Seeding Change – From Mines to Miracles: Timmins’ Golden Transformation

The first instalment of the Seeding Change Series, this climate fiction piece set 30 years in the future explores what could happen when a heavily mined city blossoms into a model of environmental and social renewal.

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June 30, 2055 — I feel as though Timmins has gotten bigger in the past few years, although I know it’s the same geographical size it’s always been. Once home to 25 active gold mines, each with its own tailings pond, for a time it was considered the largest city in Canada. My current sense of its expansion, however, is more likely due to thirty years of ethical environmental and social practices implemented both within and without its city limits.

The shift began the moment we officially became part of the Transition Movement. We felt empowered, and started thinking of our city as an ecological ark.¹ Local farmers who’d already been using regenerative agricultural approaches for years, now became teachers and leaders within the farming community. Soon, all farms in the area stopped using pesticides and herbicides and began learning new ways to nourish the soil they’d been gifted by their lands.

Around the same period, our neighbourhoods began exploring how to ensure food security on a local level. With climate events happening more and more randomly throughout the world, our city leaders viewed this kind of collaboration as a necessary and proactive measure to ensure its citizens’ survival in these uncertain times.

Within 10 years, our yards became micro food forests filled with native plants and trees, as well as organic, perennial food crops . People began thinking of themselves as homesteaders, rather than homeowners. Main streets with laneways were converted into nut and fruit orchards. These common green spaces saved the city money and created communal areas where homemade goods and garden surpluses could be exchanged at weekly, outdoor markets, and where children could enjoy hours of unstructured play. For a lot of us, that meant a slower, quieter lifestyle.

Today, the surface soil and waterways within our city limits are safe havens for all forms of life. And, thanks to these key environmental and social changes, our population has become much healthier. Cancer rates have fallen. Levels of autoimmune diseases, once some of the highest in the country, have levelled off. Depression and anxiety rates are down to 12%. And the opioid crisis, once one of our biggest killers, is just a distant memory.

At 91, one of my greatest joys is taking the city’s Sun Train Tour once a week. The rails and train itself capture and store the sun’s energy through a particular technology that requires no special minerals to be mined from the ground, thus costing the planet, and our city, nothing to run.

The train begins its route on the outskirts of town which allows for views of the re-wilding efforts begun in 2033. That year, the Federal government returned the traditional Indigenous lands surrounding Timmins to the Mattagami, Flying Post, and Matachewan First Nations who had lived here long before the mining and deforestation industries displaced them.

Under their stewardship, the Boreal Forest and its biota has been restored in areas formerly occupied by the plantation forests of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. Thanks to their efforts and the natural resiliency of a forest that has had thousands of years to adapt to climate shifts, the occurrence of wildfires and wind storms has been reduced. Furthermore, our Black Bears and Timber Wolves once again have a healthy place to live, and no longer need to feed off the city’s garbage and domesticated pets to survive.

Who would have thought that honey would replace gold, and miners — previously condemned to a life of working underground — would now flourish financially, mentally, and physically aboveground, surrounded by family, sunshine, and clean air?

One of my favourite stops on the tour is the Gold Fields Apiary. A thriving social economy enterprise, it is situated on lands that sequester mine tailings just off of Carium Road. Unable to support tree growth due to the shallowness of the layer of soil sitting atop the tailings, these lands have nevertheless turned into a profitable green zone that supports millions and millions of healthy bees. The plantings here were established years before the city’s transition I described above. Meant to simply hold the soil in place to stop the toxic tailings from mixing with oxygen, they have since transformed into a thick carpet of tall grasses rich with wildflowers and berry bushes that help feed the bees, hold carbon, and keep the tailings stable. Who would have thought that honey would replace gold, and miners — previously condemned to a life of working underground — would now flourish financially, mentally, and physically aboveground, surrounded by family, sunshine, and clean air?

Interestingly, Timmins became a Bee City in 2020 as more of a hope than a certainty thanks to a small permaculture company situated here at the time called Northbound Bloom. It was only once the open pit mine at the centre of town closed due to new Ecocide Prevention Laws established by the federal government that everything changed. Now, at the heart of the city, a new kind of gold keeps us alive and we’ve finally grown into that title.

Another stop I love is at the former Hollinger Open Pit Mine site, situated a few kilometres from the honey fields. After its closure, the pit became a deep, clear lake and the earth of the lands surrounding it turned into rich, dark soil thanks to the city’s effective composting and grazing practices. That area now home to a vast food forest open to the public at all times.

When I was a few years younger, I used to get off the train and spend hours walking the gently curving, earth-scented paths. Now, I just sit and quietly breathe it all in. I call this place the Miracle Garden, because it brings me a deep sense of serenity and peace. When the mine closed, Timmins’ vision statement became: “Nourish the land, restore the water, and honour the bees.” I really feel that when I’m here.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m proud of the town where I grew up. Over the past thirty years, it’s become one of the most forward-thinking cities in the world. Its transformation has been a wonderful to witness, and I can’t imagine a better place to live out the rest of my days. I hope you can visit it one day.

1. Reference to Mary Reynolds‘ We Are The Ark movement that proposes we can stop climate change by giving at least half of our gardens or land back to nature so that our little patches of recovering soil can become oases of biodiversity. Go to www.wearetheark.org for more information. ↩︎

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Climate fiction stories in the Seeding Hope Series resemble Rob Hopkins’ How Things Turned Out OK, in which he imagines, as he says, “what life could look like if we were able to find a way . . . to be bold, brilliant and decisive, to act in proportion to the challenges we are facing and to aim for a future we actually feel good about.” To find out more, read my post Imagining a Better Tomorrow: Insights from Rob Hopkins.

Thanks for reading. ❤️

By the way, I do not use affiliate links in my posts.

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