The Matawa First Nation communities have been offered up to $9.6 million over three years to develop core capacity to participate in the Ring of Fire initiative.

“The funding was intended to support whatever specific community needs were identified,” said Christine Kaszycki, Ontario’s Ring of Fire coordinator. “There are a range of things that are available and the communities have the opportunity to submit a funding request and through that identify the approach that they would be taking as part of their proposal.”

The Ring of Fire has been a hotbed of mineral exploration activity in recent years, home to a potentially large deposit of chromite, a mineral used to make stainless steel. The area is located in the James Bay lowlands near the traditional territories of Webequie and Marten Falls.

The five remote fly-in communities of Eabametoong, Marten Falls, Neskantaga, Nibinamik and Webequie have been offered $1.5 million over three years, the three communities along Hwy. 11, Constance Lake, Ginoogaming and Long Lake #58, have been offered $450,000 over three years and Aroland has been offered $750,000 over three years.

“It’s a scaled approach in terms of the amount of funding available, reflecting the higher costs of travel in the remote communities and also reflecting the potential degree of impact of the (Ring of Fire mineral development) proposals that are on the table right now” Kaszycki said.

She said costs for technical support, negotiations and travel to meetings will be supported. In addition costs to foster meetings among the communities to build their own relationships and strategies, and to support internal community processes are among the needs that would be covered by the funding.

The support would come from provincial, federal and industry funds.

“We had heard from the communities that there was a need for community-based funding to support building internal capacity and that is what this is intended to do,” Kaszycki said.

Although there is no time frame for submitting proposals for the funding, some proposals have already been submitted.

“We have received a couple of submissions and I understand that other communities are continuing to develop their approaches,” Kaszycki said.

Ginoogaming Chief Celia Echum said the $150,000 every three years offered to her community is not enough.

“I have my own projects going so my submission will be a lot higher than $150,000,” Echum said. “And I’ve let (Kaszycki) know that already.”

Echum said her community has already laid mining claims south of the community where they believe there is a potential for gold. The claims are located on the Beardmore-Geraldton greenstone belt, a highly prospective high-grade gold district. An old gold mine is in the area.

“We did our staking and line cutting already,” Echum said. “We have a lot of young community members and they are the ones that are going out there actually doing the staking and making the blocks.”

Echum said the community began staking last summer to try to claim as much of their traditional area as possible.

“What I’m working on now is investors to come in,” Echum said. “I’m sending out our rock for testing.”

Echum said the community would likely begin searching for minerals near the old gold mine.