Grays Bay was proposed as the site of a potential dock facility. In 2007 Wolfden Resources received a favourable review "for its copper/zinc mine proposal from the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB)."[3] The proposal included plans for a 53-kilometre all-weather road that would include a dock facility at Grays Bay on the Coronation Gulf, and will parallel the Kennartic River to the mine site at High Lake."[3]
Minerals and Metals Group's, MMG Minerals, a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Minmetals Resources Ltd., has also proposed a port "that could accommodate ships of up to 50,000 tonnes that would make 16 round trips a year — both east and west —through the Northwest Passage" and a "350-kilometre all-weather road with 70 bridges that would stretch from Izok Lake to Grays Bay."[4] The multibillion-dollar Izok Corridor project is projected to produce 180,000 tonnes of zinc and another 50,000 tonnes of copper a year.[4] In order to do this "Izok Lake would be drained, the water dammed and diverted to a nearby lake. Three smaller lakes at High Lake would also be drained. Grays Bay would be substantially filled in."[4]
In their August 2012 proposal which has since been revised, MMG Minerals described the planned facilities at the Grays Bay Port that would "include a dock, concentration storage shed, fuel storage facilities and a camp. These facilities will support storage of concentrate, loading of bulk-carrier ships, and re-supply of fuel and goods for the Project."[5] The Grays Bay port would be open three months of the year to "ship ore in two directions through both ends of the Northwest Passage."[6]
