Yukon court OKs rare Indigenous bid for mine ownership

There could be landmark new life in the abandoned Minto copper-gold mine in the Yukon.

The territory’s Supreme Court has approved a private bid by the Selkirk First Nation to buy the mine’s facilities and some of its equipment in a milestone ruling on the way to the what may one of the first Indigenous ownerships of a mine in Canada. Court-approved receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers has been overseeing the mine, on tradtional Selkirk territory, for more than a year.  

The cost of the acquisition hasn’t been reported. The First Nation and PwC didn’t immediately respond to phone or email requests for comment on Monday.

The court decision, first reported by the CBC on Sunday, approved the sale of the mine’s assets including the mill and water treatment building, and gave the go-ahead for a second transaction involving mineral claims, licences and permits.

If the sale goes through it “would be the first Indigenous owned mine as far as I know,” Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow and director of Natural Resources, Energy and Environment at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, declared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

‘Unprecedented’ ownership