Around the North

The Government of Canada is investing more than $1.3 million in the Sudbury region, Minister of Industry Tony Clement announced, Jan. 20. The investment, made through FedNor, will support eight community-based economic development initiatives.

KWG Resources has extended an invitation to five First Nations chiefs to join the board of directors of its subsidiary company, Canada Chrome Corp.

North American Palladium (NAP) intends to increase production by 75 per cent at its Lac des Iles mine in northwestern Ontario. In a Jan.

The City of Sault Ste. Marie reports the value of building permits issued in 2010 was up $18 million from the year before. Total construction values were $143.3 million, up from $125.3 million the previous year.

It may be cold comfort to the remnants of Northern Ontario's shattered forestry industry, but Ontario scored a technical victory in the long-running softwood lumber dispute through an international trade tribunal.

With construction underway at its $1.2-billion Detour Lake project, Detour Gold is planning on a $14-million exploration program for the site in 2011.

The rapid growth in the City of Timmins stemming from mineral exploration is increasing at such a rate as to strain the availability of places to live, said Christy Marinig, CEO of the Timmins Economic Development Corporation (TEDC).

Thunder Bay's Lakehead University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine have accepted a $150,000 gift from Barrick Gold Corporation for learning and health care in northwestern Ontario.

Four Buchanan Forest Products mills in northwestern Ontario have been placed in receivership or with a bankruptcy trustee.

Prodigy Gold has assembled an engineering team to prepare a new resource estimate and preliminary economic assessment of a past-producing mine near Wawa.