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Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness
A valuable discovery under the world’s second-largest temperate wetland and in the traditional lands of the Cree and Ojibway casts light on the growing conflict among resource development, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous rights
When prospectors discovered a gigantic crescent of metal deposits under the James Bay Lowlands of northern Canada in 2007, the find touched off a mining rush, lured a major American company to spend fortunes in the remote swamp, and forced politicians to confront their legal duty to consult Indigenous Peoples about development on their traditional territories. But the multibillion dollar Ring of Fire was all but abandoned when stakeholders failed to reach consensus on how to develop the cache despite years of negotiations and hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. Now plans for an all-weather road to connect the region to the highway network are reigniting the fireworks.
In this colorful tale, Virginia Heffernan draws on her bush and newsroom experiences to illustrate the complexities of resource development at a time when Indigenous rights are becoming enshrined globally. Ultimately, Heffernan strikes a hopeful note: the Ring of Fire presents an opportunity for Canada to leave behind centuries of plunder and set the global standard for responsible development of minerals critical to the green energy revolution.
When prospectors discovered a gigantic crescent of metal deposits under the James Bay Lowlands of northern Canada in 2007, the find touched off a mining rush, lured a major American company to spend fortunes in the remote swamp, and forced politicians to confront their legal duty to consult Indigenous Peoples about development on their traditional territories. But the multibillion dollar Ring of Fire was all but abandoned when stakeholders failed to reach consensus on how to develop the cache despite years of negotiations and hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. Now plans for an all-weather road to connect the region to the highway network are reigniting the fireworks.
In this colorful tale, Virginia Heffernan draws on her bush and newsroom experiences to illustrate the complexities of resource development at a time when Indigenous rights are becoming enshrined globally. Ultimately, Heffernan strikes a hopeful note: the Ring of Fire presents an opportunity for Canada to leave behind centuries of plunder and set the global standard for responsible development of minerals critical to the green energy revolution.
- GenresNonfiction
280 pages, Paperback
First published March 14, 2023
8 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 7, 2023
Living near Buffalo, NY and Metro Detroit my idea of the Canadian province of Ontario is formed by Toronto and Windsor and the land between them. As a girl, I vacationed with a friend on the Georgian Bay, visited Niagara Falls from the Canadian side, and looked across the Straits of Mackinaw toward the Canadian shore opposite. My dad went to the Boundary Waters twice, bringing home stories and fish.
And yet, frankly, until recently I didn’t think about how Ontario stretched into the Far North or that the geography was part of the Canadian Shield. I didn’t know that the world’s largest wetlands covered much of the area. I didn’t realize that there was a diamond mine in Ontario! I have spent the bulk of my life next door to Ontario without knowing much about it.
Ring of Fire by Virginia Heffernan’s book hit many interest areas for me. I have been interested in geography since childhood; I am interested in learning more about Indigenous concerns; and I am interested in the environment and recently read a book about bogs, swamps and peatlands. And, I would learn more about the country that is an hour’s drive away.
Heffernan, a geoscientist and journalist, understood that Ontario is at a pivotal moment. The area called the Ring of Fire–and, yes, its named for the Johnny Cash song–was discovered to be rich in metals necessary to 21st c. industry: nickel, copper, platinum, chromium, gold, and zinc. The challenge is that the area is remote, with no roads or infrastructure. It is covered by peatlands that store a quarter of the world’s carbon. And, the Cree and Ojibway people who live there would find their environment negatively impacted by mining.
And guess where you find a quarter of the world’s peatlands? In Canada, most abundantly in the Hudson Bay and James Bay Lowlands. The 320,000-square-kilometre area is the second-largest temperate wetlands in the world. It is also one of the last undammed watersheds in North America.
from Ring of Fire by Virginia Heffernan
When you fly over it’s like Queen Anne’s lace; There’s more water than land.
quote from Kathlleen Wynne, former premier of Ontario, in Ring of Fire by Virginia Heffernan
Mining the metals would be a major economic boost to Ontario. For decades, people have been staking claims on the land, but were stymied on how to extract the wealth. The ‘ice roads’ currently used are dangerous and short lived. The work of trucking across the frozen lakes is so perilous, many truckers buckle under the stress their first trip. Legislation to build a road has been fraught with problems.
Couple the logistics of development with pressure for the government to include input from the people who actually live on the land, the Indigenous community, and concerns for the impact of development on this important and vulnerable ecosystem, the issue has not yet found a resolution.
Heffernan hopes that a “model of mining” that avoids long term environmental impact and empowers Indigenous ownership of resources while gaining the metals that will lead to a low-carbon economy. If successful, it could be a model for development across the globe.
I received an ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
And yet, frankly, until recently I didn’t think about how Ontario stretched into the Far North or that the geography was part of the Canadian Shield. I didn’t know that the world’s largest wetlands covered much of the area. I didn’t realize that there was a diamond mine in Ontario! I have spent the bulk of my life next door to Ontario without knowing much about it.
Ring of Fire by Virginia Heffernan’s book hit many interest areas for me. I have been interested in geography since childhood; I am interested in learning more about Indigenous concerns; and I am interested in the environment and recently read a book about bogs, swamps and peatlands. And, I would learn more about the country that is an hour’s drive away.
Heffernan, a geoscientist and journalist, understood that Ontario is at a pivotal moment. The area called the Ring of Fire–and, yes, its named for the Johnny Cash song–was discovered to be rich in metals necessary to 21st c. industry: nickel, copper, platinum, chromium, gold, and zinc. The challenge is that the area is remote, with no roads or infrastructure. It is covered by peatlands that store a quarter of the world’s carbon. And, the Cree and Ojibway people who live there would find their environment negatively impacted by mining.
And guess where you find a quarter of the world’s peatlands? In Canada, most abundantly in the Hudson Bay and James Bay Lowlands. The 320,000-square-kilometre area is the second-largest temperate wetlands in the world. It is also one of the last undammed watersheds in North America.
from Ring of Fire by Virginia Heffernan
When you fly over it’s like Queen Anne’s lace; There’s more water than land.
quote from Kathlleen Wynne, former premier of Ontario, in Ring of Fire by Virginia Heffernan
Mining the metals would be a major economic boost to Ontario. For decades, people have been staking claims on the land, but were stymied on how to extract the wealth. The ‘ice roads’ currently used are dangerous and short lived. The work of trucking across the frozen lakes is so perilous, many truckers buckle under the stress their first trip. Legislation to build a road has been fraught with problems.
Couple the logistics of development with pressure for the government to include input from the people who actually live on the land, the Indigenous community, and concerns for the impact of development on this important and vulnerable ecosystem, the issue has not yet found a resolution.
Heffernan hopes that a “model of mining” that avoids long term environmental impact and empowers Indigenous ownership of resources while gaining the metals that will lead to a low-carbon economy. If successful, it could be a model for development across the globe.
I received an ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
March 11, 2023
Just finished it and all I can say is - read it! I highly recommend it. I thought the subject might be a bit dry but turned out to be the opposite. It was so fascinating. I learned so much about northern Ontario. Ms Heffernan does an wonderful job explaining the issues surrounding mining in the ring of fire. Everyone from Ontario should read it. It was so eye opening. Her conclusion leaves one with such hope. Thank you Virginia for doing all the research and taking the time to write such a great book.
October 18, 2025
“[Mineral explorers] tend to be wilderness lovers, attracted to fieldwork precisely because of an appreciation for nature and the outdoors, not in spite of it. They know discovery has the potential to create wealth for surrounding communities but also to inflict environmental degradation. Weighing the silence, majesty, and wildlife of the bush against the potential impacts of mining is a difficult reckoning.”
So true! This is precisely the question I have wrestled with – mostly unsuccessfully, I admit – for much of my working life. At times it’s really felt like making a Faustain bargain.
It has unfortunately been my observation that as geologists work their way up the career ladder, what was initially apparently important to them gradually gets replaced by something else less admirable. In the end some of them cynically even try to use nature as a way to attract investors, for example, by featuring a photo of pristine wilderness or some wild – possibly endangered – animal on the main page of their company website.
A little over a decade ago I had a job that involved assessing various properties in south-eastern Turkey for their mineral potential. When the CEO of the company flew in for a visit I mentioned to him that I wasn’t getting the walking exercise I craved. There were simply so many roads that the outcrops I needed to check were rarely more than a couple of hundred metres from one. He replied, “I don’t see it your way at all. As far as I’m concerned – the more roads the better!”
Not only do roads facilitate exploitation – they also make control of its inhabitants (be they two- or four-legged) possible. The reason there were so many roads in that economically-depressed and sparsely-populated region of Turkey was so the military could patrol around in their armoured vehicles and keep the Kurdish resistance to a minimum.
Roads also bring the kiss of death to wilderness. A vast wilderness that ends up having a road constructed through it no longer qualifies as wilderness (in my books anyway) and hence (for me anyway) loses most of its appeal. The idea of wilderness is one of the things that makes life exciting, rich and meaningful. We are fools indeed for even considering replacing a planet full of natural beauty that was once – and could be again – teeming with diverse flora and fauna with an arid, lifeless place like Mars.
Men sitting in tall office buildings in urban environments where nature has been utterly vanquished like to proclaim: “The world needs more metals!” And these days – again cynically – they’re using climate change to advance their agenda: “We need them to make the Green Transition possible and save the planet!”
How badly do we actually need these metals? (Do we really need all these cars? If you live in a city, couldn’t you be walking or riding a bike and/or taking public transit instead?) Isn’t there some way to curb the lust for digging up the ground for more metals? I get the sense that recycling is unpopular because it’s unglamorous and it doesn’t have the potential for enormous profit that the current system provides the mining industry.
Canada, along with almost 200 other countries, has committed to protecting 30% of its lands by 2030. We have about four years left for that and are far behind schedule. Perhaps as a nation we should be keeping our word and putting these protections in place first – and then looking at how to exploit our natural resources (in as sustainable a manner as possible)?
Virginia Heffernan’s book should be required reading for bureaucrats involved in the development of policy relating to mining, the environment and Indigenous relations, as well as for mining industry executives. Well-researched and well-written, it poses questions that are vitally important for the 21st century. And I agree with her argument that the region’s Indigenous dwellers, who lived in harmony with their natural environment for thousands of years, must be primary stakeholders in any development that happens in the Ring of Fire – and in most other parts of northern Canada, for that matter.
Given the Ring of Fire’s excessive swampiness, the concluding verse – and question – of the poem ‘Inversnaid’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins seems particularly appropriate here:
“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”
So true! This is precisely the question I have wrestled with – mostly unsuccessfully, I admit – for much of my working life. At times it’s really felt like making a Faustain bargain.
It has unfortunately been my observation that as geologists work their way up the career ladder, what was initially apparently important to them gradually gets replaced by something else less admirable. In the end some of them cynically even try to use nature as a way to attract investors, for example, by featuring a photo of pristine wilderness or some wild – possibly endangered – animal on the main page of their company website.
A little over a decade ago I had a job that involved assessing various properties in south-eastern Turkey for their mineral potential. When the CEO of the company flew in for a visit I mentioned to him that I wasn’t getting the walking exercise I craved. There were simply so many roads that the outcrops I needed to check were rarely more than a couple of hundred metres from one. He replied, “I don’t see it your way at all. As far as I’m concerned – the more roads the better!”
Not only do roads facilitate exploitation – they also make control of its inhabitants (be they two- or four-legged) possible. The reason there were so many roads in that economically-depressed and sparsely-populated region of Turkey was so the military could patrol around in their armoured vehicles and keep the Kurdish resistance to a minimum.
Roads also bring the kiss of death to wilderness. A vast wilderness that ends up having a road constructed through it no longer qualifies as wilderness (in my books anyway) and hence (for me anyway) loses most of its appeal. The idea of wilderness is one of the things that makes life exciting, rich and meaningful. We are fools indeed for even considering replacing a planet full of natural beauty that was once – and could be again – teeming with diverse flora and fauna with an arid, lifeless place like Mars.
Men sitting in tall office buildings in urban environments where nature has been utterly vanquished like to proclaim: “The world needs more metals!” And these days – again cynically – they’re using climate change to advance their agenda: “We need them to make the Green Transition possible and save the planet!”
How badly do we actually need these metals? (Do we really need all these cars? If you live in a city, couldn’t you be walking or riding a bike and/or taking public transit instead?) Isn’t there some way to curb the lust for digging up the ground for more metals? I get the sense that recycling is unpopular because it’s unglamorous and it doesn’t have the potential for enormous profit that the current system provides the mining industry.
Canada, along with almost 200 other countries, has committed to protecting 30% of its lands by 2030. We have about four years left for that and are far behind schedule. Perhaps as a nation we should be keeping our word and putting these protections in place first – and then looking at how to exploit our natural resources (in as sustainable a manner as possible)?
Virginia Heffernan’s book should be required reading for bureaucrats involved in the development of policy relating to mining, the environment and Indigenous relations, as well as for mining industry executives. Well-researched and well-written, it poses questions that are vitally important for the 21st century. And I agree with her argument that the region’s Indigenous dwellers, who lived in harmony with their natural environment for thousands of years, must be primary stakeholders in any development that happens in the Ring of Fire – and in most other parts of northern Canada, for that matter.
Given the Ring of Fire’s excessive swampiness, the concluding verse – and question – of the poem ‘Inversnaid’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins seems particularly appropriate here:
“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”
July 23, 2023
Ring of Fire is a rich Canadian literary exploration of Ontario's 2007 Ring of Fire mineral discovery. Virginia Heffernan mines the complexity of this lowlands greenbelt of nickel, copper, platinum, chromium, gold and zinc, valued at tens of billions of dollars, with her refined tools of geological research and an authentic balanced perspective. The critical minerals below ground, essential for the 21st century green revolution, await the above ground resolution of conflicting interests between nine First Nations, the mining industry and the Ontario and federal political leaders. Heffernan skillfully places Indigenous partnerships and environmental approvals at the heart of the Ring of Fire's hopeful success. Heffernan's book is a significant contribution to an historic opportunity for Canada.
November 25, 2023
This book presents a cohesive narrative for readers to understand the various nuances of Canada and Ontario’s complex relationship with the natural ores and minerals, along with the people groups living on top of those natural resources. I found this quite useful to increase my knowledge of each narrative surrounding the various endeavours that pop up around our natural resources and what has historically been happening up to this point.
At the end of the book the author presents a utopic vision into what they hoped would happen with natural resource extraction. I’m not sure that it will happen given the current state of government, but it was intriguing to read.
At the end of the book the author presents a utopic vision into what they hoped would happen with natural resource extraction. I’m not sure that it will happen given the current state of government, but it was intriguing to read.
December 22, 2024
Very informative, well written and entertaining book. I do know something about the area and the issue and I found this book really filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. With her insider knowledge of the players and her geology background she adds a unique and helpful perspective. She paints a colourful picture of a lot of the characters involved while explaining the situation in a way that's easy to get your head around.
December 28, 2024
Interesting, well researched and informative. Everything you needed to know and more.
November 10, 2025
All Canadians, and particularly all Ontarians, should read this book! And such a hoppeful ending!!
May 13, 2023
This was a fantastic read, which was so very interesting. I really learnt so much from reading it. It was well written as it explains everything in great easy to understand way. I would even go as far as saying it exciting. Just the way the author writes actually brought out emotions, which is rare for me to experience in non-fiction books. It was extremely difficult to put down, so I had to stay up late to finish this book. I definitely recommend reading this book as if your interest lies in this area, you will certainly love this book.
Only the highest of praise goes out to the author and publishers for creating such an interesting book.
Only the highest of praise goes out to the author and publishers for creating such an interesting book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews