We certainly covered already the number of employees who are tied to the uranium mining industry. We're very proud of the fact that we strive to have RSN—which is residents of Saskatchewan's north—be a significant portion of our workforce. We talked about how more than 1,800 people are employed on a yearly basis, according to the latest statistics we have in the uranium mining industry in Saskatchewan.
In our industry, we fly our workers to work and home from work. That's the model we have, for all those folks who are on this Zoom call who don't know our uranium mining business. It's not like you hop in your car or you hop on a bus and you drive to work. You fly to work and you fly home. We need healthy, stable airlines, and we have partnerships with Transwest and West Wind Aviation, along with Good Spirit Air in the eastern part of the province. We need those airlines to be stable and successful for us to continue to operate.
That $17.3 million that came from the federal government to help air carriers north of 60 I'm sure is great for them, but what we're trying to have the government focus on at the same time is a lot of those communities—Stony Rapids, Black Lake, Fond du Lac, etc.—that fall just below that line. They're at 59 or 58 degrees of latitude, and we certainly would like to see some help coming to our airlines that are just below that line so that they could get some aid and some help to be stable and move forward as well as they possibly can. We need those airlines, but so do those communities.
The last point I would make is that Fond du Lac First Nation and Hatchet Lake First Nation are two areas we draw employees from. We are now in the position for the next several months of being able to get to those communities only by flying or going by barge. We won't see ice roads again for six or seven months now. That shows the importance of the airlines.