Map: Location of Grays Bay Port and Road

A long-awaited project that would see an Arctic deepwater port and road connecting rich mineral resources to international shipping routes as well as offering the Navy another northern beachhead has been revived.

The Grays Bay Road and Port Project (GBRP) is a transportation system that, once completed, will connect the rich mineral resources of Canada’s Slave Geological Province, which straddles Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, to arctic shipping routes. The GBRP consists of a 227 km all-season road linking the northern terminus of the Tibbitt-Contwoy to Winter Road to a deep-water port at Grays Bay on the Northwest Passage.

The proposed Grays Bay Port and Road, which has been a northern dream for more than a decade, has refiled an environmental assessment with regulatory authorities in Nunavut, restarting a process that has been stalled for years.

The massive project on Canada's central Arctic coast in the middle of the Northwest Passage could open up crucial mineral resources, said Brendan Bell of the West Kitikmeot Resources Corp., which is leading the effort and is majority owned by the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, a birthright corporation created by the Nunavut Land Claim.

Every country is intent on securing a supply of critical minerals, Bell said.

The project would include a deepwater port with two wharfs designed to load large vessels of the post-Panamax class and an adjacent small craft harbour for community use. It would also have an airstrip, tank farm, transloading facilities, utilities, maintenance shops, warehousing, accommodation, administrative offices and areas for ore concentrate storage and handling.

In its first phase, it would include a 230-kilometre all-weather road into the heart of the mineral-rich Slave Geological Province. That road would connect to ice roads to Yellowknife, making it the first road link from the central Arctic coast to Southern Canada.

There are at least three large deposits of copper, zinc, gold and silver that would be made economic by access to tidewater, said Bell. Many other deposits have been found in the vast region, which encompasses a large area of the central Arctic.

We've had a typical chicken-and-egg problem, Bell said. - World-class discoveries of high grade are made, but they haven't been expanded to understand the scale because there's no infrastructure. We believe with the new momentum behind the infrastructure you'll see a lot of expansion of those resources.

Source: The Grays Bay Road and Port Project, National Observer

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