Uranium City - Life After the Mine

Comment: Mining’s benefits will not last forever: The Article is about the Boom to Burst of Uranium Mining, really just the burst! Gretna Hurt, Chatham, and maybe Danville will become ghost towns; jobs will not come to our area because of the destruction of uranium mining. Water, air, and land will be ruin from radiation fallout!

By Daniel Hayduk

A thin veil of fog envelopes Uranium City as a light sleet dances in the chilled northern air.

Birch firewood fuels a roaring fire in Andrew Schultz's rambling, unfinished home on Nuclear Avenue.

"Dixie called," Schultz remarks, carefully scrubbing a dirty plate at the kitchen sink, "you're not going to fly out today."

Twelve days earlier, C-GRUG, a Cessna 172, dipped and shuddered towards the northern Saskatchewan settlement's dimly lit, cracked and re-tarred runway.

As McMurray Aviation pilot Brock radioed in the plane's location to the airport's nonexistent control tower, the shattered desolate remains of homes slipped beneath the wings of the plane.

Streets, cul-de-sacs and treed alleyways were lined with empty homes. Some homes still had windows and walls -- for others, only a staircase leading to the sky remained.

A barrage of trees and shrubs surrounded each home -- eager to reclaim the land.

Where humans still dwelled, smoke traces drifted lazily from the chimneys into the waning daylight.

One of those homes belongs to Andrew Schultz, who retired from the lucrative oil-field work in Fort McMurray after coming to Uranium City to scatter his fathers ashes.

"I spread my dads ashes, and that is when I started looking for places to live," Schultz said.

"The beauty, the peace, the clean air - I was dying in McMurray."

With the Cold War looming, the discovery of uranium in northern Saskatchewan brought thousands of miners and their families to the area.

For decades, the mines operated and Uranium City was the opposite of a peaceful quiet place.

Home to about 8,000 people, bus routes, schools, hotels, apartment blocks, bars, theaters, arcades, shopping malls, a hospital, hockey arena, and a bowling alley all came to life.

The search for higher-grade uranium persisted late into the 1960's, when large deposits were found South and East of Lake Athabasca.

At that same time, the United States military halted the use of Canadian uranium in it's atomic weaponry.

And slowly, Uranium City began to dismantle.

A few layoff's -- a closure here -- and then another.

And in 1983, the last mine closed.

Margaret Powder was in Grade 10 at CANDU School when the Eldorado Mine announced its shutdown.

"They called all of us students into the gymnasium -- all 500 of us -- and our principal had to announce to us that our town was shutting down."

Her voice breaking, Powder describes the mood in the gymnasium, "the devastation, it hit hard.

Everybody cried, the whole gymnasium, everybody was holding each other, crying. Asking why -- and nobody knew why."

Sitting next to her husband Wayne in their kitchen, they shared memories of the closure of the last mine.

"That winter, the Mayflower Moving trucks came in on the winter road," Margaret recalls.

"The Mayflower trucks were on every street -- 20-30 trucks on every street. Everywhere you walked there were moving trucks."

Other than a winter road across Lake Athabasca, no real roads connect Uranium City to the rest of the world.

Those who did not pack their belongings while the winter road was open had fewer options of moving their belongings.

Some, "just took their clothes on their back," leaving homes, cars, and remnants of lives perfectly preserved, remembers Wayne.

"They just got up and left."

Brand new homes -- some still under construction -- were left with cars still in the driveway, plates on the table, pictures hanging on the walls.

The 200 people who stayed behind with the town, made use of the abundance of now free material; salvaging doors, lighting fixtures, cars, and anything else of value.

With a twinkle in his eye, Schultz shares details about the empty part of town.

"There's all kinds of old stuff down there, and I make things out of anything. There are 10,000 projects and no time," Schultz sighs.

"The old part of town, that is my playground," Schultz boasts, noting that, "there is nothing that can't be fixed, so long as you put your mind to it."

"It's not for the weak of heart up here," Schultz points out, emphasizing that a man was killed when an old car fell and crushed him.

Today, the wood from the bowling alley at the Gunnar Mine furnishes a home.

There are no more hotels or restaurants.

There are no theatres or arcades.

There are no bus routes.

The 16 children who attend Ben McIntyre School walk or bicycle to their single classroom school for their classes.

Principal and teacher Doug Preikschat engages each pupil with a vibrant smile and attitude as he guides them through their lessons .

At one table, Preikschat works through a science experiment with Grade Seven's -- Chelsey, Tristan and Tyler.

The younger pupils quietly practice spelling drills on the school's computers.

But even in the cozy back-country school atmosphere of the small community, problems do exist.

"We've got a lot of people that are addicted to alcohol and also drugs," Preikschat confides, "we see the effects at the school with the kids."

Athabasca Health Authority Licensed Practical Nurse, Shelley Murphy, agrees, "the younger kids in the community are experimenting, and we are finding that it is not acceptable at all."

Murphy, a health worker at the town clinic, grew up in Uranium City.

"When we were kids, there were arcades, video stores, movie theaters and restaurants. You could do things, recreation was set up and it was community based," recalls Murphy.

These days, "there is not enough recreation for the kids and they are getting bored," Murphy fears.

With concern in her voice, Murphy shares a problem typical to all societies and backgrounds across Canada.

"The kids are falling back into the addictions parts of life."

For Murphy, the solution is to get everyone in the small community working together.

"There should be more recreation put into the community -- more organized events involving the kids and not just a poker game."

Principal Preikschat, his wife Simone, and two daughters Lily and Hannah see the lack of structured events in the community as a blessing.

"It's a good place to raise kids, you can raise them with quite a strong sense of freedom. It's a great place to foster creativity."

"There is not a lot of peace and quiet in the city," Preikschat says.

"In winter, if you go out for a walk and you stop and hold your breath, you can hear the snow crackle as it hits the gound. That's pretty quiet."

"At school I tell the kids that it's so quiet you can hear a bug fart," he laughs.

Uranium City gives the opportunity to, "really make your own situation, to do what ever you want to do, and we do," Preikschat summarizes.

In Schultz's second home, a cabin nestled on one of the many lakes adjacent to Lake Athabasca, he shares his thoughts on why boredom and substance abuse exist in such a small tranquil community.

"The youth don't have any drive because they've never been taught how to work."

From the labor of love that is is cabin -- in which the steel support beams were hand cut -- to tales of being prepared for harsh northern winters, Schultz colorfully outlines stories of hard work and adventure to emphasize his point.

Sporting a worn hunting jacket, torn sweat pants and casual summer shoes, Donald Kasner lumbers through the light snow to the GLR and UCR Resources building on Uranium Road.

For Kasner, Project Coordinator for the exploration companies GLR and UCR Resources, his hope is to return the town to it's former glory.

"Things are looking a lot more positive than they have over the years," Kasner says of the prospects of re-opening a mine.

"But again, nothing is always one hundred percent even when you do have the money," Kasner cautions, "anything can change."

Having worked in the area for decades, Kasner knows Uranium City like the back of his hand.

He shares stories of being stranded at one of the mine sites outside of town without a food supply, water or shelter for days -- in the middle of winter and in several feet of snow.

Seeing first hand the struggles of the locals, Kasner wants to be the one who gives the locals a chance at working with the mines again.

"The people here have gone through some real hardships over the years here with the mines closing," Kasner laments.

GLR and UCR Resources are exploring the previously been mined minerals of Uranium City - gold and uranium.

One of the projects Kasner oversees is the Box Mine site, an abandoned gold mine last operated in the 1930's, but still holds 1.1 million ounces of gold.

"Hopefully in May well be running a producing mine here," Kasner projects, adding that it would, "give the people in town opportunity to have a better life and a steady job."

With a shaky world economy holding an uncertain future for the price of gold, and higher grade uranium readily available elsewhere in Saskatchewan, nothing is ever for certain.

"There isn't going to be a mine," Schultz flatly states, emphasizing that, "there's definitely going to be no gold mine.

Its been 28 years now in the going -- still no mine."

Murphy shares the same sentiment, "they've been at the gold mine since about 1986, and they haven't proven themselves yet."

Preikschat takes a moment to think about the possibility of a mine opening, "personally, I think it is a long shot," he finally says.

"What you see today is a test. And while it is nice to see all this exploration, you try not to say 'oh yes, we're going to have a mine again,'" Margaret Powder philosophies.

Choosing her words carefully, Margaret shares what could be the mantra of Uranium City, "live for today, because you don't know what the future is going to bring."

Kasner understands why the possibility of re-opening a mine conjures up strong reactions.

"You've got places left around and you've got people that are heartbroken over being left. They blame the mines, they blame the government, they blame whomever, but that is just the way it worked out."

As the small fire in the stove radiates a scented heat throughout Schultz's cabin, he would rather share the positives of the area.

"This is probably the last refuge in all of Canada, there's no place else to go," Schultz says as he lists off the problems facing other northern regions in Canada.

"Fish are still plentiful, the moose are still all over and it's the perfect place to be, as you can see outside," Schultz laughs and gestures out the window to prove his point.

With the rugged beauty of awe-inspiring lakes, rolling hills and seemingly never-ending miles of coniferous forests come long cold winters where -50 degrees Celsius is not uncommon.

"It's meant for people who enjoy the outdoors," Schultz cautions, "If you don't enjoy the outdoors you aren't ever going to love this place."

As waves push up against the rocks of the small island on which the three-room cabin rests, Schultz shares the secret of why people stay with Uranium City.

"Peace. Quiet. You come out to a place like this, and there is not a soul that will bother you."

Back at Schultz's home on Nuclear Avenue, an eerie near darkness cloaks the morning light in which snow now freely falls on the darkened trees and rocky hills.

"You're going to have a few spare days here," Schultz predicts, pointing out that no planes fly in or out in foggy or cloudy weather as the many hills surrounding the airport pose too great of a risk for pilots.

As Schultz sets aside the clean plate -- the branches of trees creak and sway in the frozen air, slowly closing in around Uranium City, as snowflakes can be heard falling.

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