John Curran
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, September 5, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - It's been a long time coming, but Snowfield Development Corporation has finished collecting a 500-tonne kimberlite bulk sample from the Mud Lake sill, part of the firm's Ticho project 50 km southeast of Yellowknife near Drybones Bay.

Snowfield manager John Dalton stands at the cusp of the pit where the company collected a 500-tonne bulk sample from the Mud Lake kimberlite sill near Drybones Bay this summer. - John Curran/NNSL photo

"Snowfield has been doing exploration here since 2002," said manager John Dalton. "A lot of people have been waiting a while for this stage."

The company got bogged down in the environmental assessment process for a time, but with those issues now in the past it is looking to get a better idea of the diamonds on its claims in the area.

As well as drilling in several locations, the primary focus of this summer has been getting the bulk sample out of the ground.

The kimberlite was located beneath roughly 150 feet of granite - generally referred to as country rock in the field. A blasting contractor was brought in to open up a ramp and pit about the same size as an NHL arena.

"We've got 250 two-tonne bags now sealed and ready for shipping," said Dalton.

The project will cost about $2 million - lower than other similarly sized initiatives in the North due to the project's proximity to Yellowknife.

The bags of kimberlite will now go to De Beers' dense media separation plant in Grande Prairie, Alta., for processing. Diamond recovery will occur at three laboratories - two in Canada and one in South Africa.

The Mud Lake sill, a kimberlite body contained between largely horizontal layers of rock, and Snowfield's other efforts this season have required a team of 12-25 workers at the Pebble Beach camp on the shores of Great Slave Lake.

"More than half of the people employed here live in the North," he said.

One of the Yellowknifers working near Drybones Bay has been 19-year-old Dominic Debogorski who has been serving as a crusher's assistant this summer.

"It's good work, you certainly don't need to go to the gym at the end of the day," he said.

This is his second stint with Snowfield having been a camp attendant last winter. He makes no bones about seeing a future in mining.

"Heck yeah, I'm interested in the industry," he said. "I'd like to maybe go back to school and study to be a geologist."