'Sillica' Corporations Quietly Prospecting Northern Saskatchewan Without Local Consultation

(This  is an emerging situation, the article will be updated and expanded when more is known, the local community is informed, and some kind of action determined.) 

Recently I decided to get out of the city for the summer and spend time with relatives in the north. In early June I began living and working at Alicorn Stables, assisting with the care and feeding of horses, leading trail rides for school kids and doing general farm labor. It’s been good for me, I am overcoming the ‘activist burn-out’ and associated depression/anxiety issues common to long time environmental activists that have started to catch up with me in recent years. 

My brother and his wife established the horse ranch 15 minutes south of LaRonge 4 years ago, when they got an agricultural land-lease through the Saskatchewan government for a section of previously undeveloped land and began working it into what it is now.  The work has been extremely hard, and there have been high costs associated with it.

They have to pay environmental fees for cutting the trees, they are not allowed to draw water from the nearby creeks because of environmental restrictions, so they haul water in. They’ve been okay with this, they understand these issues and have done everything they can to keep their 12 horse, off-grid operation ecologically sustainable, obeying all the laws involved in the land-lease, interfering as little as possible with local widelife. 

Today, my sister-in-law discovered that the area is being looked at by major resource companies, and the same Saskatchewan government that concerns itself with the most minor environmental impact caused by her small farm has been working all along with Garcia Silica Inc in hopes of ripping up the entire area… not for oil, gold or diamonds in this case, but because of the wonderfully fine grade of sand that can be found all over the region. 

According to the report, titled ‘Report Of Preliminary Inspection, LaRonge Silica Sand’,  ”preliminary prospection field work was conducted on Mineral Claims numbers MC00001288 and MC00001298 during the periods of September 19‐24, 2014 and September 22‐25, 2015. The field work consisted of mapping access routes, confirming the presence of silica sand within the claims, and collecting samples for preliminary evaluation of the quality of the sand.   Both claims have an excellent network of active and abandoned logging roads, some of which will need rehabilitation. The claims covered by unconsolidated medium to coarse creamy white to sandy brown silica sand with little or no overburden. The chemical composition and the physical attributes of the sand exceed the minimum requirements for various industrial applications including hydraulic fracking.”