Four kilometres south of the community of Geraldton at the intersection of Highways 11 and 584, construction is underway to breathe life back into a former gold mining property. It stands to be transformative for this largely rural municipality in northwestern Ontario, 275 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

Since a groundbreaking ceremony last October, Greenstone Gold Mines, a joint venture between Equinox Gold and Orion Mine Finance, has been clearing trees and blasting rock to dig an open-pit mine on the site of the historic Macleod-Cockshutt Mine.

For the last year, the property has been a flurry of activity with cranes, drills, excavators, skidders, bulldozers and 240-ton heavy haul trucks as some 650 workers are now on the property as preparations began to carve out the starter pit.