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Arn Keeling

@arnkeeling.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.4K following 1.1K posts

He/him. Settler. Geographer at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Historical+social aspects of mining in Northern 🇨🇦. Co-author, The Price of Gold: Mining, Pollution, and Resistance in Yellowknife www.mqup.ca/Books/T/The-Price-of-Go…

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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 9h
I spoke to @cbcradiocanada.bsky.social about the wind-down of independent monitoring boards for the #NWT diamond mines. #Mine closure is a process, not an event, and the Boards could provide important transparency & accountability. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
N.W.T. minister won't reconsider wind-down of Diavik oversight board | CBC News
The N.W.T.'s environment minister says he won't revisit his decision for the wind-down of the Diavik diamond mine oversight board, despite a request by the board’s leadership to reconsider.
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Tim Ford @timfordwrites.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Tla'amin First Nation has shared this letter they were copied on from Israel Powell's descendants, to Powell River Mayor and Council. The Nation and Powell River's muni gov are collaborating on a possible name change, and this letter is a great gesture of support.
September 28, 2026

To Powell River Mayor and Council:

We are the grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Helen Marjorie (Powell) Fisher. Helen Marjorie Fisher (HMF) was the granddaughter of Walker Powell, who was the brother of Israel Wood Powell. As you know, Israel Wood Powell was a doctor and leader, who was the first
superintendent of Indian Affairs in British Columbia. Although he had never lived or visited there, the river Powell River was named in Israel's honour, in recognition of his political influence and legacy.

Israel Wood Powell no longer has any direct descendants, and we are among his closest living relatives.

We understand that Tla’amin Nation has requested the town of Powell River change its name, out of respect for the harms done to their people by Israel Powell's policies, which included the creation of Residential Schools and banning of Indigenous cultural and spiritual practices. Specific to the region of the Tla’amin People, Powell's part in the delays of reserve allocation resulted in the loss of Tla’amin’s village site at tiskwat as it was granted to Robert Patterson Rithet.

We are supportive of changing the name of Powell River, given the above request by Tla’amin Nation, and also the lack of any historic family connection to the river and the surrounding lands.

Respectfully,

Elise Durante, great-granddaughter of Helen Marjorie Fisher

Marjorie Fisher, granddaughter of HMF

Brenda Buller Focht, granddaughter of HMF

Heather Fisher, great-granddaughter of HMF

Eric Focht, great-grandson of HMF

Meghan Buller, great-granddaughter of HMF

Leslie Campbell, great-grandson of HMF
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Price of Gold is officially on the shortlist for the 2026 J.W. Dafoe Foundation prize for the best book on Canada, Canadians, or Canada's place in the world. What a fun list of authors and books to be considered alongside! dafoefoundation.ca/news/
dafoefoundation.ca
News – J. W. Dafoe Foundation
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A bit of a techy take on the massive arsenic waste problem at Canada's Giant Mine. Could it become a "critical mineral" stockpile with a serving of gold dust on the side? #mining #NWT www.autonocion.com/us/261000-to...
autonocion.com
A 261,000-ton stockpile of arsenic dust kept frozen in chambers up to 250 feet down at the edge of Yellowknife has given researchers a sample they turned into arsenic metal more than 99 percent pure, ...
There's a decent chance the phone in your pocket has a little arsenic in it. Gallium arsenide handles radio duties in plenty of electronics, arsenic turns up
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Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I hope the (very) senior leadership at most Canadian universities is sharing @alexusherhesa.bsky.social's piece on what's going on at Concordia. higheredstrategy.com/concordias-q...
higheredstrategy.com
Concordia’s Quiet Revolution | HESA
Okay, so Canadian higher education is pretty cautious and risk-averse, and so perhaps the bar for calling something a ‘revolution” is pretty low. But everyone needs to take a look at what has been goi...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Oh, no. This is a big loss to the Canadian history community—and to Cuban-Canadian relations. She documented her many years building educational and cultural relations with Cuba in her recent book, Strangely Friends. She generously took time to indulge my Cuban mining questions years back…
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Mine remediation, meet economic reconciliation. With cleanup projects creating economic opportunities , it’s important that local First Nations are first in line to benefit. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
First Nation opens work camp at Faro mine cleanup project in Yukon | CBC News
The hundreds of workers tasked with one of the most complicated industrial cleanup jobs in the country now have a place to bed down.
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
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Jordan Carlson @jordantcarlson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Okay, I have a few minutes, so unpacking this a bit more for the timeline: During my PhD, I worked with the Nunatsiavut Government - the Inuit of northern Labrador - to ask: could their southernmost community, Rigolet, use tidal energy (or other renewables) to reduce their reliance on diesel?
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It’s the end of the (ice) road for diamond mining in the NWT—and “another kick in the head to the Indigenous corporations." www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
N.W.T.’s ice road to 3 diamond mines unlikely to open for 2027 season | CBC News
The end of commercial production is cited by two major diamond mines as the reason for not opening the road for the 2027 season. Service is expected to return in 2028 to support clean up efforts.
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
American Gulag.
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Toronto Star @thestar.com · 14/09/2026
The guest list features asset managers, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms. Together, the investors gathering Sept. 15 manage over $100 trillion in assets. As Carney says, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. This time, Canada is both host and entrée.
thestar.com
Canada taking control of its future, Mark Carney tells new investment gathering
The prime minister hinted Sunday in Toronto that deals are about to be announced as his inaugural Investment Summit gets underway.
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Now that we’ve all dumped our Yanqui bourbon down the sink, we need to fight off tariffs by buying good Canadian rye whiskey. It’s only patriotic! (BTW separatists, offer only applies to provinces that remain in 🇨🇦. Otherwise, no Forty Creek either.
static.klipy.com
Trailer Park Boys: Ricky Grabs Through Window
ALT: Trailer Park Boys: Ricky Grabs Through Window
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This thread will be a welcome one for Newfoundlanders! We has a bog or two round these parts…
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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
In news that will surprise absolutely no one in HE... ‘It notes that institutions “routinely” hire consultancies for these restructures as well as change management specialists, however, these processes often introduce additional management layers, “adding cost rather than removing it”…’
timeshighereducation.com
Restructuring ‘too often adding cost rather than removing it’
Universities are ‘underestimating’ the challenges caused by outsourcing services amid major professional services staff redundancies, report warns
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
(NBC News) — It is now the least rewarding time to be a worker in the U.S. economy since the government started keeping track. @nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Labour Day NL history: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
The story of Canada’s 'only union-built town' | CBC News
Founded on Newfoundland's Bonavista Peninsula more than a century ago, Port Union is called Canada’s only union-built town. It was the brainchild of union organizer William F. Coaker, who wanted to he...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Echoes of debates in Northern Canada. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
theguardian.com
Reindeer and rare-earth minerals: Swedish politicians take aim at Indigenous Sami in mining dispute
Gabna community fear their traditional herding routes will be sacrificed as far-right rhetoric ramps up against them
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Daniella M. @farsouthhistory.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Check out @arnkeeling.bsky.social's review of Fred Quivik's "Smoke and Tailings: An Environmental History of Butte and Anaconda, Montana, 1880-1930," published in 2025 by @unvpress.bsky.social; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #extraction www.h-net.org/reviews/show...
h-net.org
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Eli's Native Plants @elisnativeplants.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The Peace of Wild Things By Wendell Berry I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
courier-journal.com
Wendell Berry, influential Kentucky writer and activist, has died
Wendell Berry, a Kentucky native and man of letters and the land, who helped inspire the new American food movement, has died. He was 92.
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All Our Yesterdays @allouryesterdays.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Vol. 2, no. 6 of the CO2 Newsletter, Sept-Oct 1981 is now downloadable. Founded by American geologist William Barbat, each was 8 pages of excerpts from recent reports, editorials and deeply researched articles. All 18 issues are heart-breakers. allouryesterdays.info/co2-newslett... 1/9
CO2 Newsletter vol. 2 no 6  page 1

"Southern Hemisphere Puzzles: will warmer be wetter? will warmth grow ice?
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John Harris @drjohnaeharris.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
@willdalrymple.bsky.social brings a historian’s perspective to the problem of monster corporations - and how to tame them. Brilliant essay.
nytimes.com
Opinion | What It Took to Dismantle the Most Powerful Company in the World (Gift Article)
A playbook to curb the growing power of Big Tech.
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Daniella M. @farsouthhistory.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Check out Sarah Perry's review of John Sandlos & Arn Keeling's "The Price of Gold: Mining, Pollution, and Resistance in Yellowknife," published in 2025 by @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #mining #extraction www.h-net.org/reviews/show...
h-net.org
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Climate change is coming for all our beloved places. I remember on a hiking trip to Mt Robson falling asleep to the sound of the glacier calving into Berg Lake. Now the glacier doesn’t reach the lake. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
'Visual symbol of climate change': Mount Robson's Berg Glacier no longer reaches lake | CBC News
One of the most picturesque sights in British Columbia is changing — as Mount Robson's Berg Glacier has retreated so far back that it no longer touches the water of Berg Lake.
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kate bush’s husband @airbagged.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
RIP TO ONE OF THE GREATEST TO EVER DO IT
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Beef and circuses in ‘merica
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Stewart Prest @stewartprest.ca · 15/08/2026
These are issues of sovereignty, and shouldn't be negotiable if we wish to continue to claim to be so.
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James Kneale @jameskneale.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I've just heard that the BA/BSc Geography programme is to close at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Geography and Environmental Science (CGES) in Cornwall. This programme was made up of excellent modules with original and content, taught brilliantly—often with real innovation—by extremely 1/9
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
“In the 1990s + 2000s, gov’ts, uni’s, + libraries—the institutions that historically bore responsibility for organizing + preserving public knwldg—declined to, or were prevented from, bldg the digital infrastructure plainly required by an age when democracy seemed ascendant + universally desirable”
bostonreview.net
What Was the Internet?
As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
During mine closure and reclamation is the worst time to roll back independent oversight… yet here we are. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Environmental group decries planned shutdown of N.W.T. diamond mine oversight boards | CBC News
Alternatives North says the decisions to shut down the oversight boards for the Diavik and Snap Lake mines were made without adequate public input, contravening the N.W.T.'s own policy on open governm...
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Vaccine benefit in children "Since 1974, vaccination has averted 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children younger than 5 years of whom 101 million were infants younger than 1 year." www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... The most striking benefit was for vaccination vs measles (Figure)
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Controversy strikes whimsical online event! I agree there’s a category error here, even as an avowed Mr PG supporter
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
static.klipy.com
Neil Patrick Harris Spit Take Reaction
ALT: Neil Patrick Harris Spit Take Reaction
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
“Washington is looking at the Imperial Valley and saying that’s just a desert, that’s just wasteland.” A classic example of what @tracibrynne.bsky.social calls Wastelanding: rendering places extractable & pollutable by defining them as waste places.
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Max Fawcett @maxfawcett.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
This is genuinely astonishing: a piece by the Globe and Mail’s editorial board lamenting the “new normal” of wildfires and summer smoke and no mention whatsoever of a) climate change, or b) the burning of fossil fuels that causes it. #cdnpoli www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/edit...
theglobeandmail.com
Globe editorial: A summer season of fire, smoke, ashes and fear
The carefree feeling of summers past has been incinerated as wildfires rage across the country
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The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 05/08/2026
Carney vows to fast-track West Coast Pipeline before entire West Coast burns to the ground
thebeaverton.com
Carney vows to fast-track West Coast Pipeline before entire West Coast burns to the ground
OTTAWA - Mark Carney has officially given notice that his government will be designating Danielle Smith’s West Coast pipeline a project of national interest, allowing the massive oil and gas project t...
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Ryan Van Velzer @ryanvanvelzer.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Kentucky Public Radio and NPR obtained a draft of the NIOSH letter before publication. Researchers found that working veteran underground coal miners in central Appalachia are suffering from the incurable and fatal lung disease at the highest rates in nearly 50 years. www.lpm.org/2026-08-05/a...
lpm.org
Appalachia's black lung rates highest in nearly 50 years as miners' protections stall
Rates are now as bad as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sick and dying. Mining experts blame toxic silica dust, now more common in mines.
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Paul N. Edwards @avastmachine.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
« Hansen’s team found PFOS in Swedish blood samples from 1957 and 1971. After that, her lab analyzed blood that had been collected before 3M created PFOS. It tested negative. Apparently, fluorochemicals had … leached out of 3M’s sprays, coatings and factories — and into all of us.
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The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv) @theserfstv.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Mark Carney has: -scrapped consumer carbon tax -scrapped oil/gas emissions cap -cut $1.3B from environment Canada -weakened industrial carbon pricing -axed 2 billion trees program -approved 1M barrels/day pipeline -weakened greenwashing laws While this is happening:
Five straight years warmer than anything observed before 2023 (Current record +1.53 degrees warming) en route to 2 degrees by 2030
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Great piece by Ashley Fitzpatrick on the zombie debate over the Quebec - Labrador border. A colonial line which, of course, traverses Innu, Naskapi, and Inuit territories. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Quebec-Labrador border is becoming political fodder | CBC News
The Quebec-Labrador boundary line is a subject woven through the modern histories of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. It's an entirely settled dispute — the answer written into the Canadian const...
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Canadian Dimension @canadiandimension.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Mark Carney promised "elbows-up" nation-building. What Canadians are getting instead is a carve-out economy—where environmental protections, Indigenous rights, and labour standards are treated as obstacles to growth, write @shirip.bsky.social and Eve Saint.
canadiandimension.com
The new rules of Carney’s carve-out economy
It has been one year since Mark Carney introduced the Building Canada Act in Parliament. Since then, a succession of new laws has hollowed out legal protections for the environment, Indigenous rights,...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
It’s almost 18 mos since I cancelled planned conference travel & began my USA travel boycott (aka pre-self-deportation). Don’t miss America a lick—tbh I mainly feel grateful my folks left there many years ago and made me 🇨🇦 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
theguardian.com
Canadians spent $3.3bn less on travel to US in 2025 after Trump’s return to office
Data shows Canadians have replaced US vacations with other international trips in apparent rebuke to Trump
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Sonja Boon @storiedselves.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Canadian arts and culture folks: the federal government has launched a (methodologically flawed) survey on "the Cultural Sector's readiness for Artificial Intelligence". If you're ready to resist or refuse genAI, here's your chance to let them know. pch.research-recherche.ca/f/s.aspx?lan...
pch.research-recherche.ca
National Survey on the Cultural Sector’s Readiness for Artificial Intelligence
Powered by SimpleSurvey.com | Build and manage your own online survey, voting, form and panel management applications.
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Hey America: come and get your boy. He’s a POS and we don’t want him here.
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Are the US in the final? Why their national anthem?
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Canadian Dimension @canadiandimension.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Canada can’t claim climate leadership while fast-tracking mines and pipelines, weakening environmental reviews, and sidelining Indigenous consent. A just transition cannot be imposed from above. It must be built with Indigenous nations, not over them, write Tyler McCreary and Warren Bernauer.
canadiandimension.com
Canada’s new resource deals drive a climate and rights backslide
Indigenous nations have clearly expressed concern over the government’s orientation to prioritize resource extraction over their rights, lands, and environmental well-being. By preemptively committing...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Meanwhile, another sign of the collapse of the diamond sector in the #NWT. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Gahcho Kué mine co-owner delisting from TSX signals financial distress, expert says | CBC News
Mountain Province Diamonds, the company that co-owns the Gahcho Kué diamond mine in the N.W.T, plans to voluntarily delist its shares from the Toronto Stock Exchange this week. One expert says that si...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Here we go again: Ekati mine enters receivership without a final costed closure plan and uncertainty around whether there is enough money for reclamation (their likely isn’t). How is this still happening in the 21st century? www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Uncertainty looms over jobs, clean-up costs as N.W.T.'s Ekati mine nears closure | CBC News
Ekati Diamond Mine had been slated to close in 2029 but is now in receivership after its parent company could not secure a buyer for the site. Receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers, along with experts, are ...
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Arn Keeling @arnkeeling.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Saw this coming a ways off. Took a good bit of govt money on the way out.
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Cabin Radio @cabinradio.ca · 15/07/2026
The era of diamonds as the North's economic heartbeat is over.  #northwestterritories #diamonds #mining #canada #ekati
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