![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770056649_884_default.jpg\")
Edward Clermont, top left, said he is in the best shape of his life. He said he had no trouble keeping pace with the younger members of his class at the NORCAT Underground Centre. (Submitted by Edward Clermont)<\/p>\nMaking a major career change can be difficult at any age, but trying to get into a physically demanding industry at 54 years old requires courage \u2014 and a touch of creativity doesn’t hurt.<\/p>\n
Thanks to both, Edward Clermont is about to start his dream career as an underground miner. And it wasn’t with an attention-grabbing resume: he put up a billboard on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway in Sudbury, Ont.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always kind of challenged myself with different things in life,\u201d said Clermont, who described underground mining as \u201cthe ultimate challenge.\u201d Clairmont said his philosophy on life is simple: \u201cJust keep moving forward, keep learning, and keep doing things that I\u2019m told I\u2019m too old to do. Prove them wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clermont, who currently lives in Kingston, Ont., has taken a somewhat unusual career path. He worked on oil rigs in Alberta, spent many years in construction, and is now preparing to go underground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only tougher job I could think of is working a crab boat out of Alaska. So, I\u2019ll take the second-hardest job I could find, and we\u2019ll see how that works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Loved\u2019 underground training courses<\/p>\n
Clermont enrolled in the Underground Hard Rock Miner Common Core program at NORCAT in Sudbury. NORCAT offers labour training and an innovation space for developing new mining technologies. It includes a working mine environment to help students prepare for their future careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite the experience, and it really changed me,\u201d said Clermont, describing the thrill he felt when using a jackleg drill at the NORCAT Underground Centre.<\/p>\n
But using that training to get into the workforce can be a different challenge altogether.<\/p>\n
Edward Clermont, top left, said he is in the best shape of his life. He said he had no trouble keeping pace with the younger members of his class at the NORCAT Underground Centre. (Submitted by Edward Clermont)<\/p>\n
\u201cMining is very much a word-of-mouth industry,\u201d said Clermont. Several people at the school encouraged him to find a creative way to approach his job search.<\/p>\n
One of those people was Greg Major, the director of the NORCAT Underground Centre.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents have got \u2026 all kinds of great ideas. But having a sign on the highway that says \u2018I\u2019m ready for work, I\u2019ve received my training,\u2019 that\u2019s pretty amazing,\u201d said Major, who noted that this is the first time a student has tried such a unique job-search technique.<\/p>\n
The mining workforce in Canada is facing growing staffing shortages, putting workers like Clermont in fairly high demand.<\/p>\n
According to the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, in 2023, 18 per cent of mining workers \u2014 about one in five \u2014 were 55 years old or older. The share of workers under the age of 25 has also been on a downward trend for the past decade, making up about five per cent of the workforce in that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply put, we are not training enough students in the programs we need,\u201d the council wrote about the trends. \u201cDemand for skilled workers is growing, but many mining-centric programs have declining enrolments.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, said Major, mines also have to make sure they\u2019re bringing in the best possible workers to keep their operations running smoothly. That\u2019s why he advocates for job-seekers to take an active approach to make themselves stand out for the roles they want.<\/p>\n
Clermont lands ‘dream job’<\/p>\n
Near the end of his NORCAT training, Clermont\u2019s billboard went up on Highway 17 in Greater Sudbury. Soon after, he took on a job with an open-pit gold mine northeast of Cochrane, Ont., as a haul truck driver.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a start, but Clermont was still hoping to work underground. As more traffic passed his billboard, his LinkedIn page got more and more hits, and he began speaking with mine supervisors and superintendents across Canada.<\/p>\n
One of the people who noticed his sign was Joe Bell, the training and recruitment manager with Cementation Canada, based in North Bay, Ont. His company is a full-service mine building contractor, and he said he receives more than 50 resumes a day from prospective workers.<\/p>\n
Bell said it\u2019s tough to get started in mining without prior experience, but Clermont stood out because he appeared to be determined, sincere, and safety-conscious, so Bell forwarded his resume to the managers at several of Cementation\u2019s mine sites.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770056649_753_default.jpg\")
Edward Clermont, left, will soon be working at the Musselwhite gold mine in northwestern Ontario. He said he wants to stay in the industry until he’s 70 years old. (Submitted by Edward Clermont)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hire people in their 50s and 60s, and sometimes even in their 70s on a regular basis. There\u2019s no real age discrimination. Like, if they\u2019ve got the skills, and actually do the work, we have plenty of opportunities,\u201d said Bell.<\/p>\n
Soon, Clermont received an offer for what he calls his \u2018dream job,\u2019 working underground at the Musselwhite gold mine in northwestern Ontario. It\u2019s a nine-month contract as a construction miner, where he\u2019ll be drilling, bolting and blasting rock underground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that I can, at this age, do something most people even half my age could never do,\u201d he said, and he hopes to be working in mining for the next 15 years of his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Making a major career change can be difficult at any age, but trying to get into a physically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-449596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}