Attraction to mining lies in life-long learning for Anishinabek engineering graduate

By Laura E. Young

SUDBURY – If Chris Clouthier has a moment, he’ll pick up a book, or a magazine—anything to keep the learning going, to feed that fire.

Clouthier, a member of Mississauga #8 First Nation, recently graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Laurentian University after a journey of more than 12 years marked by life’s challenges and joys. He had previously set aside his first attempt at university.

Clouthier has been featured in a series featuring Indigenous Laurentian graduates, where they share their paths through post-secondary education during the University’s June Convocation celebrations.

Clouthier believes in learning something new every day, a mindset that attracted him to engineering in the first place.

“It’s problem-solving. It’s nobody has an answer, [so] how do you get an answer?” he says. “Life is the same. It’s just staying curious and learning more. Even now, it’s learn how to be a father, learn how to be a husband. Learn how to be good with the people around you and lead a good life. I think I’m just a busy mind. Some of this stuff helps satisfy me.”

A father of two based in Elliot Lake, Clouthier is currently a sales engineering for GPA Incorporated, travelling for work around Northern Ontario.

But Clouthier’s roundabout path to his mechanical engineering degree also took him to Ottawa and Sudbury, with stops in Elliot Lake, Wawa, and hospitals.

Back in 2010, he had started at the University of Ottawa but as his mother’s health declined, he ultimately left to help care for her. She passed in 2014.

He returned home to Elliot Lake with little in his pocket but the goal of finishing his post-secondary studies. Taking advantage of the proximity and cost of Sudbury’s Cambrian College of Applied Arts and Technology, he enrolled to complete an advanced diploma in mining engineering technology.

On a cold winter’s night in January 2019, he was returning from class when he was the passenger who took the brunt of a severe car accident in Sudbury where he would break his spine, pelvis, and right forearm.

With the support of Cambrian staff and students, he finished the course work for his advanced diploma from his bed at Health Sciences North to graduate on time in 2019.

These days, he reflects that he was lucky: that cold night slowed his blood flow enough. He is now over 90 per cent recovered and happy to be walking and living mostly like he did before the accident.

“I was lucky it happened when I was younger and motivated to do the recovery,” Clouthier said.

He believes he’s the first family member to go to college and earn a diploma.

“I worked to have that. Part of it is probably you’re not satisfied [with] yourself yet. But everyone’s satisfaction level is different,” he states. “That was a big moment. It afforded me things I wouldn’t have without it. I would never discredit that. It was a big step.”

He was cleared to work and went to a job in Wawa. Then, he was offered a mechanical designer’s role in Elliot Lake and returned home. In the Spring of 2021, he returned to his university studies, part-time at Laurentian, while working full-time and managing family life.

“You look back once in a while, okay, I’m still going forward,” he says with a light laugh. “You get stuck in survival [mode]. I’m spinning all the plates and I’m not dropping them, so I’ll get it done.”

During his time at Laurentian University, Clouthier also competed in two mining games; the first year on the design competition side, and in his final year, he tested himself with more responsibility as a co-captain. He also entered different events, including jackleg drilling and crisis management scenarios.

“I just wanted to diversify a bit. I was being able to pick the team, where do people fit, different roles both years, but good learning and application of your skills.”

His attraction to mining lies in its mystery, in that he believes most people don’t understand it. He’s always interested in learning how things work.

“Underground, how does it work? Tunnels, blast plans, how can we get the ore out of the waste? I got fascinated by how you can learn to be good at a specific skill set,” says Clouthier.

Mechanical engineering started with his interest in machines in general, not mining, even though his grandparents had worked in the mines. He was more in the automotive or heavy equipment end of things in the beginning, and on a general level.

“Mechanical is how everything moves. [I thought] it might be good to learn. Like anything, you’re 17 and you don’t know what you’re doing anyway. You take a shot, and it led to mining, then back to mechanical. They’re married now. You can appreciate both as you did both. It’s good.”

He plans to take a Master of Business Administration online, but he’s currently not sure if that will be the end of that academic learning road.

“I don’t know. I have an affinity for learning, whether it’s traditional academic or self-learning,” he says. “It helps keep you in a positive space rather than a negative.”