VANCOUVER — An Indigenous mining leader reminisced Tuesday, January 21 at the AME Roundup about how he transformed the Tahltan First Nation from an impoverished community to a flourishing, affluent place to live in only two decades.
Jerry Asp, a 2020 inductee into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, has devoted his life and career for the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in the mining industry. One of his numerous legacies in Northwestern British Columbia is that his nation went from a 98% unemployment rate in the winter and 65% in the summer in 1983 to 5% and 0% by 2006.
Asp, chairperson and CEO of Global Indigenous Development Trust, said he adopted a nation-building approach to lift the Tahltan nation out of poverty. “Once we left the bush economy, we had to enter the wage economy,” Asp said. “We can’t forget where we came from.”
More than 50% of all mineral exploration and mine development in British Columbia takes place in Tahltan territory, according to the Indigenous Business and Investment Council. The Tahltan area is rich in natural resources, including gold, copper and silver.
Tahltan Nation Development Corporation (TNDC)
Asp’s first steps toward community building were to build 10 modern homes in Telegraph Creek, B.C. in 1985. To bid on the contract, Asp founded the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation (TNDC), one of the largest Indigenous-owned and operated heavy construction companies in Canada.
With Asp at the helm, the TNDC focused on construction opportunities in the mining industry, which created significant employment and economic opportunities for the Tahltan Nation. To date, the Tahltan Central Government has bought into more than $3 billion in construction projects over the past decade.
“I believe that we are the keeper of our lands,” Asp stated. “When I negotiate an agreement, the environment must be taken care of, and then we need to protect the land rights of the Tahltan people.”
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