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On this fateful day 24 years ago, among the places enacting its own brand of heroism was Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, the small town with the big runway and big-hearted populace that allowed aircraft to land at Gander International Airport after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and sheltered nearly 7,000 people almost overnight. The musical written about those simultaneously horrifying and reassuring days in Gander, “Come From Away,” has become an international sensation.
In the years following the attacks, Gander also pursued its own branding in pursuit of biotech companies, including a series of advertisements in Site Selection magazine. What’s happening there today? I caught up briefly by email this week with Dave Quinton, who was kind enough to respond during a week away from his job as economic development officer for the Town of Gander.
“Things are busy around here these days with a particular focus on the airport,” he writes, including a new wildfire center set to receive C$32 million in support from the provincial government and Natural Resources Canada. Whitecap International Seafood Exporters achieved a first for the province recently by shipping fresh Newfoundland and Labrador lobster by air to Madrid, Spain, with cod shipments expected this fall. A new C$10 million cold storage facility at the airport will facilitate that business. Meanwhile, writes Quinton, “we are in the midst of a gold prospecting rush near Gander with indicators pointing to first ounces produced by 2027.”
If those ounces of gold possess anything close to the quality of the kilos of kindness Gander displayed 24 years ago, they will be valuable indeed. — Adam Bruns
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