Flin Flon has been 'a little jewel' for northern Manitoba creators for nearly a century, artists say

A mining town with a deeply musical past, Flin Flon has been a haven for artists since the northern Manitoba city was founded nearly 100 years ago, local creators say.

In 2025, artists working in all media continue to call the community home — some with lineage to an older generation of workers who moved to Flin Flon for jobs at the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co. (later known as Hudbay) and became key figures in the city's early arts scene. 

According to local legend, the mining company prioritized hiring talented singers, artists and hockey players in an effort to build a vibrant community around the remote mine. 

Jennifer Hanson's father, Bill Hanson, was one of them.

Hanson, who is well-known across the province for singing the national anthem at Winnipeg Jets games in the 1990s, says her father was a tenor who was drawn to Flin Flon in the late 1940s because he heard through word of mouth that singers could get a job at the mine "with very few questions asked."

"I don't know that he really cared what kind of job he had," said Hanson, who is based in Winnipeg but spends her summers in a cabin near Flin Flon. 

"He went to Flin Flon because he heard that if you could sing, you could get a job at the mine. And he could sing."

Hanson says her father spent his whole career at Hudbay, all the while singing and playing music as an original member of the Flin Flon Glee Club. 

Tom Goodman's father, Jimmy Goodman, was a metallurgist who worked his way up to becoming general manager at the mine. At the same time, he was a singer and conductor who served as an executive member of the glee club.

Goodman, who was also a metallurgist with Hudbay, says his father was reluctant to confirm whether he prioritized singers when making hiring decisions.

But "I'm sure he did," said Goodman.

"The legend is they'd hire if someone was a good tenor … or a good hockey player. There's no doubt that there's some truth to that," he said. 

The city was founded around the mine in 1927 and quickly became a "Shangri-La" for artists, Goodman says, as the mining company worked to build a community that people would want to live in long-term.

"People were retained for generations, really along those lines. And a lot of the people that are hanging in there to this day might be second-, third-, fourth-generation Flin Flonners with an inclination towards artistic things, musical things."