YELLOWKNIFE, June 26 — The heavy equipment is already moving on the gravel roads that thread through the Tlicho region, but by nightfall the work will have a new backer. The Government of Canada’s First and Last Mile Fund is directing money into a joint venture between Fortune Minerals and the Tlicho government, a deal that ties resource extraction directly to Indigenous economic development.
The money flows from a federal program designed to solve a problem familiar to anyone who has tried to move ore out of Canada’s remote north: the gap between a mine site and the nearest highway, rail line or port. That last stretch — or first, depending on which direction the trucks are heading — is often the most expensive and the hardest to finance.
Fortune Minerals, a Canadian mining company, has been working for years on the NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth project northwest of here. The Tlicho government, whose communities sit at the center of the proposed development, is a partner in the venture. The joint venture structure means the Tlicho are not simply a stakeholder collecting royalties; they are a co-owner of the infrastructure that will carry the concentrate out of the territory.
On the ground, residents describe the fund as a long-overdue recognition that northern roads are economic arteries. The First and Last Mile Fund is specifically aimed at projects that connect natural resource sites to existing transportation networks.
For the Tlicho, that could mean a road that serves both the mine and the communities — a road that moves ore one way and supplies, groceries and fuel the other. The scene in the region is one of cautious optimism. The Tlicho government has made clear that any development must meet their standards for environmental protection and community benefit.
The fund does not bypass those concerns; it requires them. The money is not a blank check — it is structured as reimbursable costs tied to specific infrastructure work. What happens next depends on the permitting timeline and on commodity prices.
Cobalt and bismuth are critical minerals for defense and electronics, and the United States has been eager to secure non-Chinese sources. The Trump administration has pushed for domestic and allied supply chains, and the NICO project sits squarely in that conversation.
By nightfall, the announcement will be old news. The work will not be.
