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Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic, by Kevin Krajick
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In the tradition of Sebastian' Junger's The Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Barren Lands is the extraordinary tale of two small-time prospectors who risked their lives to discover $17 billion worth of diamonds in the desolate tundra of the far north.
In the late 1970's, two men set out on a twenty-year search for a North American gem mine, along a fabled path that had defied 16th-century explorers, Wild West prospectors, and modern geologists. They are an unlikely pair: Chuck Fipke, a ragged, stuttering fellow with a singular talent for finding sand-size mineral grains, and Stew Blusson, an ultra-tough geologist and helicopter pilot. Inventive, eccentric and ruthless, they follow a trail of geologic clues left by predecessors all the way from backwoods Arkansas up the glaciated high Rockies into the vast and haunted "barren lands" of northern Canada. With a South African geochemist's "secret weapon," Fipke and Blusson outwit rivals, including the immense De Beers carte, and make one of the world's greatest diamond discoveries- setting off a stampede unseen since the Klondike gold rush.
A story of obsession and scientific intrigue, Barren Lands is also an elegy to one of earth's last great wild places, a starkly beautiful and mysterious land strewn with pure lakes and alive with wolves and caribou. An endless variety of primeval glacial rock formations hide copper, zinc, and gold, in addition to diamonds. Now that the barrens are "open for business," what will happen to this great wilderness region?
Barren Lands is an unforgettable journey for those who, in the words of a nineteenth-century trapper, "want to see that country before it is all gone."
- Sales Rank: #729875 in Books
- Brand: Brand: W. H. Freeman
- Published on: 2001-10-16
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.51" h x 6.61" w x 9.58" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 464 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Library Journal
Diamonds spell adventure, and their lure is timeless, as evidenced by this compelling book. Magazine writer Krajick (Natural History, Newsweek) leaves few stones unturned as he presents not only a "diamond rush" in Canada's Northwest Territories during the 1990s but a history of one man's pursuit of this gem. The familiar names are here, including Charles Tiffany, Frederick Kunz, Cecil Rhodes, and the ubiquitous DeBeers. So, too, are the diamond mines scattered across the globe in India, South Africa, South America, the United States, and Canada. Scandals and scams have long been a part of diamond lore; the Great Diamond Hoax in 1872 Colorado rates a fascinating chapter of its own. The chief character featured throughout is Canadian Chuck Fipke, an eccentric, obsessed prospector and principal in the Lac de Gras/Ekati diamond mine (currently in operation in Canada's Barren Lands). A combination of arctic climate, corporate spies, and inexact geologic science, mixed with human greed, grizzlies, and prodigious amounts of insects and alcohol, turns the last half of Barren Lands into a suspenseful thriller. Miners, geologists, and rockhounds will be spellbound, but the appeal will easily extend to general audiences as well. This book is highly recommended for all libraries. Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
When we think of treasure hunters, we tend to think of gold or silver, but diamonds are rarer than either, and humans have been hunting them for half a millennium. Two such diamond hunters are Charles Fipke and Stewart Blusson, the prospectors who struck it rich in a region of Canada's Northwest Territories called, appropriately enough, the Barren Lands. Their adventure is the centerpiece of this diamondhunting story, which combines excitement and danger, disappointment, tragedy, and the kind of luck that changes your life forever. Fipke and Blusson became extremely wealthy men; others who spent their lives in pursuit of the elusive glittering mineral were not so fortunate. Krajick, a journalist who reported on the Barren Lands diamond rush for Discover magazine, is a smooth storyteller with a novelist's ear for dialogue. But these aren't flamboyant fictional characters living out madeup lives; they're real people, and this is what really happened to them. A can't-miss for fans of reallife adventure. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A gripping yarn [and] an eloquent portrayal of a place few will ever see, the great treeless tundra." -- Smithsonian magazine, February 2002
"Delivers some of the most vivid impressions of the Canadian North I've read." -- National Post, Nov. 17, 2001
"Krajick, a talented storyteller, strikes it rich." -- The Economist, October 20, 2001
A solidly researched nonfiction that reads like a novel. ...Armchair adventure at its very best." -- Rock & Gem, November 2001
Krajick [is] a skilled reporter along the lines of John McPhee but, for my money, with a better eye." -- Business Week, Dec. 1, 2001
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
One of the most memorable books I have read
By Fred Mrozek
It has been a number of years since I bought and read Barren Lands. Although I greatly enjoyed the book while I read it, I appreciate it even more now because it has left me with many vivid memories of tales told in the book and with knowledge about diamonds and geology that I would not have known otherwise. The book is more multi-dimensional, and works on more levels than almost any other book touching on Geology that I have read. In this multi-dim respect, I think it actually exceeds John McPhee's Rising from the Plains - which is quite a feat. What do I mean by multi-dimensional? Here are some examples that are still bouncing around in my mind years after reading Barren Lands:
1.) The impression that is left of the Australian Mining Company BHP Billiton: I am left impressed by the way they kept their feelers out in this fringe community of explorers, and nutured a relationship with Fipke and Blusson until they found the first paydirt. (Way to go Hugo!) If one bought stock in BHP soon after this book came out, one would have probably recovered hundreds of times the books price in appreciation.
2.) Fipke: I suspect that if he were growing up today in USA public schools, he would be first diagnosed with some kind of attention-deficit disorder, pumped full of Ritalin and then finally jailed when he would inevitably fail to be successfully hammered into servile, abject mediocrity. I think there is a huge lesson here for academia: STOP measuring people with standardized tests, and figure out a way to help each person find his or her own, particular intellectual fire the way Fipke did.
3.) The endgame just before the discovery of the first pipe under the frozen lake. The cash is gone, winter is closing in, competitors with megabucks are catching on, and Canadian laws require you to divulge your secret the moment you make your discovery.... Such unlikely reality and so wonderfully told.
4.) Death in the wilderness: lightning bolts and helo crashes. If it were fiction, people would criticise it for being unbelievable.
5.) Black flies.
6.) Shooting stars and prophecies.
Much more. What a great and memorable book.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
What's required to find a multi-billion dollar mine
By Peter D. Tillman
Rating: "A" -- the obsession, hard work, heartbreak and good luck
required to make a multi-billion dollar discovery. Highly
recommended.
This is the story of the discovery of the Ekati diamond mine, in the
Barren Lands of the Northwest Territories, by Chuck Fipke, Hugo
Dummett, and others. Hugo Dummett signed on with Superior Oil in 1978 to prospect for
diamonds in North America, just as the science of using indicator
minerals -- pyrope garnets, chrome diopside and chromite -- for
diamond exploration was being worked out. Superior started
prospecting around Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds -- now
inconveniently a State Park. Hugo and Mike Wolfhard hired Chuck
Fipke and his crew to sample the area. Lots of fun with jungly brush
and shotgun-toting landowners... Hugo even tried to sweet-talk Gov.
Bill Clinton into leasing him the park!
Fipke is a poster child for the space-case prospector-geologist, but he's
smart, has a sharp eye and was an *amazingly* hard worker. But a
*terrible* boss -- he drove his workers to exhaustion, and wouldn't
take elementary safety precautions, even on helicopter-supported
work. It's remarkable he didn't kill anyone.
The road to Ekati was not direct. Superior's exploration program (and
their competitors') went down the usual side tracks and dead ends --
including rediscovery of the salted site of a 19th century diamond
fraud. Then -- just as Fipke & company were developing some truly
good-looking Barren Lands prospects -- Mobil Oil bought Superior,
and summarily axed all Canadian exploration.
Fipke and Dia Met scrambled for money from family, friends and
penny-stock speculators, raising enough to stake a sizeable claim-
block near Lac de Gras, in the trackless barrens a couple hundred
miles northeast of Yellowknife. Then the money was gone, and none
of the pros were interested in Dia Met's "moose pasture." Bankruptcy
loomed -- but Dummett landed a new job with BHP, with a healthy
budget, and he quickly leased the Fipke-Dia Met ground.
Word of the BHP deal brought De Beers, Corona and others into the
area, but the *real* excitement started when BHP's first drillhole
found diamonds -- lots of diamonds! Despite strenuous secrecy
efforts, the word got out -- as it always does -- and the Great Diamond
Rush of 1991 was on! Tundra was staked by the township, and Dia
Met stock, which sold for 50c. a share in mid-91, hit $67 by the end of
1992. Fipke and his partners were paper billionaires.
The Ekati mine was commissioned in late 1998. Capital cost was
US$700 million. Sales of US$448 million (FY 2001) yielded gross
earnings of $285 million (!, EBITDA = earnings before interest, tax,
depreciation & amortization = gross profit). Mine life is expected to exceed
25 years.
District exploration costs (1989-98, Ekati-Diavik district, all companies)
exceeded US$500 million(!). A second mine, Diavik (Rio Tinto-Aber),
inconveniently located directly under Lac de Gras, is scheduled to go
into production in 2003 at an estimated capital cost of US$885 million.
Serious money is involved here. [Financial data from BHP 2001
annual report, and various web reports. Don't expect much financial
information in the book. Google is your friend.
Fipke & his longtime partner, geologist Stewart Blusson, each retain a
10%(!!) interest in the Ekati mine. (Blusson later gave $50 million to
UBC, his alma mater). When the big bucks rolled in, Fipke's marriage
fell apart, his brother sued him (as did many others), and his son
stopped speaking to him. The Big Strike had its costs.
The book's meandering start might put you off, but don't be
discouraged -- Krajick has a fine story to tell, and once he gets rolling,
this is strong stuff. No geologist who's worked in exploration -- or
anyone with a taste for an old-fashioned strike-it-rich story -- should
miss this one .
Happy reading,
Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Diamonds, Danger, Desire
By Rob Hardy
Did you know that in about half of the states of the US people have found diamonds? Diamonds of more than two carats have been found, for example, in Ohio and Alabama, and finding them is often just child's play. Kids are the ones who pick these gems up, because kids are close to the ground and always looking for treasures. Finding a reliable supply of diamonds is much more difficult; the ones found on the ground are often chance deposits that were dropped when a glacier melted, but the glacier must have carried them from somewhere rich in diamonds. There aren't many such places, and it was a surprise that over the past decade, the Northwest Territories of Canada were deemed to be diamond mining country. The eerie, exciting, and disturbing story of how this came to be is told in _Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic_ (Times Books) by Kevin Krajick. The lure of diamonds has proved inescapable for a certain class of men for centuries, and Krajick's book tells about some of them he met while he did his research.
The Barren Lands (yes, that is the designation you will see on maps) is a half million square mile region as far north as Americans can go. There are no roads and no people, and it is called barren because it is above the northern limits which trees can reach, Since diamond exploration has started, however, it could well be populated with workers producing gold, uranium, and other minerals. At the heart of the story of exploration here is Chuck Fipke, a weird little guy who does nothing to improve the image of geologists. When Fipke was in charge of a prospecting expedition, he drove his men ruthlessly, especially his own son with distressing ferocity ("When you're not eating or sleeping, you're working for me."). Fipke was just one of a long line of explorers to the region, and their history is well covered here. The unbelievable hardships of traversing the area, or working in it, are well described in many sections of the book; bears, mosquitoes, and deerflies all supply annoyance or danger. Then there were the people. Fipke could not keep his operation secret for long, and DeBeers and other mining firms shouldered in. Fipke's team painted the plywood cubicles that held the drills with camouflage paint that would prevent detection from the air, and even ordered army-surplus camouflage nets to cover supplies. This was not paranoia; there were commercial spy planes making regular flights to see what was up.
The prospectors faced challenges from the environmentalists, who worried that the caribou, wolves, falcons, wolverines, and bears would get shoved aside by the industrialization of a previously pristine area, and the local tribes worried about water pollution, looting of artifacts left by their ancestors, and "perhaps most of all they worried that they might be left out of the profits." Barren Lands now has a hugely expensive mining factory, and will simply churn out millions of dollars worth of diamonds every year. There is a pressure to build roads and power lines to the site, which will mean more alteration of a basically natural area, but profits like these cannot be resisted. While Fipke and his partners are all now unimaginably rich, they are not unimaginably happy. Fipke alienated many of his crew, and shattered his family during the most intense of the mining preparations. He admits that putting all his energy into his mine had its price. "But that was _cool_! To do all that we did? It was _fun_!" It is not surprising that with this attitude, all the riches and all the family problems haven't made a difference: he is still out there looking for the next strike.
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