to the practice of using the vast resource wealth of the hinterland for the purposes of either province building or supporting infrastructure and service spending within the metropolitan core” [“Challenging the Inevitability of Rural Decline: Advancing the Policy of Place in Northern British Columbia,” Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008): 412]. This situation “rarely results in significant investments in those regions from which resources were extracted” [Matthew Tonts, Kirsten Martinus, and Paul Plummer, “Regional Development, Redistribution and the Extraction of Mineral Resources: The Western Australian Goldfields as a Resource Bank,” Applied Geography 45 (2013): 366].

9 “Americans own the capital that we lack. They enhance the value of our natural resources, awakening the sleeping wealth.” Cited in Pierre Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 1867–1975: une évaluation critique d’un mode historique d’industrialisation nationale (Outremont: Carte blanche, 2000), 270.

10 Richard Geren and Blake McCullogh, Cain’s Legacy: The Building of Iron Ore Company of Canada (Sept-Îles: Iron Ore Company of Canada, 1990), 31.

11 Ibid., 39.

12 Donna Yoshimatsu, “The Legacy of the Rail Lives On, But Could It Be Built Today?” Canadian Mining Journal 130, no. 5 (June/July 2009): 8.

13 Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 133, 143; Henri Dorion and Jean-Paul Lacasse, Le Québec: territoire incertain (Sillery: Les éditions du Septentrion, 2011), 326.

14 Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 133. In metric terms, the exploitation lease was equivalent to close to 777 square kilometres.

15 Up to 1958, IOC shareholders consisted of mining companies Hanna Mining (17.48%), Hollinger North Shore Exploration (12.62%), Hollinger (8.09%), M. A. Hanna (8.09%), and Labrador Mining & Exploration (6.47%); and steel companies Republic (16.18%), National (12.95%), Armco (6.47%), Youngstown (6.47%), and Wheeling-Pittsburgh (5.18%) (Geren and McCullogh, Cain’s Legacy, 339).

16 See, for example, “Dépense initiale de 200 millions: ‘Fortune’ dit que l’on devra dépenser cette somme avant de retirer une tonne de minerai,” Action Catholique (November 26, 1948), Fonds Ministère des Travaux publics et de l’Approvisionnement, file 52.1 (1947–65), E25, S105, SS1, SSS2, box 1960-01-41/704, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

17 Québec deed of sale number 5851 executed before John P. Rowat, Notary (Montréal, March 22, 1951), Fonds Ministère des Travaux publics et de l’Approvisionnement, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

18 Daniel Vachon, L’histoire montagnaise de Sept-Îles (Québec: Éditions Innu, 1985), 42–43.

19 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-23a). Each Innu and Naskapi interviewee is anonymously identified with a unique numerical value that is consistent with other related works. The author conducted the interviews in the Schefferville region in the fall of 2009.

20 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-25b).

21 Maurice Duplessis, cited in Évènement Journal, “Dès 1953 un train pour l’Ungava!,” October 25, 1952, Fonds Ministère des Travaux publics et de l’Approvisionnement, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

22 Québec, Arrêté en Conseil numéro 222 concernant le développement du Nouveau-Québec, et le progrès de la province, Chambre du Conseil exécutif (March 7, 1951), Fonds Ministère des Travaux publics et de l’Approvisionnement, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

23 This percentage averaged 1.60 per cent for the pre-Schefferville decade 1945–1955 and 1.26 per cent for the following ten-year period, 1955–1965 (Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 177).

24 Ibid., 173, 190.

25 Ibid., 190.

26 In 1970, the value of iron ore production accounted for roughly one-sixth of the total value of production in Québec; by that measure it was over five times more important than gold production and about two-thirds as valuable as copper, the leading sector in the provincial mining economy. By 1975, iron ore was the leading sector in terms of value of output (Ibid., 14).

27 Ibid., 191.

28 Ibid., 66.

29 J. D. Jorgenson, “Challenges Facing the North American Iron Ore Industry” (Reston, VA: US Geological Survey, 2006), Open-File Report 2006-1061; Canada, “Iron Ore in Canada, 1886–1986,” Mineral Policy Sector, Internal Report, MRI 88/2, ca. 1988, 3. I am indebted to John Thistle (Memorial University) for the latter reference.

30 John H. Bradbury, “Some Geographical Implications of the Restructuring of the Iron Ore Industry, 1950–1980,” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 73, no. 5 (1982): 295.

31 Paul Sukagawa, “Is Iron Ore Priced as a Commodity? Past and Current Practice,” Resources Policy 35, no. 1 (March 2010): 54. Sukagawa makes this characterization for the period that led to the late 1960s and the development of the Pilbara iron mines in Australia.

32 Canada, “Iron Ore in Canada, 1886–1986,” 3.

33 Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 204.

34 In terms of this commodity, between the years 1955 and 1975 Québec exported “the totality of its production outside of its borders,” 70 per cent of which shipped to the United States (ibid., 137–38).

35 Ibid., 258.

36 Ibid., 250. In 1944, the added value in the iron ore and steel industries accounted for 20 per cent of the country’s total, with 9,760 jobs linked to the sector; by 1975, it had dropped to 11 per cent and 9,517 jobs.

37 In association with British Steel Corporation and Quebec Cartier Mining (an entity held by US Steel), Sidbec formed the company Sidbec-Normines, a half-state entity whose goal was to exploit and process the rich iron deposits of Fire Lake located near the municipality of Gagnon.

38 Bradbury, “Some Geographical Implications,” 301–2.

39 La ville de Gagnon, directed by Christian Sénéchal and Hélène Brown (Plate-Formes-Prods, 2008), film, 19 min. 11 s.

40 Michel Nadeau, “Iron Ore ferme à Schefferville,” Le Devoir, November 2, 1982, Fonds Cercle de presse de Sept-Îles, Le Soleil-Ouellet-Fessou (1960–85), P15, S2, dossiers 138 à 150.6.2, contenant 1982-11-002/3, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

41 Marie Tison, “Dossier de la fermeture de Schefferville: les Montagnais blâment Québec et Ottawa,” Le Soleil, April 13, 1988, Fonds Cercle de presse de Sept-Îles, Le Soleil-Ouellet-Fessou (1960–85), P15, S2, dossiers 138 à 150.6.2, contenant 1982-11-002/3, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

42 Natural Resources Canada, Legal Surveys Division, Historical Review–Matimekosh (undated), 86–87, accessed December 1, 2014, http://clss-satc.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/data-donnees/publications/indlanhisque-hisfonterindque/matimekosh_ang.pdf.

43 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-23a).

44 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-17b).

45 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-23a).

46 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-17a).

47 Personal communication (Schefferville, 2009: 1-29b).

48 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-25a).

49 Ibid.

50 John H. Bradbury, “Towards an Alternative Theory of Resource-Based Town Development in Canada,” Economic Geography 55, no. 2 (April 1979): 155.

51 André Bourbeau, “Projet de mémoire portant sur l’opportunité de la fermeture de la ville de Schefferville,” report to Conseil des ministres (Québec, March 4, 1986), Fonds Cercle de presse de Sept-Îles, Le Soleil-Ouellet-Fessou (1960–85), P15, S2, files 138 to 150.6.2, box 1982-11-002/3, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

52 Ibid.

53 Marc St-Pierre, “Fermer Schefferville: une question d’argent,” May 14, 1986, Fonds Cercle de presse de Sept-Îles, Le Soleil-Ouellet-Fessou (1960–85), P15, S2, dossiers 138 à 150.6.2, contenant 1982-11-002/3, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

54 See Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 127.

55 Richard Laforest, Jacques Frenette, Robert Comtois, and Michel Mongeon, “Occupation et utilisation du territoire par les Montagnais de Schefferville” (Rapport au Conseil Attikamek-Montagnais, Village des Hurons, 1983), B74.

56 Personal communication (Schefferville, 2009: I-28a).

57 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-16a).

58 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-17b).

59 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-24c).

60 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-18a).

61 Personal communucation (Matimekush, 2009: I-16a).

62 Cited in Une tente sur mars, directed by Martin Bureau and Luc Renaud (Productions Thalie and Les Films, March 3, 2009), film, 58 min. 06 s.

63 See Laura Cameron, Openings: A Meditation on History, Method, and Sumas Lake (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997), 18. In the context of large industrial projects that contributed to the destruction of a socially and culturally significant lake in British Columbia, Cameron seeks to grapple with the complicated array of local interpretations related to these developments: “Yes, Sumas Lake had been drained, but that hardly proved that it and the surrounding floodlands were valueless to all the people who lived there.”

64 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-28c).

65 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-15a).

66 Personal communication (Kawawachikamach, 2009: N-23a).

67 I borrow this expression from Pini, Mayes, and McDonald, who use it in the context of the January 2009 closure of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia. The authors argue that “for the participants of our study the mine’s end was a highly emotional event,” which was “marked by a palpable sense of loss,” despite the fact that it “was primarily represented as an economic and industrial issue” [“The Emotional Geography of a Mine Closure: A Study of the Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine in Western Australia,” Social & Cultural Geography 11, no. 6 (September 2010): 570].

68 Personal communication (Matimekush, 2009: I-15a).

69 “And now, 30 years later, these people are coming back! It’s funny, only one year or two ago, my community and I did not exist in northern Québec!,” Réal McKenzie, “En finir avec la discrimination,” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 41, no. 1 (2011): 73.

70 “Ahead of the Curve: Working with Aboriginal Partners in the Race for Canada’s Iron Ore,” Canadian Mining Journal 133, no. 3 (April 2012): 26–27.

71 Jamon Alex Halvaksz II, “Whose Closure? Appearances, Temporality, and Mineral Extraction in Papua New Guinea,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14 (2008): 21–22.

72 Cited in Raymond St-Pierre and Dominique Landry, “Schefferville: les défis humains du Plan Nord,” Radio-Canada, television, April 17, 2012.

73 Russel B. Noble, “La hommage [sic] au ‘Plan Nord,’” Canadian Mining Journal 133, no. 3 (April 2012): 5.

74 Québec, “Plan Nord,” 38.

75 See, for example, Jean-Sébastien Boutet, “Développement ferrifère et mondes autochtones au Québec subarctique, 1954–1983,” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 40, no. 3 (2010): 35–52.

76 Vice president of an exploration company, cited in Fred McMahon and Miguel Cervantes, “Fraser Institute Annual Survey of Mining Companies, 2011/2012” (Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, February 2012), 43.

77 Québec, “Plan Nord,” 111.

78 Correy Baldwin, “Future Growth Built on Iron Ore Legacy,” CIM Magazine 6, no. 2 (2011): 42.

79 Baffinland Iron Mines, “Iron Ore Industry Trends and Analysis” (August 31, 2009), 7, 18.

80 Jeffrey D. Wilson, “Chinese Resource Security Policies and the Restructuring of the Asia-Pacific Iron Ore Market,” Resources Policy 37, no. 3 (September 2012): 331. Depending on the conditions, these dominant companies are also able, through overproduction and market flooding, to depress prices enough to stamp out competition from small iron producers.

81 Ibid.

82 World Steel Association, “Crude Steel Production 2013,” accessed December 1, 2014, http://worldsteel.org/statistics/crude-steel-production.html.

83 See Wilson, “Chinese Resource Security Policies.”

84 ArcelorMittal, “Core Strengths, Sustainable Returns: Annual Report 2011” (Luxembourg, April 2012), 7, 15.

85 Marilyn Scales, “Big Money: Mont-Wright Expansion to Pump $2.1 Billion into Quebec,” Canadian Mining Journal 133, no. 3 (April 2012): 14–15.

86 Ibid., 13–14.

87 Dean Journeaux, “Breaking New Ground in the Labrador Trough,” Northern Exposure presentation (St. John’s, NL, January 22–24, 2013), 8.

88 In October 2010, Tata Steel (80%) and New Millennium Iron (20%) formed the Tata Steel Minerals Canada (TSMC) joint venture. The “Canadian” company “is part of Tata Steel Group of companies” headquartered in Mumbai (Tata Steel Minerals Canada, “Welcome to Tata Steel Minerals Canada Limited,” accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.tatasteelcanada.com).

89 This site should not be confused with the Timmins mining district of northeastern Ontario; new reserves are also being identified in the area.

90 Journeaux, “Breaking New Ground,” 6.

91 “New Millennium: Advancing the New Millennium Iron Range,” The International Resource Journal 6, no. 3 (June 2011): 123.

92 New Millennium Iron, “On the Path to Production,” corporate presentation (September 2011), 68.

93 Canada, “Speaking Notes for the Honourable Denis Lebel, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities” (annual conference of the Association of Canadian Port Authorities, Sept-Îles, QC, August 8, 2011).

94 Québec, “Plan Nord,” 63.

95 Ibid. In 2011, the project was listed as the most expansive mining endeavor on the planet, all commodities considered [Magnus Ericsson and Viktoriya Larsson, “E&MJ’s Annual Survey of Global Mining Investment,” Engineering and Mining Journal (January 2012): 6].

96 Cited in D’Arcy Jenish, “Destined for Grandeur: Chinese Steel Giant Invests Heavily in Quebec Ore Property,” Canadian Mining Journal 133, no. 3 (April 2012): 16.

97 Québec, “Plan Nord,” 63.

98 Ibid., 117.

99 Ibid., 36.

100 St-Pierre and Landry, “Schefferville.”

101 Robert Martin, chairman of the Strategic Advisory Committee of the Board of Directors, NML, cited in Ebner and Bouw, “Tata Joins Race.”

102 See Timothy Prior, Damien Giurco, Gavin Mudd, Leah Mason, and Johannes Behrisch, “Resource Depletion, Peak Minerals and the Implications for Sustainable Resource Management,” Global Environmental Change 22, no. 3 (2012): 585.

103 Ugo Lapointe, “L’héritage du principe de free mining au Québec et au Canada,” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 40, no. 3 (2010): 9–25; Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh and Ginger Gibson, “Economic Risk and Mineral Taxation on Indigenous Lands,” Resources Policy 37, no. 1 (2012): 10–18; Prior et al., “Resource Depletion, Peak Minerals,” 577–87; Vérificateur général du Québec, “Report of the Auditor General of Québec to the National Assembly for 2008–2009,” Volume 2, April 1, 2009. This list is non-exhaustive.

104 See, for example, Paquette, Les mines du Québec, 271.

105 Halvaksz II, “Whose Closure?,” 26.

106 John Sandlos and Arn Keeling, “Zombie Mines and the (Over)burden of History,” Solutions Journal 4, no. 3 (June 2013): 81.

107 McKenzie, “En finir avec la discrimination,” 72.

108 Radio-Canada, “Côte-Nord: des Innus poursuivent IOC pour 900 millions,” March 20, 2013, accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.radio-canada.ca/regions/est-quebec/2013/03/20/010-ioc-innus-poursuite.shtml. See also the IOC/Rio Tinto “Pay the rent” campaign website (http://www.paytherent.info/). In 2000, Rio Tinto became the principal shareholder of IOC.

109 Sylvain Laroque, “Des Innus poursuivent IOC pour 900 millions,” La Presse, March 20, 2013, accessed December 1, 2014, http://affaires.lapresse.ca/economie/energie-et-ressources/201303/20/01-4633042-des-innus-poursuivent-ioc-pour-900-millions.php.

110 Essimeu Tite McKenzie, cited in Bureau and Renaud, Une tente sur Mars.