A small Canadian mining company, Canagold, is seeking permits and approvals to renew gold mining operations at a remote site in northwestern British Columbia (B.C.). Called the New Polaris Mine, it faces opposition from First Nations, environmental nonprofits and downstream Alaskan communities.  

In 1957, the Tulsequah Chief Mine stopped production of gold, copper, lead and zinc after a short-lived six years of operations. Its legacy has since made it infamous: for the past seven decades, the Tulsequah Chief Mine has leaked a rust-red, mineral-laden runoff called acid mine drainage into the glacial waters of the Tulsequah River. Despite repeated calls from locals and environmentalists and government promises, the acid mine drainage has yet to be cleaned up. Amid this ongoing environmental contamination, the New Polaris Mine is entering the picture.  

Like the now-abandoned Tulsequah Chief Mine, the New Polaris Mine sits on the Tulsequah River, which then flows into the Taku River, crosses the Alaska border near Juneau, and eventually drains into the Pacific Ocean. The Taku watershed stretches over 18,000 square kilometers of undeveloped wilderness, an area roughly the size of New Jersey. It is home to all five species of Pacific salmon, which sustain the watershed’s rich ecosystem and have long formed a key part of the livelihood of the Taku River Tlingit peoples. 

Canagold first announced its plans to renew operations at New Polaris in March 2023. It has since created project descriptions and received approval to proceed with the environmental assessment process from the B.C. provincial government. Since January 2025, it has been preparing its application for a B.C. environmental assessment—a process that can take months or even years.  

Consultation with participating Indigenous nations is built into this assessment process. For the New Polaris Mine, this entails bi-weekly conferences and meetings with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation peoples. Because it is sited on their territory, the mine cannot operate without their free and prior consent. The Taku River Tlingit are “leading the way with mining company relationships. Consent agreements are beginning with our nation and our people,” remarked Jíník, a spokesperson for the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, in a March 2023 press release. 

But while Canagold and the Taku River Tlingit have been engaged in discussions, other communities, located further downstream and across an international border, have not had the same voice. Guy Archibald, the executive director of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which comprises 15 First Nations member tribes across the Taku River watershed, told GlacierHub: “We are glad they are working with [the Taku River Tlingit], but we are the only downstream communities and we are not being adequately consulted.” This commission is the latest in a long line of downstream Alaskans fighting for more recognition of transboundary mining pollution in Canada. While the U.S./Canada border has complicated Alaskan groups’ efforts to be heard, mining pollution does not respect these lines.  

In an era of species loss, the environmental threat posed by New Polaris is intensified by the potential growth of the Taku River salmon run in the coming decades. In one of climate change’s rare silver linings, as glaciers in Alaska and Canada melt, they provide new, valuable habitat for Pacific salmon. A 2021 study projected that in a moderate emissions scenario, over 3,700 miles of salmon habitat would be created by deglaciation by 2100. Jonathan Moore, an author on the study and aquatic ecologist at Simon Fraser University, told GlacierHub that the Tulsequah Glacier melt could see some of the biggest increases in salmon habitat. Now, New Polaris puts a major site for this expansion at risk.   

As Archibald said, “All mines of any size near salmon habitat are detrimental to the salmon.” But here especially, the history of the Tulsequah Chief Mine and other environmentally disastrous B.C. mines looms large. New Polaris is “in an area prone to acid rock drainage,” said Adrienne Berchtold, an ecologist and mining impacts researcher with salmon conservation nonprofit SkeenaWild, and its fickle, braided waterways make it difficult to monitor mine impacts like pollution and habitat destruction.  

To construct the mine, Canagold proposes 40 to 70 barge trips up the Taku each season. But these barging “plans are high risk, and an accident would damage some of the best wild salmon spawning habitat in the world,” said Breanna Walker, director of Salmon Beyond Borders in a December press release. Canagold also plans to build a mile-long landing strip in the nearby, pristine Flannigan Slough, the Taku watershed’s largest wetland.  

Beyond Canagold’s plans, environmental groups are also distrustful of B.C.’s environmental assessment protocol. Berchtold told GlacierHub, “B.C. likes to advertise its ‘world-class standards’ for environmental assessment and review.” But SkeenaWild has found “numerous gaps” in the province’s protocol for mining reviews. “It is very uncommon for projects to be rejected in the environmental assessment process; nearly all are eventually approved,” Berchtold added.  

New Polaris still faces hurdles. But opponents fear it will steamroll them. B.C. has streamlined mining permits and prioritized infrastructure development for critical minerals like copper and zinc, which are key for clean energy. In January, Canagold announced its decision to also mine antimony, a critical mineral used in batteries and semiconductors, at New Polaris. Though the economics are as yet undefined, Canagold is now positioning the project as a gold-antimony mine. New Polaris can ride the critical mineral wave, using this streamlining to its advantage. Many environmentalists see this as a guise to push the project through. “There are real risks to ‘fast-tracking’ and ‘cutting red tape’ in this era of Trump tariffs and pushing priority projects forward,” warned Nikki Skuce, director of the Northern Confluence Initiative and co-chair of the B.C. Mining Law Reform network, in an interview with GlacierHub.   

In its latest move, Canagold released a feasibility study, signaling its commitment toward beginning production. It indicated just how lucrative the New Polaris project could be, with an after-tax value of 312 million USD, at a projected base price of 2500 USD per gold ounce. For those close by, the eight-year project is also set to offer some 200 well-paying jobs. But this has not warmed people, especially those downstream, to the project. “This is a gold mine whose primary uses are vanity and greed,” asserted Archibald.  

“Too often, environmental assessments are based on a wait-and-see approach,” explained Berchtold. But environmentalists and downstream Alaskans have become impatient. Advocacy groups continue to call for mining reform, while the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Tribal Commission has filed a human rights claim against the B.C. government at the Inter-American Council of Human Rights for a separate transboundary mine. As Jennifer Angel-Amaya, a gold mining researcher and graduate student at the department of Earth and environmental sciences at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of Columbia Climate School, told GlacierHub: “Communities must be equipped with the tools, resources, and support necessary to protect their territory against bad practices, take a proactive role in safeguarding their land, and foster long-term resiliency.” Though New Polaris is only one mine, as glaciers recede and more mineral-rich land becomes available for mining corporations, the friction in B.C. between gold and salmon may only intensify—a local manifestation of the tension raised by extractive economies in the era of climate change.