Board recommends Grays Bay project undergo environmental review

The Nunavut Impact Review Board has recommended that the proposed Grays Bay port and road project undergo an environmental assessment.

The project aims to connect Arctic mineral resources to the south and beyond. It envisages a deepwater Arctic port and a road connecting Nunavut’s Kitikmeot region to the NWT and ultimately southern Canada.

Some governments, organizations and residents are concerned about potential impacts the project could have on wildlife; historical, cultural and archaeological sites; traditional land use; vegetation; permafrost; and air and water quality.

The Kugluktuk Hunters and Trappers Association, for example, said it does not support the project as work would take place in key calving grounds of the Dolphin and Union caribou, which are at critically low numbers.

The association described the project as “a road to nowhere” that would not benefit local communities and raised concerns about the capacity to fill jobs that the project would create.

While the project is wholly located within Nunavut, organizations and governments said it could also have impacts in the NWT.

The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board said transboundary issues of concern include impacts on barren-ground caribou, traditional land use, increased human access, and community health and well-being.

In a decision on December 4, the Nunavut review board recommended the project undergo an environmental review to examine those issues, as first reported by the CBC. The federal northern affairs minister has 90 days to respond.

Assessment a chance for ‘a back and forth’

Brendan Bell – chief executive officer of West Kitikmeot Resources Corp, which is leading the project – said he is not surprised by the decision, one which his company had also called for.

“The environmental assessment is an opportunity for us to lay out [the] project plans, the benefits, the potential impacts in greater detail and consult with stakeholders on all of that,” he said.

“It’s a chance for us to have a back and forth. It’s a chance for us to revise designs if there are suggestions that come from stakeholders on matters such as design that might mitigate against impacts on marine mammals or on caribou.”

The project proposes construction of a deepwater port on the Coronation Gulf alongside a 230-km all-season road from Grays Bay to the end of the Tibbitt to Contwoyto winter road.

It then proposes extending the all-season road to the end of the NWT’s proposed Slave Geological Province Corridor, an all-season road that would stretch northeast of Yellowknife beyond Highway 4 that the NWT government is pursuing but which is not yet funded.

West Kitikmeot said it expects to complete construction of the Grays Bay project over five years with operations beginning in 2035.

The federal government previously ordered a full environmental review for the Grays Bay project in 2018, but that process subsequently stalled. West Kitkmeot took over the project in 2023.

Bell said potential benefits of the project could include support for critical minerals investment, adding there are “world-class deposits” in Nunavut and the NWT, as well as continental security.

West Kitikmeot hoping to find ‘patriotic’ investors

While the review board’s decision is a step toward seeing the project become a reality, Bell said it is still early in the process.

Currently the company is working to raise the money required to build the port and road, among other work.

“It’s one thing to complain that government has not done enough to fund infrastructure in the North on behalf of northern people in their communities and has not done enough on defence spending,” Bell said.

“I think there is some onus on the Canadian private sector to do more than just critique and to invest and to put their money where their mouths are.

“We’re hoping to find investors who have a patriotic streak and believe that this is something that we need to do as Canadians, something that we need to fund.”