Located approximately 82 miles north of Kotzebue, Red Dog Mine is located on the Middle Fork of Red Dog Creek in the DeLong Mountains of the western Brooks Range. Red Dog is an open pit mine that produces more than a million tons of zinc and lead each year making it the world's largest producer of zinc concentrate. It opened in 1989 and employs about 475 people and has created many more jobs in the area indirectly. According to the Teck Cominco website, the mine provided $540 million in benefits to the regional economy, including wages, and direct royalty payments to NANA from 1990 to 2007. In 2007 alone, the mine provided $230 million in taxes to the state and federal governments. 
The mine is a partnership between the NANA Regional Corporation, Inc. (NANA), a Native corporation owned by the Inupiat people of Northwest Alaska, and Teck Cominco Alaska Incorporated, a U.S. subsidiary of Teck Cominco Limited, a diversified mining company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. You might have heard of Teck Cominco before because they also control roughly half of Pogo gold mine which is located east of Fairbanks. Click on the blog title to learn more about Red Dog Mine and connect to the Teck Cominco website.
I flew over Red Dog last year on the way to Pt. Hope. It sits in the middle of nowheresville. Only in Alaska do you see something like this jumping out of the frozen tundra. It is especially vivid in the winter when it provides the only color for miles and miles against the stark white landscape.
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