I grew up in Sudbury and like many from here, I come from a family of miners. I had an interest in geography and earth sciences that lead me to complete a degree in Environmental Earth Science at Laurentian University. It was during my second year that I accepted an environmental summer student position with Teck Resources Ltd. at one of their coal mines in northern British Columbia. It was quite exciting for me at the time as I had never left Sudbury. After graduating and spending three summers with Teck, my career took me on many adventures across the country where I got to work for various mining and consulting companies such as Syncrude, Vale, Areva (now Orano), Hatch, KCB and now Wallbridge Mining. Although, my field of study was environmental science, I was able to learn different skills from each project such as environmental monitoring, permitting, project management, community engagement, contract administration, water treatment operations, and mine closure just to name a few.
My current role at Wallbridge Mining, a junior mining company, allows me to put in practice all the skills that I have learned from my previous experience. I get to work within a great interdisciplinary team to move a new project forward, which is exciting! As our main project is in Québec, I am also grateful to practice a lot of my work in French. I love the variety that my job provides me! My day could be spent sitting with Indigenous Elders and learning about their culture, learning about the latest water treatment technology, meeting with government officials, writing permit application documents, reviewing lab results, or working with our engineers in finding solutions to advance the project.
There is such a wide range of disciplines to work in when choosing a career in mining (such as engineer, geologist, scientist, miner etc.) and within the same discipline, you can choose to work in the field, operations, projects, health and safety or community engagement! With such a wide variety of choices, a career in mining allows you to choose what works best for your lifestyle. You can choose to travel the world or live near operations. Mining has allowed me to grow professionally through the various challenging opportunities that I have accepted across Canada throughout my career. I have not only worked with some of the best experts in the industry, but I have also made some great friends along the way!