b'VOX POPpeople and consultants. Theres the BDC, which has business insurance to cover any losses you may get if your exporting customers default or declare bankruptcy. Then theres Global Affairs Canada, which can help with preparing to export, and the Trade Commissioner website, which has tons of free resources like up-to-date market reports and information on the sectors youre trying to get into. Forus,therewasalsothelocal Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre, which has access to a lot of market research through Torontos MaRS centre; thats where we found reports on things like trends of tea and grains.After all that, we attended the trade accel-erator program in Thunder Bay deliv-ered by the World Trade Centre out of Toronto. That was an excellent program with workshops, one-to-one mentoring, peer networking, mock contract nego-tiation exercises and expert presenta-tions on logistics, getting your product across the border, or the importanceNuna Group of Companiesof protecting our intellectual property when crossing borders. That program was really, really important to our plan-ning and preparation phase. We were also lucky to participate in an official trade mission with the Trade Commissioner. I went to Orlando, Florida with a cohort of women entrepreneurs, some of whom came from northern Ontario through the PARO Centre for Womens Enterprise, which has also been an amazing resource for us. That trade mission was amazing for networking, pitching to different companies and just getting a feel for U.S. culture. In December, I went on another official trade mission to Phoenix, Arizona for Indigenous entrepreneurs.Overall, the planning and preparation stage has been critical. Its what helped us build an export plan that made us All-Weather Roads & RunwaysIce Roads & Runwaysready to go. Now, were getting noticed Contract Mining Mine Reclamation by companies like DAVIDsTEA, which we Dams & Frozen Core DamsCare & Maintenancepartnered with to develop and co-brand DikesRemote Infrastructure Planninga special tea blend, Manoomin Maple tea, which is sold on their website, with 10 per Earthworks & Site DevelopmentSite Services & Crushingcent of proceeds donated to the David Exploration SupportVertical Cutter MiningSuzuki Institute for Indigenous reconcili-ation programming. Were always open to collaborations and partnerships like that because you never know where theyll lead. Aboriginal BUSINESS REPORT43'