Rouyn-Noranda, National Capital of Pollution

Written in Spring of 2023.

When you enter Rouyn-Noranda, the first thing you see is a large sign that reads Rouyn-Noranda, La Capitale Nationale du Cuivre. The national capital of copper. The sign itself is made of copper, but time has turned the prideful orange into a dull brown. The sign's oxidation almost comes as a metaphor for the town's smelter--once this shiny piece of human ingenuity now turned dark with uncovered secrets. You drive into the city and the copper metaphor is everywhere. The Promenades du Cuivre is now an empty, desolate mall. Then, there's the Glencore hockey arena with its facade of copper-coloured squares, named after the company that owns the smelter. When you look up, Horne Smelter's twin chimneys rupture the smoke-covered sky into the saddest triptych. In a few years, who knows what will become of the city. Everyone is moving out--my own family, who has been living there since its creation, has been scattering around the country, hoping to save three generations of contamination. You look at the tall firs framing the town, at the dozens of lakes dissipated around the land, and you know it will never look like it once did, beaming with nature. Now there's arsenic tweaking every root, moulding every wave. All because of one man's golden dreams.

Before copper, Rouyn-Noranda was the coniferous trees and mud around Lake Osisko. Like the rest of Northern Canada, it was a land of promises, with rumours of gold hidden under its earth. Edmund Horne was nothing special. He just got lucky. Originally from Nova Scotia, Horne spent his youth travelling around North America, working on various gold mines. In 1908, in a gold camp somewhere out West, Horne heard rumours of rare minerals being found in Northern Canada. He traveled to Ontario and entered Quebec by canoe, exploring the wild hinterland until he found something shiny to bring back home. The government had already confined all Indigenous nations in Abitibi-Temiscamingue to reserves scattered around the land, where many still live today. Even so, it is highly probable that, like many explorers before him, a local Anishinaabe man guided Horne into the wilderness. But there's no mention of any outside help in his biography--instead every text portrays him as a solitary hero, who built a town from nothing but intuitive courage and a dream. A man who had spent his life digging gold to make others rich, with sullied hands tired of doing the digging, craving to be the one collecting the loot. That was the usual motivation behind every prospector's dream. But out of hundreds scraping the earth around Lake Osisko, Horne found the gold first. Right place, right time.

My aunt used to live by Lake Osisko, with a direct view of the twin chimneys from her backyard. Lake Osisko's eastern coast greets a large forest, now a national park. Then, directly by the western coast, there's the smelter. If you look at the lake from above, the eastern side looks like any other lake in Quebec--deep blue, almost black. But separated by a path of land, the western side has water of an unnatural turquoise. Where the lake meets the coast, the water goes from copper brown to greenish blue, until it turns a shade of green so deep it fades into the forest nearby. My aunt bought the house in part because of the fishing opportunities. My mom, her older sister, advised her against it. "Are you sure," my mom told her, "you want to eat a fish that has only known polluted water?" But my aunt said there was nothing to worry about. The local government allowed all their citizens to eat a maximum of two Osisko fish per month. But never beyond that, or it could get dangerous. Before my aunt, before Horne, before the Hudson Bay traders, Algonquin peoples had been living on the land for seven thousand years. The name of the region itself comes from its two biggest nations, Abitibi (meaning, "where the water is divided") and Timiskaming (meaning, "where the lake is deep"). Osisko was clean, before the settlers arrived. Nobody had to restrict them to two fish a month.

Horne Mine closed in 1976. But the smelter remains, with its twin chimneys still pointing towards the sky. There's some good being done there. Old electronics from around the country find their grave in the smelter's furnace, where the metal is melted and sent to factories to be turned into something new. But their ghosts still haunt the city in the metal smoke that acidifies the air and water. In French, sulphur translates to soufre, the same word used for the verb "to suffer." My mom remembers walking up to her high school and smelling the sulphur in the air. "Like when you light a match and suddenly there's this sting in your nostrils," she told me. In 1985, a local theatre troupe protested outside the smelter against the ghostly yellow of unfiltered sulphur coming out of the twin chimneys. Back then, Rouyn-Noranda was Quebec's most polluted city. Wearing masks and black robes, the troupe marched the streets as they acted out a funeral for Lake Osisko, carrying a cardboard imitation of the copper sign that welcomes you into the city. But instead of introducing the city as the national capital of copper, the sign speaks on Rouyn-Noranda's true status: the national capital of pollution. The smelter started filtering the sulphur in 1986. But it was too late to take it out of my mother's lungs.

The truth about Abitibi-Temiscamingue is, very few non-natives want to settle there. In summer the air is thick with blackflies. In winter, the cold is suffocating. But golden dreams need dirty work, and dirty work needs people poor enough to risk their lives for a few bucks. That's when the fros come in. Fros--from the word foreigner--is the nickname given to the Eastern European immigrants who were sent to the Horne Smelter soon after its foundation. In the 1930s, 90% of the miners were from Europe, working 12 hours a day, six days a week. But on June 12, 1934, 300 out of the 1300 workers refused to be taken underground. The Fros Strike had begun. Their demands were simple: 8-hour workdays, a syndicate, better ventilation, and a salary of 66 cents an hour (or 13.84$ an hour today, a few cents below the minimum wage in Quebec). Yet, the company refused to comply. Instead, they brought scabs to beat up, imprison, and deport anyone who dared speak of worker rights. The strikers gave up after 10 days, and it took another 15 years for a syndicate to be brought to Horne Smelter. Richard Desjardins wrote a song about them, called Les Fros. Growing up, we would drive 12 hours twice a year to visit my mother's family in Rouyn-Noranda. For half the ride, my parents would go through all of Desjardins's albums. He grew up in Abitibi, just like my mom. Every song he sings has a bit of Abitibi in it. A splash of history, reverence to a coniferous tree, or simply a twist of language only used up North. In Les Fros, Desjardins sings, "Bend on your knees Commies and sing / A song for your kind Copper King. / Vive la company!"

My family weren't miners. My great-grandfather had a small homestead--he'd take care of the land in summer and leave his wife with their sixteen kids for lumberjack camp in winter. Like most of Abitibi's Francophone population, he had settled there in the 1930s, following the government's plan to colonize Northern Quebec during the Great Depression. Most of the settlers were factory workers who had lost their jobs and had no other option but to move up north. On both sides of my mother's family tree, her grandfathers were Franco-Americans from Massachusetts who had lost their factory jobs after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. First, they got recruited by the local priest, who told them tales of the Great North. Tall trees, fertile land, great game, and even better fish. I don't think they mentioned the -40C winters, or the clouds of blackflies. They'd send the husband up north first to build their homestead--they'd lumberjack by day and build the house by night. Then, when the house was finished, they'd send the wife and children. Nobody knew, then, that the land was a death sentence.

Today the air of Rouyn-Noranda is riddled with poison--30 times the amount of arsenic that is deemed safe. Then, you add nickel, lead, cadmium, and God knows what else to the mix. Arsenic poisoning is a slow, generational death. It starts in utero and settles into the core of your being until you die before you could do anything about it, turning your body into a buffet of diseases. Cancers, lung diseases, heart attacks, kidney failure... Too many died young in my family, too many disabled by their environment. My mom's young cousin who died in her sleep because her organs stopped working, an aunt with the left side of her face paralyzed from a brain tumour, my own mother who must survive on government's disability checks because her brain is atrophied. Every time I visit, she seems worse than she did the month before, and I must prepare for the day her brain doesn't let her pronounce my name.

Now, one question remains: what do you think matters most, human life or profit? Glencore, the multibillion-worth Swiss company that owns Horne Smelter, has a few different responses. One for their website ("Efforts continue to reach the provincial standard for arsenic emissions"), one for the journalists ("On ne souhaite pas commenter"), and a silent one that rests in their action (Like the snow contaminated by copper dust that's going to melt into Abitibi's lakes in May, or two accounts of yellow smoke coming out of the chimneys in the last five years, with no response. I'm guessing Gary Nagle, Glencore's CEO, would say something like, "Who cares if we're making people sick in Northern Canada, if we're ruining their land, their air, and their water. We have mines doing way worse in Africa."). Before Glencore bought the smelter in 2013, it was owned by another multibillion-worth Swiss company, XSatra. Now that the Quebec government is pressuring Glencore to close the smelter if they do not reduce their arsenic emission, the foundry might be put up for sale. But I'm sure another multibillion-worth Swiss company would be willing to buy it.

The story keeps unfolding as I type this. It could take another century for the story to reach its conclusion, with new information coming out every day. Some of my sources came out a few hours before typing this sentence, and more will come out after I add the final dot. Every day, journalists uncover a new reason to fear Horne Smelter. A few weeks ago, a big piece of the puzzle came out--200 homes will be forced to relocate so Glencore can create a "buffer zone," a gentler term that really means "quarantine zone," or "stay-away-from-this-part-of-the-city-because-the-air-will-slowly-kill-you zone." It's not because of Glencore's reports that they're closing the neighborhood of Notre-Dame, but because of locals who paid out-of-pocket to test the dust residue inside their house. Today, the city of Rouyn-Noranda announced that they're putting the relocation on pause as Glencore continues to negotiate with residents. Ten years ago, in the town of Malartic, 70 km east of Rouyn-Noranda, the Canadian Malartic mine relocated 200 homes in order to turn their operation into the biggest gold mine in Canada. But residents refused to comply, until the mine sent cops to take them out of their own homes by force. That's one of the many fears that has been hovering over the Notre-Dame neighborhood. Some of its residents have been living on its land for generations. But Glencore is willing to tear apart the history of hundreds of families, if it means averting a few lawsuits. It's a difficult situation to navigate, even as a bystander. It feels like, no matter the conclusion, nobody will get out of this situation with something to smile about. You either lose your house, the house of your parents and grandparents, or keep it as a coffin. Even for Glencore, or the city of Rouyn-Noranda, nothing good will come out of this buffer zone. Once we start quarantining sections of the city, where will it stop, before the entire city is condemned?

Who knows what will happen next--maybe the government will open an official investigation, maybe they'll close the smelter for good and force 650 workers out of employment, maybe it'll turn Rouyn-Noranda into a ghost town. After all, isn't Rouyn-Noranda already a doomed city? The air is not safe, hasn't been safe since Edmund Horne, and will never be safe again. The water is poisoned, and the earth contaminated. A town built by copper, killed by its own destiny. Miners built the city from forest to metropolis. Not Edmund Horne, not XSatra, not Glencore. Survivors of the working-class condition, who fought for a city that was never kind to them. And now, with everything coming out, we see their descendants taking over the fight. From the Trans-Canada Northern Route, back when my mother could still drive long distances, you can hear Desjardins singing from my parents' car, "J'entends la fonderie qui rushe / Pour ceux qui l'savent pas / On y brule la roche / Et des tonnes de bons gars." I hear the smelter struggle / For those who didn't notice / That's where we burn metal / And too many bodies.


Bibliography
"Arsenic." World Health Organization, 22 Dec. 2022, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/arsenic#:~:text=Long-term%20exposure%20to%20arsenic,increased%20deaths%20in%20young%20adults.
Belzile, Jean-Marc. "Plus De Cancers Du Poumon à Rouyn-Noranda : La Qualité De L’Air En Cause?" Radio-Canada, 24 May 2022. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1885025/cancer-arsenic-nickel-abitibi
Blais, Stéphane. « Fonderie Horne: la Ville souhaite suspendre le processus de rachat des maisons. » L’Actualité, 5 avril 2023. https://lactualite.com/actualites/fonderie-horne-la-ville-souhaite-suspendre-le-processus-de-rachat-des-maisons/
Campbell, Ian. "Histoire De Fros." À Babord: Revue Sociale Et Politique. No 80, été 2019. https://www.ababord.org/Histoire-de-Fros
Deschênes, Samuel. "Du Concentré de cuivre de la Fonderie Horne contamine la neige à Rouyn-Noranda." Noovo, 14 Mar. 2023. https://www.noovo.info/nouvelle/du-concentre-de-cuivre-de-la-fonderie-horne-contamine-la-neige-a-rouyn-noranda.html
"Edmund Horne." Canadian Mining: Hall of Fame, www.mininghalloffame.ca/edmund-horne.
"Environmental Issues." The Metal Casting, www.themetalcasting.com/enviornmental-issues.html#:~:text=Because%20of%20the%20nature%20of,and%20generation%20of%20waste%20pollutants.
"Histoire Des Autochtones En Abitibi-Témiscamingue : Deux Communautés, Une Nation." Radio-Canada, 16 Aug. 2016. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1010171/une-mine-une-ville-retour-sur-les-90-ans-dhistoire-de-la-fonderie-horne
"Il y a 80 Ans... La Grève Des « Fros » Débutait à Noranda." Radio-Canada, 13 Jun. 2014. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/671666/greve-fros-80-ans
Léveillé, Jean-Thomas. "Fonderie Horne De Rouyn-Noranda: Cocktail Toxique." La Presse, 3 Mar. 2023. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/environnement/2023-03-03/fonderie-horne-de-rouyn-noranda/cocktail-toxique.php
Luneau, Annie-Claude. "Des Citoyens De Rouyn-Noranda Font Analyser La PoussièRe De Leur Maison." Radio-Canada, 9 Feb. 2023. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1954996/fonderie-horne-contaminants-qualite-air
"Pêche Blanche sur le Lac Osisko." Tourisme Rouyn-Noranda, tourismerouyn-noranda.ca/repertoire/quoi-faire/peche-blanche-sur-le-lac-osisko/#:~:text=Les%20p%C3%AAcheurs%20trouveront%20principalement%20de,%C3%A0%20deux%20repas%20par%20mois.
Renaud, Gillaume, and Jean-Marc Belzile. "58 M$ Pour Une Zone Tampon à Rouyn-Noranda : Québec Assure Ne Pas Accommoder Glencore." Radio-Canada, 16 Mar. 2023. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1963861/autorisation-ministerielle-habitations-fonderie
Riopel, Marc. "Un Royaume Nordique : La Crise Et Les Plans De Colonisation En Abitibi Dans Les Années 1930." Encyclobec, 26 Apr. 2003, encyclobec.ca/region_projet.php?projetid=448.
"Settlement of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Region." Community Stories, www.communitystories.ca/v2/village-minier-roc-d-or_mining-village/story/colonisation-of-the-abitibi-temiscamingue-region/#:~:text=To%20fight%20the%20Great%20Depression,remain%20isolated%20and%20population%20scattered.
"«Une Mine, Une Ville» : Retour Sur Les 90 Ans D'histoire De La Fonderie Horne." Radio-Canada, 11 Jan. 2017. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1010171/une-mine-une-ville-retour-sur-les-90-ans-dhistoire-de-la-fonderie-horne
arren, Émilie. "Cancer from Arsenic Exposure in Rouyn-Noranda 'unacceptable' Risk: Quebec Public Health Director." CBC News, 6 Jul. 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/arsenic-emissions-increase-lung-cancer-rouyn-noranda-1.6512322

BACK TO WEBSITE