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Donlin Gold will improve the lives of the people in our community.
Especially in the small towns and villages, those jobs can help people with their bills and save money, help with travel, help with
food. Considering it’s three or four times more expensive in
the villages, that’s a lot.
Evan Polty, Jr., a Calista shareholder from Russian Mission, during the 2019 fall program at the Donlin Gold project in Alaska’s Yukon- Kuskokwim region. “Safety is always in the back of our mind,” says Evan. “Whether it’s operating a truck or a skid-steer or a loader, if we’re on flat ground or up on the mountains or anywhere – no matter what – safety comes first.”
Other than the obvious opportunities like engineering and labourers, I see some unique opportunities. Like with the increased barge activity, there’s going to be
a lot of need for barge workers; with the camp sites they’ll need some bear guards. I can’t think of anyone better to do the job than people who know the land and people who have been hunting their whole life.
We don’t want the mining company to hire somebody just to hire them, we want them to hire the best people for those jobs, and we know that the best people are our shareholders.
Nobody’s working. A lot of depression...no work, no jobs. What Donlin is doing is like a boost of energy to the people – to everybody in this middle Kuskokwim region. These younger kids, I tell them, “You have the opportunity of a lifetime.” I tell them, “You can’t imagine. When Donlin starts going, it’ll be opportunities for you, what you cherish, what you think and do – you’ll be set for the rest of your life.”
I know a lot of people are talking about jobs, but this is not just a regular job. If you think about it, you’re going to go to work and your home’s right around the corner. The same land that you’re trying to live off of. It’s going to be a modern type of subsistence. The same people that are loving the land are going to be working right there.
It’s a good job. I never had shifting jobs before – two weeks on here at camp and then the two weeks off. It’s kind of hard to adjust. You have to time everything you do, whether it’s traveling or just being at home. But this way we get to spend time with our families.
NG 37
VOICES
Danny Ausdahl, Jr.
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Andrea Gusty
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Gage Hoffman
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Danica Mike
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Erick Morgan, Sr.
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Evan Polty, Jr.
There aren’t many opportunities for jobs here. You’re kind of limited to working at the school or store; other than that, there’s not much. Yeah, we depend heavily on a subsistence lifestyle, but if more job opportunities were available, it would be helpful for a lot of the villages in the area.
We’ve focused not only on preparing for those
direct mining jobs, but also on preparing for jobs in general. We work very closely with the EXCEL Alaska Program, which starts kids in eighth grade and gets them ready for the real world; gets them ready for job opportunities so that they can be the successful individuals we know that they can be. We hope that by the time a project like Donlin Gold comes online that we will have individuals ready to take those jobs, whether that be an accountant or a heavy equipment operator or an engineer. All of these jobs are going to be available at the mine site – and we know that our shareholders can be ready.