Town meetings were held on October 6-7 in the south central Saskatchewan communities of Coronach and Rockglen on the Poplar River Mine’s closure by 2029-2030. Big Beaver had their economic post-mine transition meeting on Monday, October 7 from 7-9 p.m. in the hamlet’s community hall. The meeting chaired by Jordan Tidey of Winnipeg’s MDB INSIGHT and Kristen Catherwood; Coronach’s Economic Transition Coordinator, contained a filled roundtable of citizens gathered in the hall. All of those in attendance in this region of ranches, grasslands and agriculture on the rolling lands near the border will be affected by the mine’s closure.
“The idea is to have a plan that can be put into place that doesn’t require outside funding,” Tidey said at the beginning of a slide presentation with graphs, business-related insights and other data related to the redirections the community might seek well before the transition period after the mine’s shut.
One definite strength the community possesses is the skilled workforce who’ve worked in the mine or as agricultural producers, but will they stay in Big Beaver? “The skilled workforce is choosing to leave,” Tidey said, knowing south central Saskatchewan’s skilled workers are going because of the mine’s impending shutdown. “That’s why do these consultations. You know the things we can’t find,” Tidey further explained as he addressed the community in hopes of helping them to uncover more ideas on economic growth.
Essentially, tonight’s meeting was meant to be a brainstorming session to find ways for the community to diversify. One path towards economic development which is often discussed in south central Saskatchewan is the possibility of increasing the region’s tourist industry. But as a community member pointed out, the tourist industry doesn’t often attract skilled employees. “We’ll have to have a workforce that doesn’t work for benefits,” she rationalized as increasing tourism to the area was discussed in brief.
According to data from MBD, Rockglen has explored the possibilities of expanding their tourist industry more than the other communities at this point, although the nearest hotels from Rockglen are in Coronach and Fife Lake. Like Rockglen, Big Beaver is beautifully-situated in the grasslands, but doesn’t have a hotel. The hamlet in the RM of Happy Valley is rustic and attractive with an historic general store still in operation. Thus, it’s not impossible to imagine Big Beaver as a future draw for tourists and perhaps campers or horse riders too, but the hamlet needs a hotel. Another community member also pointed out two more practical concerns with the tourism plan, as Big Beaver lacks adequate water and sewage facilities for larger, temporary populations during the summers. So, even if Big Beaver were to expand into tourism on an increased scale, the hamlet would require immediate capital to develop their utilities.
A community member of Big Beaver spoke on the prospects of the mine in Coronach staying open beyond the due date imposed by clean energy if a change of government was introduced after the federal election in 2019. But as Catherwood indicated, the community has to accept diversification for the future. “Even if the coal mine remained open, we would still need economic development to keep the community vibrant,” Catherwood replied.
“We definitely don’t have a silver bullet,” Tidey admitted earlier in the conversation. However, he and the community members at the meeting listed Big Beaver and region's untapped possibilities and there were several aside from tourism, such as transforming coal by-products into fertilizer, clean energy, extending the railway over the border and repurposing the mine’s industrial buildings for other uses, including greenhouses for organic farming. “We want to find the right fit across a number of categories,” the representative from MDB said on Monday night’s economic transition meeting in Big Beaver.
