There’s no question that strong reading skills have a profound impact on career aspirations and quality of life as well as offering greater education, employment and training opportunities.

However, not everyone has easy access to reading materials, whether in the classroom or at home, and this is often especially true in remote northern communities.  That’s where Alain Charland, Planner Maintenance, at Meadowbank, and our Agnico Eagle community partners, saw an opportunity to step up and make a difference in Baker Lake.

As a member of our Meadowbank mine’s social club, Alain was already heavily involved in collecting, sorting and distributing a wide variety of donated clothing to the local Inuit community in Baker Lake.  But most recently when he was at home preparing the latest donations for shipping his mother stopped by and asked if they needed books too — as a participant in her Rotary Club’s annual book drive she had been left with a surplus of English books. Rotary Club is a social organization that works towards making the world a better place.

And it wasn’t just a few books – but rather an incredible selection! From children’s books and fiction novels to a whole National Geographic series, popular Life and Science magazines, and practical handbooks on medicine and mechanical theory! In total, there were two full pallets of valuable reading material weighing over 850 kilograms!

Seeing this as an amazing opportunity, Alain started thinking of ways to overcome the challenge in getting this much cargo transported to Nunavut in a cost-effective way.  To fly it north would cost over $8 per kilogram, whereas to ship it on a barge would be $0.50 per kilogram, so the obvious option was to try to ship the books by sea.

Alain started by talking to key partners at Agnico Eagle, including Luc Chouinard, General Manager – Meadowbank, to convince everyone it was a worthwhile exercise to devote space for the books on one of the barges conducting Agnico Eagle’s annual sealift which are usually fully-loaded with critical supplies for the work activities planned at the mine sites for the year ahead.

Although it may sound like a simple exercise, an incredible amount of tireless organizational effort was required to make it all happen, and the participants involved ranged from the Rotary Club who donated the books to the shipping company and a variety of other Agnico Eagle community partners. Close collaboration was also needed with Agnico Eagle’s Courtney Squires, Sr IIBA Coordinator, Community Relations, and Karen Yip, Baker Lake Community Liaison Coordinator.

Overall, the initiative took an entire year to coordinate and complete with the books first being shipped by the Rotary Club to Becancour – the town where Agnico Eagle’s sealift barges begin their journey North and then with special arrangements in place they were granted a space on the barge to Baker Lake.

In speaking with Karen Yip after the shipment had arrived she noted that the government buildings in small northern communities are often multipurpose, so the public library for all of Baker Lake in fact resides in the local high school.

“After travelling many miles by land and sea, the generous donation of books from the Sherbrooke Rotary Club arrived at the Jonah Amitnaaq Secondary School last October. This delivery was executed with the care, expertise and precision that I have come to know as characteristic of Agnico Eagle”, said Karen. She added, “Some of the books were also offered to the Rachel Arngnammaktiq Elementary School and made available to parents and younger children to take home from an open house held at the high school. There were books for all ages. And finally, this donation has also benefitted the new thrift store/food bank in town.  In all, the project has been very well received and has helped many people in the community!”

As Alain said himself “ The Inuit are big hearted people, getting to know them simply makes you want to share”, and we could not agree more. Our thanks and congratulations to Alain and to the many volunteers who helped provide Baker Lake with such a large supply of high-quality books and magazines.