To understand why the world’s biggest gold miner Newmont is willing to pay $24.4 billion to acquire Australia’s gold champion Newcrest, you need to understand what’s going on in the home town of Canadian songstress Shania Twain.

The people of Timmins, Ontario were so proud of their homegrown superstar they built a tourist attraction on the edge of town called the Shania Twain Centre, where visitors could inspect memorabilia and awards collected over a career that sold tens of millions of albums.