Once a hotbed of gold mining, Canada’s far north is now unearthing riches from a different precious commodity: diamonds.
At the Diavik mine, just over 200 km (130 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, a 200 meter (650 foot) deep crater pierces a frozen-white tundra, yielding some of the purest diamond deposits known.
"They’re among the three best pipes in the world, by value per tonne," spokesman Tom Hoefer said of the kimberlite pipes — vertical columns of diamond-bearing rock — the mine is currently working.
It is a far cry from the Klondike gold rush in neighboring Yukon territory, which drew tens of thousands of prospectors over three years starting in 1896.
The Diavik mine is located on an island in icy pure Lac de Gras, a lake in Northwest Territories. The lake has been diked and partially drained to open access to the ore below.
Power is generated on-site and supplies are trucked in on an ice road that’s open barely 10 weeks a year. Temperatures are so low that truck axles can suddenly become brittle and snap.
Last year, it produced 11.9 million carats, roughly 10 percent of global output and a little more than a third of the annual production of Rio’s Argyle mine in Australia, the world’s largest producer by volume.
Total capital and operational spending on the mine has reached $3.2 billion, including $563 million for an underground expansion that should keep it running past 2020. A second pit is expected to start producing diamonds soon.
The mine is operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, which markets 60 percent of the take, while 40-percent stakeholder Harry Winston Diamond markets the rest.
Visitors and workers are put through an airport-style security check both on the way in and on the way out, checking for smuggled drugs and alcohol on the way in, and errant diamonds on the way out.
Once past security, however, the site has all the comforts of home, with single rooms for miners, an indoor gym and running track, and a wealth of extracurricular activities for miners, who spend two weeks at a time living at the site.