A picture is worth a thousand words.

• Date: 01 March 2020
• Author: Atkins, Michael

In Northern Ontario, historically, we have lived and died with big ideas. Who could dream bigger than our prospectors, who have discovered billions of dollars of gold and uranium and nickel and precious metals? What could be more dramatic than the fur trade, or hydropower, or making steel, or establishing huge international papermaking and lumber operations?

Northern Ontario has prospered on some big historical bets made by international capital that saw opportunity and money to be made with our resources. The gains in the last 30 years have been more incremental with big entrepreneurship, more defensive than offensive. Paper companies have closed or gone bankrupt and a few have been...