Overcoming the Boy’s Club Mentality: Women Trailblazers in the Mining Industry

Considering that women weren’t even allowed underground at Canadian mines 40 years ago, the strides we’ve made into the industry — sometimes up to the C-suite — are to be celebrated.

BY ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE | PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CH2M HILL

When Barb Courte started working with her husband in the mining industry 18 years ago, his associates made clear this was no place for a woman — not the drill sites, not the office, not the mining conventions. This was a man’s world. Courte’s husband Garry ran a drilling company, and boring through the earth looking for minerals, because of the sheer physicality of the job, attracts tough, burly men — with attitudes to match.

Many didn’t want her around. “If I was talking to a man [at work], they’d spread the rumor I was having an affair,” she says. “I still to this day experience [problems] being a woman in this industry, but I’m such a smartass I turn it around with humour.” Several years ago she attended a mining convention and spotted a man who had been gossiping about her behind her back. She sat down next to him. “He turned his back on me. I said, ‘How many contracts do you have to bid on? He said ‘none.’ I said, ‘Well I’ve got 10, because I’m better looking.’ ”

Courte would need every ounce of humour and fortitude in the years to come. In 2007, while travelling with her husband and their three daughters from Montreal to Thunder Bay to re-start their lives, her husband had a massive heart attack and died in her arms. Shocked and devastated, Barb, whose youngest daughter just 10 years old, took over the business and is now the owner of Northstar Drilling and co-owner of Cobra Drilling in northwest Ontario. She has up to 20 clients a year, all mining companies that, for the most part, are based in Canada but can come from as far away as the Dominican Republic. Being an owner makes her highly unusual in an industry where just 16 percent of employees are women, but she says women bring something to this area of mining that men do not.

“Most drilling companies just go in and drill,” she says. They’re focused only on the task at hand: extracting resources efficiently and quickly and moving on to the next job. “But as a woman, when you see an area where there’s no work, you hire the locals, you give people goals. One guy came up to me and said ‘I was able to spend $700 on my kids — I’ve never been able to do that before.’ ” Courte says knowing she is improving people’s lives is one of the reasons she loves the business.

Mining needs more passionate advocates like Barb Courte. The industry is facing a labour shortage that, according to the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, will see 145,000 positions become available between now and 2023. In order to fill those jobs, the industry must look beyond its traditional employee base and reach out to new groups, including immigrants, members of the First Nations and women. When it comes to women in particular that will involve a deep cultural shift.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The number of women in the industry has remained stubbornly low for years, and now hovers at 16 percent. That’s up from 10 percent in 1996, but many agree the mining industry has a perception problem among women (it’s not all about picks and shovels). Of course there have also been genuine barriers to entry: for one thing, women weren’t even allowed underground in Canada until 1974.

Leanne Hall is human resources director for Noront, a junior mining company based in Toronto, with mining projects in northern Ontario. According to her, rotational schedules — weeks on the job at a remote location, followed by time off — are unfriendly to women with families. Then there’s what she calls “the command and control style of leadership” favoured by men, and which is unappealing to many women. And let’s not forget the simple fact that most young women don’t even think about the mining sector as a career option because no one talks about it — from family to high school guidance counselors, through post-secondary career training, mining is generally absent from the list of possibilities women are encouraged to pursue.

“If you’re not promoting the industry to younger generations in schools, you’re not going to bring out that talent pool,” says Hall. She points out that while many people picture dark, dank conditions when they think of mining, there are actually more than a hundred types of jobs in the industry, from underground miner to engineer to accountant.

Renata Smoke, 30, is a student geologist who spent the past summer working at Stillwater Canada, a Marathon, Ont., company that mines copper, platinum and palladium. She was obsessed with rocks growing up in Sioux Lookout, Ont., but never imagined she could be a geologist; there was no talk of geology at her high school. She began studying the subject at university in her mid-twenties; she’s now working on her master’s degree. She says working at mineral deposit sites, overseeing the drilling, and assessing the rock that’s drilled into,

“It’s a really positive environment for women. You really are judged off of your ability and your passion for your career choice as opposed to your gender.”

Previous generations of geologists were mostly male, but in Smoke’s experience as a summer employee, there have been almost as many women as men on the job sites. Smoke is a member of the First Nations and a keen advocate for something the mining industry is trying to promote — more First Nations members in mining.

“I think that is extremely important, not just for the First Nations, but for the benefit of mining,” Smoke says. “So much exploration takes place around these communities. A lot of times there are issues around who owns the land. If you had more First Nations people involved with mining, it would be really great for both parties.” It would be even better, she adds, if First Nations people could eventually progress to executive roles within the industry.

Vicki Amidlak, a member of the Inuit tribe, was working as a janitor at Xstrata Nickel’s Raglan Mine in northern Quebec earlier this year when she applied for a trainee miner position. Now, as part of her training, she transports minerals in a 25,000-ton truck from a blast site to a “hammer” 520 metres below ground. The hammer breaks the rocks apart (exposing the minerals trapped inside) and then moves them onto another piece of equipment that pulverizes the rock pieces even further. Amidlak, 29, was the first Inuit woman to go underground at the mine. “As soon as I visited the mine and looked at the people working, and I saw the scoop that picks up the rock, I really wanted to work there,” she says. “I’m the kind of girl who has a lot of energy. I’m an athlete, I can’t just sit around.” There’s little chance of that at the mine. Amidlak’s daily shift is 11 hours long. She does this for two weeks, then goes home for two weeks. As for the male-dominated atmosphere, it works for her. “I always fit in with guys,” she says.
 

GETTING ACCLIMATED TO THE CULTURE

Michael J. Welch, vice president of Raglan Mine, says he wants “the best person on the job, regardless of gender. However, women bring a good balance on a team. They have different approaches and behaviours and they bring plus-value to our organization.” One difference that’s been noted in the industry: women tend to be more careful drivers of the huge — and expensive — vehicles that lumber around mining sites and and are vital to the work.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is keen to encourage more women to think about mining. “When I was young, I had female role models in politics, but only up to a certain level. There was no one on the provincial or federal stage,” says Wynne. “Today, I want girls and women to see opportunities in every field, including mining. It’s so important that we increase women’s representation at every level of this important Ontario industry, from the front line to upper management.

“We need to work with mining companies, employers and educators, as well as Aboriginal communities, to make sure women get the training, opportunities and support they need to pursue this rewarding career. The mining sector is an important part of Ontario’s history and its future, and women need to play a bigger role.”

Leanne Hall of Noront says her company is spending a lot of time working with local communities at its project in the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario. Given that the project lies on First Nations lands, she says, “engagement and consultation is vital.” Over the next two years, Noront will fill 800 positions, and the vast majority of new hires will come from the area and be trained by the company.

“We have 22 Aboriginal communities that surround our project…they’ve never had access to training before, but they have lived off the land. These skills are transferable to mining. We’re building a local, productive workforce, and there will be a significant amount of women.”

In the past, mining has been no friend to the environment. Hall says that’s changing, with the government exercising a firm hand, and Noront intends to minimize its environmental impact. The company “consults with environmental NGOs on a regular basis” and is working with the Mining Association of Canada on its program, “Toward Sustainable Mining.”

FINDING A PLACE

Many mining industry workers, like Noront’s, are trained on the job. Lisa Goldie is a heavy equipment operator for Syncrude Canada, based near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta. A radio broadcaster originally, Goldie took on an admin job at Syncrude in the 1990s to help pay the bills, since her radio gig was confined to weekends. Then Syncrude began offering non-traditional roles to its female employees. Goldie had always loved to drive, and she watched the Caterpillars from her desk each day, so she was delighted when a manager asked if she wanted to do “a ride-along” in one.

“They put me on with another female driver, and back in the ’90s there weren’t many female drivers,” says Goldie. “I came off that truck exhilarated. I felt this natural high for many hours.”

Goldie (who describes her current role as “helping move dirt”) drives a Caterpillar truck that stands 51 feet high and spreads across 32 feet, and calls it a dream job. Much of that has to do with what it allows her to do with her non-working life.

She works three days of 12-hour shifts, then three nights, and then gets six days off. She earns a six-figure salary, “four times as much as I’d earn in radio,” but her job still allows her to broadcast part-time. She says there’s “zero tolerance for sexism” at the company, and that there’s “a sense of pride, respect, and job security” that she’s never had elsewhere. As for the downsides, she says “you may experience a little road rage by the end of the day” (though she has plenty of breaks during her shift), and the weather can bring challenges. “That’s one reason why you’re paid very well — to be safe,” she says. “You’re driving around millions of dollars of equipment.”

Unlike Goldie, who came to the industry by accident, Carol Plummer always knew she wanted to be in mining. Plummer, corporate director of mining for Agnico Eagle, comes from three generations of mining engineers — but all the previous ones were men. She’s certainly had to prove herself in her 25 years in mining, but then so have her male colleagues.

“I haven’t had really horrible experiences being a woman in the industry,” she says. “I am an anomaly, yes — I was the only female engineer at the mine when I started.” But that had its advantages. “That year [1988] they hired five engineers, and everybody knew my name within a month.” Plummer says there’s no reason more women shouldn’t work in mining, and certainly no physical barrier.

“We can’t legally ask our people to lift more than about 50 pounds, and if you think about a mother with a toddler and two bags of groceries, she’s already hauling more than 50 pounds.”

“Women tend to use their brains to think about how to do a job more efficiently, which makes them some of our best workers.”

She reiterates that even if you stick out at first, that doesn’t last long. “Once someone got to know me as a person, the concept of me being female always left the room,” she says. It may take a little adjustment on the part of the men, but adjust they do. In one of her jobs as a mine superintendent, a seismic shift occurred underground and Plummer and her co-workers were called to investigate. That day, the two other engineers who accompanied her just happened to be women.

“So we go underground, and the three of us meet with these two burly guys,” she says. The women then proceeded to check out the emergency and issue instructions to the men. The guys looked at each other for a second, she remembers, taking in the role reversal. Then they shrugged, laughed, and everyone got on with their jobs.