Cariboo Gold Project: The Great Cariboo Shift.
Series One: Wells at a Turning Point
A record of how a major project entered a small valley and reshaped its future.
By Caroline AndersIntroduction
Wells is small and every shift leaves a trace. Even subtle changes travel through the community fast. Over the past few years, the tone of the valley tightened in ways that were hard to ignore. A large mining project, the Cariboo Gold Project, moved from early presentations into steps residents could see on the ground. Meetings sounded different. Pressures grew. Conversations about the future held more caution than confidence. None of this arrived in one moment. It was built layer by layer and settled into daily life.
Wells deserves growth that honours the people who live here, not a version of progress shaped by those who profit from the project. The work Osisko does has real effects and will shape the future of this town, and we should not be asked to overlook that. Wells has taken the short end of the stick more times than anyone likes to admit.
Wells was built on gold, but gold did not sustain it. People did. Tourism did. Nature did. The arts did. The town’s life came from the mix, not the mine alone. That balance is what kept Wells standing through the quiet years and the busy ones, and it is what deserves protection now. When tourism is eroded because real estate is bought up, grants become harder to access, and local land is leveraged or rezoned to match corporate needs, the damage builds fast. The town shifts from a place that could stand on its own to one that is pushed into asking for what it used to earn. We lose the structure that once generated a steady income and protected independence. People become cautious about speaking up. The balance that lets residents thrive alongside the mine disappears. Wells deserves better than that, and it deserves a path where tourism, local business, art, and industry can exist at the same time, not at each other’s expense.
We deserve buildings with local businesses in them. We deserve buildings made up of people who actually live here. We deserve housing that supports residents rather than empty units or rooms held for camp workers. Wells should not have to choose between industry and community, or between short-term projects and long-term stability.
The Cariboo Gold Project, operated by Osisko Development, fits into a broader pattern of resource development in British Columbia and rural communities. These projects never exist in isolation. They follow long corridors of corporate ownership, legacy leases, and shifting partnerships. When you look at other companies that have shaped mining towns across the province, you see the scale of influence they hold and the weight of their decisions. You also see how past actions frame current expectations.
Osisko Development’s own record sits within this landscape. Its subsidiary, Barkerville Gold Mines, received a significant administrative penalty in 2024 for repeated wastewater permit violations tied to long-term discharges into Lowhee Creek. The company later issued a public statement saying steps had been taken to address the issues, but the fine underscored how easily environmental impacts can accumulate when oversight falls behind. The Xat’sūll First Nation has also raised legal concerns about the Cariboo Gold Project’s footprint and decision-making, which shows how project relationships extend beyond geology and into trust, communication, and land rights.
Gold mine with a history of contaminating B.C. creek fined $276K
B.C. gold company fined $276,000 for environmental failures
First Nation threatens legal action over Osisko's Cariboo gold project.
What Osisko’s Track Record Shows, and Why the Cariboo Is Paying Attention
When you look at companies like Osisko, a clear pattern shows up. Big projects arrive with the promise of economic life, but they do not build lasting industry in the towns beside them. They build camps. They bus in workers. They push heavy traffic onto already dangerous roads like Highway 26. Real estate jumps. Tourism weakens. Local plans shift to match corporate timelines, and rezoning moves in ways that clear a path for permits long before anything breaks ground.
You see this pattern in every major Osisko project.
At Canadian Malartic in Quebec, the company pushed an open-pit mine inside an existing town. To make room, zoning changed and land was assembled lot by lot. People were moved. Homes were relocated. Streets were redesigned to match the mine’s footprint. Daily life took the hit. Noise, dust, blasting, and property swings became the new normal. Long-term strain on roads and local services followed. Osisko shaped the land first, then built the mine. The community carried the cost in real time.
At Windfall in the Urban-Barry region, the company secured huge land packages early. Hundreds of claims. Long corridors of access. This is how they work. Buy big. Hold big. Shape the region around the plan. Most impacts landed long before mining. Road building. Camp placement. Rising land values. Traffic. Regional rezoning is designed to align with future industrial use. Communities felt pressure years before any gold came out of the ground. The footprint expanded even when the mine was still a concept on paper.
At Quévillon, Osisko locked down more than 150,000 hectares around a small town. Zoning shifted in stages. Not once. Not twice. Step by step, the rules changed until the company held more influence over the land’s future than the town itself. Tourism strained. Small businesses tightened. Residential values swung. Uncertainty dragged on for decades. Each shift made permits easier. Each shift shaped the land more toward corporate needs and less toward community goals.
Across all three locations, the behaviour stays the same.
Move early.
Reshape the land before a mine exists.
Work through zoning, taxes, and permitting first.
Secure large-scale land control.
Build camps before meaningful local hiring.
Inflate real estate and put pressure on housing, highways, and tourism long before benefits reach the community.
When you place the Cariboo Gold Project inside this full picture, the reaction here stops looking emotional and starts looking informed. Residents are not “anti-development.” They are reading the signs. They are watching how the land changed hands. They are watching how zoning shifted to match future industrial use. They see camps planned long before stable local employment. They see Highway 26 growing busier, noisier, and more dangerous. They feel the inflation in housing and the tension in tourism. They understand how this story usually unfolds.
People want direct answers.
People want steady oversight.
People want planning that protects the town before anything moves forward.
This region knows what happens when a project sets its own pace.
It knows what it looks like when corporate needs outweigh local life.
And it knows the cost of getting blindsided.
The questions being asked here are not alarmist.
They are responsible.
They come from watching how this company works somewhere else, then seeing the same early signs appear in the Cariboo.
Residents have not been asking these questions in isolation. Local groups, community members, and people who have been tracking this project for years, including those working to protect Wells’ long-term stability, have raised clear and steady concerns. Their work forms part of the backbone of this record. My goal is not to duplicate their efforts or speak over them. I aim to document the system around the project, add structure where the process has felt scattered, and place local concerns within the larger pattern seen in other mining towns. This work stands alongside theirs, not apart from it.
I began this four-part series to understand how the project took shape and why the pressure in town felt so steady. I have been reviewing the public record carefully. Council minutes, staff reports, environmental filings, technical summaries, maps, and District communication form the base of this work. I paid attention to how information moved between the District, industry, and residents, and how key points were framed or left open to interpretation. The goal is to understand not only what happened, but how the process functioned and what it meant for daily life in Wells and how industry takes hold of rural communities systematically.
To fill in the gaps, I am submitting targeted Freedom of Information requests. These requests focus on timelines, correspondence, agreements, and decision paths that shaped the project’s entry. They are standard tools for understanding public decisions. They follow the same questions residents have been asking for years. As these documents arrive, they will guide later parts of this series and add detail to the picture of how the project was planned and introduced.
This work looks at the system around the project. How decisions are formed. How communication has moved. How responsibilities were managed. How does a project of this scale fit into a small town with limited capacity and a strong sense of identity? This is not an exposé. It is a structured record built from public material and lived experience, meant to give residents a clear, steady view of what has taken shape and to inform myself.
What this series covers:
Part One builds the foundation. It traces the early decisions, the planning history, and the conditions that shaped the current moment.
Part Two follows the project’s entry. It looks at the permits, the timelines, and the shift from planning language to physical activity in the valley.
Part Three looks at how daily life absorbed the pressure. Tourism, housing, local work, community spaces, and the arts scene all felt the impact in different ways.
Part Four looks ahead. It places Wells on the same curve that other resource towns have faced and outlines what long-term patterns usually look like. Importance of asking hard questions and what creating art resilience looks like, and entrepreneurial grit, even when it’s isolating and uncomfortable
The goal is clarity. A steady view of what has unfolded, what is emerging through new information, and what the documents suggest about the next steps.
Part One publishes this week.
Resources
• Individual and Social Effects of Changes Related to the Canadian Malartic Mine (by Quebec’s Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux) — examines how residents of Malartic, Quebec experienced impacts from the open-pit mine.
Individual and Social Effects of Changes Related to the Canadian Malartic Mine
• Breaking Cycles of Harm in Canada’s Mining Communities (by MiningWatch Canada) — discusses Osisko’s role in the Malartic project and its community effects.
Breaking Cycles of Harm in Canada’s Mining Communities
• Osisko’s own 2020 Sustainable Development Report — covers the projects at Windfall, Quévillon and Urban Barry, including community relations, procurement, local spending and First Nations involvement.
Osisko’s “Community Relations & Socio-Economic Development
• Osisko’s “Community Relations & Socio-Economic Development” page — outlines how they claim to engage with local communities, procure locally, train workers (especially First Nations) etc.
Project file for the Windfall Project (Québec)
• Project file for the Windfall Project (Québec) — includes detail about claims, location, mining camp size, environmental assessment steps.
The Wikipedia entry for Malartic –
• The Wikipedia entry for Malartic – gives background detail on how the town and mine interacted, including relocation of houses and large scale change.
