New Land Sharing Network Launched
On July 15, 2021, a gathering of farmers, ranchers and Indigenous land users at a farm in Bladworth, Sask. launched the new Treaty Land Sharing Network (TLSN). The new group has come together to share land as the original treaties intended, and to welcome Indigenous people to practice their way of life on farmland. Lands in the TSLN will allow access for gathering plants and medicines, hunting, holding ceremony, and other uses.
“Without access to land, we cannot exercise our Inherent rights and meet the needs of our communities,” says Bradley Desjarlais, a hunter and committee member of the Anishnabek Nation Treaty Authority. “The Treaty Land Sharing Network is not only opening access to privately held land, it is opening a possibility to build respectful and positive relationships based on the Treaty principles of mutual respect and mutual benefit.”
Mary Smillie hosted the event at her grain and livestock farm with her husband Ian McCreary. “This is a small but important step that we can take as farmers toward upholding our responsibilities as Treaty people,” says Smillie. “It’s something concrete that we can do to begin to build a more just future for the prairies.”
AGT Food and Ingredients Opens New Grain Facility near Saskatoon
On July 14, AGT Food opened its newest facility at Delisle, Sask. The $65 million project has the capacity to clean up to 1,000 tonnes of grain per hour. The facility will serve central Saskatchewan, handling durum, lentils, peas and other grains.
Drilling Completes at Purepoint Project
Purepoint Uranium Group Inc. announced on July 15, 2021 that the company completed drilling at its Umfreville uranium project and also introduced its four new projects at Tabbernor Block. Located at the eastern edge of the Athabasca basin, the Block contains four separate projects over 66,000 hectares near some of the area’s largest uranium deposits.
“The Tabbernor Block represents the early stages of our examination into north-south structural controls on uranium mineralization we have interpreted on the eastern side of the Athabasca Basin. The presence of the north-south trending Tabbernor fault system, coupled with the knowledge that high-grade deposits can be found outside the Basin, has led us to acquire this sizable land package.” said Scott Frostad, Purepoint’s VP Exploration. “Our first step has been an in-depth review and examination of all of the historic work performed in the area and reconciling it with our current knowledge base. The results of our data review will allow us to refine, plan and prioritize our initial field work.”
Helium Work Expands near Bengough
Royal Helium Ltd. has begun a survey over its Bengough project to refine and finalize the two wells anticipated to be drilled at the site. Helium (a non-renewable resource) has been identified as one of Canada’s critical minerals, used in medical, scientific and industrial technology – such as MRI machines. Canada has the fifth-largest helium reserves in the world.
“Based on the success of our first three helium wells, we are pleased to have both Axiom and RPS continue with the second drill program and fine tune our next well targets utilizing the knowledge and data gained from the first three wells at Climax. We are looking forward to getting our summer/fall drilling programs in southeastern Saskatchewan underway while at the same time working to get the first three wells in the Climax block in southwestern Saskatchewan into production. Southeastern Saskatchewan has some of the highest historic helium showings in the province,” said Andrew Davidson, President and CEO of Royal Helium.
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