The Taykwa Tagamou First Nation, based about 20 km southeast of Cochrane, is investing $20-million in Canada Nickel Company. Canada Nickel is developing the Crawford mining project, just northwest of Timmins.
Taykwa Tagamou deputy chief Derek Archibald says it’s the largest ever direct investment by a First Nation in a Canadian mining project.
He says Canada Nickel aligns with his Nation’s values concerning environmental stewardship and sustainability.
“The technology is pretty groundbreaking and it also supports the clean energy transition,” he explains. “The minerals that they’re mining is a critical mineral for the EV batteries.”
Taykwa Tagamou gets an 8.4% equity stake in Canada Nickel, and one of the seven seats on its board.
Taykwa Tagamou pitched the idea to the mining company, and it’s been an ongoing process since 2020.
“Things kept changing, but we finally had an agreement in principle about a year ago,” Archibald says. “And so we’ve just been kid of working at it, we’ve been doing our due diligence, just a lot of reviewing reports and sending out people in the field.”
