Mining industry loses a great leader

Across Northern Canada, the mining and transport industries mourn the death of John Zigarlick Jr. One of the North’s modern-day mining visionaries and builders, he died suddenly in Edmonton Dec. 17, of natural causes. He was 74.

It was his audacious decision in 1980 to build the Lupin Gold Mine by air that secured his place in mining history. As President of Echo Bay Mines, he bought a Boeing 727 and a Hercules freighter and airlifted 64 million pounds of material from Yellowknife. This and other developments vaulted Echo Bay into the spotlight as a mid-tier world gold miner.

Lupin was also the genesis of the 600 km Tibbitt to Contwoyto ice road, first built in 1982, that supplied the mine for the rest of its 18 year life. By the early 1990s, John had left Echo Bay and, in a joint venture with the Inuit of western Nunavut, started the Nuna Corporation which since 1997 has built and operated the road for the NWT’s diamond mines. John grew Nuna into a multi-layered construction, training and consulting services to mining and exploration companies across the arctic.

Born in Winnipeg, John was moulded by his father’s life as a miner and manager in small northern mining towns like Uranium City. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces and served 11 years, many of them as a military policeman, before getting a business diploma and going to work in 1968 with his father for Echo Bay Mines at the Port Radium silver deposit, later becoming EB’s senior executive officer.

For the hundreds who knew and worked with John over the years, his legacy will be his quiet but compelling leadership and disciplined way of inspiring people to do more than their best. He was Canada’s Mining Man of the Year in 1984, and the earned the Canadian Transportation Award of Achievement in 2005.

John was actively and fully engaged with his work as Chairman of the Nuna Group of Companies when he died. He is survived by three children, six grandchildren and five great children. A public celebration of his life will be held in early 2012.