News from our businesses and markets
The 2017 James Bay winter road leading to the De Beers Victor Mine carried some extra special items this year as three truckloads carried more than 13,000 kg of donated items worth an estimated $120,000 to Attawapiskat.
The Victor Mine team was proud to support this program to ensure the donations collected from around the world got to the community. Items included new and like-new hygiene and baby products, books and school supplies, household items, camping and sports equipment, musical instruments, crafts and art supplies and handmade cards and letters. They were gathered by Anne and Mark Laalo of Ottawa who operate as a non-profit called Annie & Company to help the children, youth and families of Attawapiskat. (See http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-family-reaches-out-to-attawapiskat)
The items were originally intended to be delivered to the community last fall, but after a logistics snag, De Beers offered to hold the items at our Moosonee storage yard until this year’s winter road was available. The donations were in addition to eight skids of supplies that were flown into Attawapiskat by Thunder Air.
After the winter road opened on February 7 of this year, De Beers’ Supply Chain and Indigenous Relations & Sustainability employees worked with winter road and transportation partners to have the items loaded onto trucks that could stop in Attawapiskat. The donations were delivered to the community over several days in March before the road was closed for the season.
De Beers operates Victor Mine in the James Bay lowlands of Northern Ontario, about 90 km from Attawapiskat. The winter road is a 400 km seasonal transportation route built between Moosonee and Victor Mine, including to Attawapiskat and other remote Aboriginal communities in the region. The road is used to transport large and bulk items, including fuel, food and other supplies to the communities and the mine during a 6-8 week period each winter. The road closed for the season on March 26, 2017.