A big controversy is brewing in Northern Ontario. The Ring of Fire, a 5,000-square-kilometre deposit of ancient volcanic rock in one of the largest remaining roadless regions in North America, is potentially worth billions of dollars. The metals buried there—nickel, copper, platinum and others—are in high demand for use in EV batteries, wind turbines and semiconductors. But first they would have to be extracted. Getting the minerals out of the earth would be an enormously complicated and expensive process. Permanent roads would need to be built and connected to Ontario’s highway system. The Ontario government sees this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to expand industry and become a leader in green energy. Among the five remote fly-in First Nations communities clustered near the Ring of Fire, there are many different perspectives on the merits of building roads and exploiting the region’s resources. Some see the benefits of development; others are fiercely against the whole idea. Last spring, the journalist Laura Trethewey and photographer Ian Willms set out for Maclean’s to report on the dispute. They flew from Toronto to Thunder Bay, then boarded a tiny prop plane to travel another 500 kilometes north into the Ontario bush. There, they got to know the people of the small fly-in reserve of Neskantaga, one of 10 First Nations that has launched a $95-billion lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments, challenging their jurisdiction over Crown lands. Trethewey’s story is an empathetic portrait of the challenges of living in the far North and a sophisticated overview of what’s at stake for the area, the province and the country. —Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief |
This past January, temperatures in the Okanagan Valley dropped as low as -27° C, killing most of the wine grape buds on the region’s vines. Then, in April, an oddly late frost hit the Lake Erie region, causing 471 wineries to lose 60 per cent of their yield. The compounding consequences of widespread crop deaths like this could be dire: vineyards could go broke, resulting in a major hit to Canada’s $1.6-billion wine industry and, of course, much less wine to drink. Here’s how a new Saskatchewan-made spray could save the day. |
The former fishing village of skʷəkʷtɛ’xʷqən, now known as New Westminster, B.C., was historically a lush, wooded gathering place for the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking peoples. Now, a new aquatic and community centre in the city—called təməsew̓txʷ, or “sea otter house,” in the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language—is pulling in the best of its natural surroundings. |
Several provincial governments now mandate parental consent for kids to change their pronouns in school. Who gets to decide a child’s gender? From the October issue of Maclean’s, read Simon Lewsen’s feature on one of the tensions tearing Canadian classrooms apart. “It’s tempting to write the conflict off as yet another inane culture-war crack-up,” Lewsen writes. “But the truth is more complicated.” |
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