NSMA breaks ground on new economic hub for Métis

The North Slave Métis Alliance held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Wednesday for a new economic and environmental project building.

Named after a man known as the founding father of Métis in the NWT, the François Beaulieu II Economic Development Facility – or FBII for short – is being built in Yellowknife’s Kam Lake.

FBII is described as a multifunctional hub for NSMA, containing a lab, office space, garage bays, equipment storage, a kitchen and meeting areas. The facility is scheduled to open in the summer of 2026.

“The lab will bring to the North environmental services that previously had to be sourced in the south,” NSMA stated in a press release.

NSMA President Marc Whitford said the organization is “setting itself up for success as it prepares for the reductions in contracts, employment and revenue that will come with the planned closure of the diamond mines.”

The Ekati diamond mine’s owners announced on Wednesday that hundreds of jobs are going as it suspends open-pit mining. The Diavik mine is set to close in early 2026 and a third, Gahcho Kué, is also expected to wind down operations in the coming years.

“The economic facility is about creating benefits for current and future generations at the NSMA,” Whitford said at the groundbreaking event.

“Our kids’ kids are hopefully going to see something come of all this.”

Diavik is a partner in the construction of the FBII building.

“Our partnership with the NSMA spans more than two decades already, and as we look beyond the mine’s closure, this initiative is a natural extension of that partnership,” said Diavik chief operating officer Matthew Breen.

The NWT government has previously forecast that the remediation economy – the act of cleaning up former mines and other contaminated sites in the territory – could have an economic impact running into the billions of dollars in the North Slave region.

The FBII building will help the North Slave Métis Alliance and its economic wing, Metcor, to “lead in the environmental economy, critical minerals and the kind of nation-building infrastructure that will define the future of the North,” said NWT industry minister Caitlin Cleveland at Wednesday’s event.

Yellowknife city councillor Garett Cochrane, who is Métis, said Métis northerners “have always been at the forefront of northern commerce and we will always be, as the innate need to prosper, to create and to build, to succeed and to share in that success is in our blood.”

The building is to be designed and built by architect Vince Barter, Narrative Architects; builder Brian Baggs, Horizon Builders; and project advisor David Connelly, Ile Royale Enterprises.