Regarding the roads, Winsome intend to push through a snow road...

Regarding the roads, Winsome intend to push through a snow road south from Trans-Taiga Road - which runs east west on the northern boundary of the James Bay region - for this coming winter and then are in the process of planning to build an all weather gravel road to be up and usable by the end of next year (in time for the following winter). They estimate the all weather road will cost about A$20m but apparently are hoping for some financial support from the Cree or the Quebec government.

On that, the Cree leadership and the Quebec government have formed what is called the Grande Alliance which seems to be purposed with building transport infrastructure through the Cree lands. Here is some info on the projects that are in the pipeline, including an all weather extension of Route 167 north to meet up with the Trans-Taiga Rd. When that road is put through it will likely be only a k or so from Adina and it will allow Adina to send product south. The tentative timing of that work would have the new northerly stretch of Route 167 ready for use in about 2030 (which would neatly tie in with when Adina might be ready to move into production).

The private all weather road north that Winsome is to construct would likely be on or near the same path that the public road will eventually follow. But Winsome cannot wait for the public road to be put through during the development stage as they need to be able to move personnel and equipment from the Trans-Taiga Rd onto site. At the moment everything is being done with helicopters though they are about to put tracks on four of their rigs to make it possible to move them around the site without the use of helicopters. For the production stage at Adina they will definitely need the public road to be completed as the company intends to send their product south rather than going north, west and then south.

Regarding assay times, Winsome has also made efforts to shorten the unacceptable time taken. The assay lab they use has set up a mobile lab at Radisson, which is at the western end of the Trans-Taiga Rd and many hundreds of kilometres closer than their permanent labs way down south.

Both the issue of moving equipment around and getting fast turnaround on assaying are problems due directly to Adina's remoteness, rather than any incompetence from Winsome management imo.