Bending Lake mine named after Elder

The Bending Lake Iron Group’s mine has been named after Josephine Cone, grandmother of CEO Henry Wetelainen Jr. and an investor in the company.
“She and my grandfather basically spent their life prospecting out there,” Wetelainen said.
“And had me out there when I was very young prospecting with them.”
Both of Wetelainen’s grandparents were prospectors, but his grandfather passed away from silicosis of the lungs when he was 37.
Within a few months of his grandfather’s death, Cone went to work in the prospecting business to provide a living for her four children.
“My grandmother was probably the first Aboriginal women in Canada to do a mining deal,” Wetelainen said. “She was non-status and continued to provide a living for the whole family that way.”
Cone worked as a lead guide to mining parties, geologists and doctors during the summer, and during the winter she would be out on her snowshoes, trudging through the wilderness in –40 Celsius weather.
In 2010, at the age of 97, Cone could still recall the days when she worked in the mining camps, prospecting all day, setting up camps at night and keeping the fires going for baked beans and bannock.
Bending Lake’s current plans are to initially produce 4 million tonnes of iron ore pellets per year beginning in 2016, at a production cost of about $50 per tonne.
Future plans to produce merchant pig iron are in the works.
Cone’s life story was originally published by Wawatay News in 1983 and is available on the Bending Lake website.