IROQUOIS FALLS, Ontario (From The Timmins Daily Press) -- As the last shift of workers walked out of the paper mill shortly before sunrise on Monday, 22 December 2014, there were residents and family members there to greet them.

"One wife was waiting for her husband and she was pretty upset, she was in tears," said Larry Shea, a retired mill worker, who was waiting from 5 a.m. to greet the last workers as they came out.

It marked the beginning of a day of mourning for Iroquois Falls as Resolute Forest Products closed its papermaking operations permanently.

Many town residents are still numbed by disbelief that the mill is shutting down after operating for more than 100 years. Resolute announced Dec. 5 that it would be permanently closing its Iroquois Falls mill.

"It's been like a dream and this is reality now," said Gary Belanger, who is among the 180 employees being let go.

"I just leased a brand new truck prior to this," said Belanger. "I didn't have a notion of this coming.

"It was very hard to absorb; hard on the community as well. There are people in there who have families, have children in university or college ... I've been there 34 years. It's a lifetime. They took my best years. I'm 53 now."

Belanger is hoping he can find work with another company so he can at least retire in four years with a full pension.

In the meantime, Belanger and the other 180 mill workers are committed to serving Resolute over the next two months.

"They owe us eight weeks from the day of the announcement. We're still getting paid 40 hours a week," he explained. "We're obligated until Feb. 3 if they need us to go into work. There is nothing we can do about that. Everyone wants their severance and everyone needs it to survive right now. We've got to think of our families too. With Christmas coming, we need that paycheque to go in."

Belanger is already scheduled to help in the new year with the permanent shutdown.

"Jan. 4, I have to go back in for clean-up, and help them with whatever they have to do. There are two crews going in all week on day shift, to shut down."

On Monday, there were events were planned throughout the day including a social gathering at the Access Transit community centre building and a vigil outside the gate of the mill.

Outside the mill Monday morning, a recurring theme in discussions was the fact the paper mill had provided employment to generations of members within families.

"I'm from a family of five generations that worked in this mill," said Danny McIntyre. "My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, myself and my son who worked here as a student. We all worked for Abitibi."

He agreed with a suggestion that the gathering of residents in Iroquois Falls Monday was like a wake for a beloved relative who was a vital link to a large family - in this case, an entire community.

"It was the lifeblood of the town. It built the town. I live in a home that was built by Abitibi. The houses you see in this area (the residential streets nearest to the mill) are beautiful homes, 100 years old ... These houses were built for the employees to get people to come north into the wilderness. The whole area around the mill was built by the company. The company, when it was a good company to work for, took care of its employees, owned the hospital, paid the doctors before Medicare. It was a good company to work for. As it grew and became a multi-national, it's not anymore. It hasn't been for a number of years."

Many of those who had gathered outside the paper mill Monday morning expressed a mix of sadness and anger, blaming the closure on a combination of corporate mismanagement and on the Ontario Liberal government's decision allowing the company to sell its power-generating facilities several years ago.

Bob Brazeau, who retired from the mill in 2004 after working there for 35 years, said, "Over 100 years, this mill has withstood two world wars, a depression. And then an American company takes it over for a couple of years and they close it down."

Brazeau said the Iroquois Falls paper mill was at one time hailed to be the "cheapest mill to run because we had our own power ... We had three generating houses and our wood limits were so close compared to any other mill, we were the biggest and cheapest around. It was very, very productive for many years."

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