Billie Jo Barnes can vividly remember the moment when her interest in operating heavy equipment was sparked.

She was sitting at the dinner table with her husband, Nuialea Kipanik, a Mary River mine employee for several years, and he pushed his peas and carrots around his plate with his fork as he explained how he used the massive equipment to move rock and snow.

“From that, I was like, ‘I want to do that. I can do it better than you,’” she recalled, adding that Kipanik has risen to become a site services supervisor. “So all these years I’ve watched him excel in his job and be proud of him. I just wanted to be part of that world, I guess.”

After years of working in human services for various organizations – including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – Barnes enrolled in a six-week heavy equipment operators course, held in Morrisburg, Ont. Shortly after graduating in February 2018, she started work at Baffinland Iron Mines’ Mary River site, where she would climb into loaders and rock trucks.

Barnes, 40, is candid in acknowledging the challenges she’s faced from some of her male co-workers who have doubted her abilities. She said her approach has been to let her work speak for itself.

“As time goes on, it’s getting easier. People are starting to realize, hey, maybe she is my equal. It hasn’t been that easy for me here but I still keep coming back,” she said. “My dream is to be a loader operator, and probably the best loader operator in the world.”

She’s eager to get back to operating heavy equipment. Since November, her employer moved her to an Inuit employee engagement coordinator position.

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