Entire Community of Fort Chipewyan Evacuated as Wildfires Rage

Wildfires Burning Across Saskatchewan, Air Quality Warnings in Fond Du Lac and Uranium City

19 wildfires burning around Saskatchewan as of Saturday, May 27. Five not contained, 10 undergoing assessment, three are being watched to protect valuable equipment in the area. Air quality alerts are in effect across the province, including Fond-du-Lac, Stony Rapids and Uranium City.

McIntyre Powder Project

From 1943 to approximately 1979, miners in gold and uranium mines were ‘treated’ before their shift with something called ‘McIntyre Powder aluminum powder’. Apparently miners at the Beaverlodge Mine were among those treated. From the website: The McIntyre Powder Project is a voluntary registry to document health issues (particularly neurological) in miners or other workers who […]

Uranium City #1 – in Cold Weather

Temperatures in Uranium City dropped below -48.9C yesterday making it the coldest place in Canada (with Key Lake and Fort Chipewyan in close second and third, with -48.2 and -47.2 respectively), which was also a record for the Uranium City weather station. Last time I was up, in February 2003, it was somewhere very close […]

North Saskatchewan Being Immunized against COVID 19

COVID 19 has hit North Saskatchewan hard. Earlier this month, some 26 cases had hit Fond Du Lac, and several cases were reported in Uranium City. Thankfully, help is on the way: The Athabasca Health Authority (AHA) and Northern leaders have upped their efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy in a push to administer as many […]

Uranium City Arena Burns to the Ground

Last week, the Uranium City Arena burned to the ground. Locals think it was a lightning strike, as rain-less lightning and thunder had been rife that morning. The arena had been abandoned for some years, and the wood was thought to be bone dry, which led to the arena being completely engulfed by flames after […]

Uranium City Alumni Hayley Hasslen Rewarded for Heroism

Traces: Sound Recordings of Uranium City

My project Traces focusses on Uranium City in Northern Saskatchewan. The quiet isolation of this remote area belies the degree to which it is acharged site, inextricably linked to the American nuclear weapons program. This project listens carefully to invisible traces of the site’s history, reduced to radioactive decay measurable in the rapid clicks of a Geiger counter. Site-specific […]

Archival Photos from the Star Phoenix

Archival Photographs of Uranium City from the Star Phoenix, released last fall. Curiously, many of these, maybe a third, are actually of Gunnar Mines, and one appears to be of the Lorado mill. Another caption, below the Gunnar headframe, reads “A grain elevator in disrepair in Uranium City”. Seems to be from the early ’80s, […]

Grass now growing in Lorado Tailings, Fish live in once-dead Nero Lake

I remember clearly when the Lorado tailings resembled the surface of Mars. As a teenager, we’d walk across tailings field, marveling the rust-red dust, the absence of a single living thing. Nearby Nero Lake was completely clear, no fish, no plants, no living trees around its shore. The tailings field lived on after the mill […]