Around the North

Essar Steel Algoma and the United Steelworkers Local 2724 ratified a new four-year collective agreement, July 31, just hours before the company's technical, professional and supervisors would have went on strike.

A Manitoulin Island airport runway is getting a long overdue $3.37-million upgrade. Kenora MP Greg Rickford announced Aug. 3 that the Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport is getting more than $1.

Ottawa has come through with some much-needed cash for track improvements to keep the Huron Central Railway rolling. Sault Ste.

New industrial life may be breathed into an abandoned open pit mine in northwestern Ontario.

Clerical, administrative and technical staff at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine may be poised for strike as early as Aug. 16 after having voted 97 per cent in favour of a strike mandate.

Sault Ste. Marie's Algoma University is bringing two of its courses to Timmins in September 2010 thanks to a partnership with Northern College.

After years of preparation, the long-awaited ground-breaking for Cambrian College's $5-million Xstrata Nickel Sustainable Energy Centre took place at the Sudbury campus on August 5.

A rise in institutional construction in Ontario helped lead a 6.5 per cent surge in the value of Canadian building permits in June, reaching $6.6 billion, according to Statistics Canada. This number marks a 24.9 per cent rise over June 2009.

Essar Algoma Steel reached a new collective agreement with one union, but is down to the final hours of bargaining with another.

Community developers from across northwestern Ontario and the U.S. Midwest will converge on Fort Frances in September for the annual Northern Networks Conference.