NUNAVUT - A prospecting course has been touring many communities in Nunavut, teaching people how to hunt for stones that might hold the hint of buried treasure.

Students in Taloyoak's prospecting course relax at the community's gravel quarry. The limestone boulder contains ammonite fossils millions of years old. Front row from left, Karen Nanook, Mary Ugyuk, Fiona Neeveacheak, and Nellie Ann Uquqtuq. Back row, Gary Oleekatalik, David Igutsaq, Rene Boisvert, Chuck Pizzo-Lyall, Joe Tulurialik and Eddie Oleekatalik. Not pictured: Zachery Charlie and elder Joseph Qullunik. - photo courtesy of Mike Beauregarde

"All of us who participated in this prospecting course are all people who go out on the land," said Peter Evic, who took the 10-day course in Pangnirtung in June. "One guy pointed out that, 'well, guys, whenever we're out caribou hunting we might not look for caribou anymore!'"

But prospecting can be just as tricky as stalking prey.

"There's one guy, he came to me yesterday, he said he thought he had found gold," recalled Evic. "It sure looked like gold, but when he showed the sample to Mike (Beauregarde) I guess it wasn't real gold."

Pyrite is an iron sulphide often called "fool's gold," because its metallic yellow gleam has tricked prospectors for centuries.

Nunavut's Department of Economic Development and Transportation started offering the prospecting course in order to create a small-scale, locally-based exploration industry.

The courses ran for five weeknights in class and then all weekend on the land. It's taught in English but the government is developing Inuktitut-language materials. An interpreter helps teach the course if a student doesn't speak English, said chief instructor Mike Beauregarde.

Communities involved this summer include Arviat, Clyde River, Iglulik, Iqaluit, Kugaaruk, Kimmirut, Pangnirtung, Qikiqtarjuaq and Taloyoak.

Exploration in Nunavut is expensive because of the territory's remote location, so creating an independent, local network of prospectors would be a useful tool for the mining industry as it looks for potential new locations, Beauregarde said.

Since the Nunavut Prospecting Program began about 10 years ago it has trained more than 500 prospectors in 24 communities, he said. This summer the program is in high gear, with nine communities planned for courses instead of the usual five.

People who want to pursue prospecting in a serious way can apply for a prospecting grant worth $8,000.

Prospectors are taught the signs of a possible mineral vein or diamond deposit, and how to stake their claim if they mind something valuable. The subsurface mineral rights to that claim can be sold to a mining company. In 2001, True North bought a gem claim near Kimmirut in 2001 from a local prospector.

Nunavut has been sparsely mapped compared to other parts of Canada, so there's opportunity for local people to get in on the action, Beauregarde said. But he warned that fewer than one in 100 claims turns out to have anything of value.

Nunavut's got quite a few deposits of mines and minerals," Beauregarde said. "In the past it's been gold, base metals like copper, lead and zinc, uranium and diamonds."

Beauregarde said gold and diamonds are particularly desirable in Nunavut because a small amount is valuable, which cuts down on the expense of shipping them south.

Beauregarde said some of the difficulties of prospecting in Nunavut include the fact that the glaciers which scoured the land long ago moved so much material that often a valuable rock is found far, far away from its source.

"The course teaches that it's not the shiny rocks that are of interest to a prospector," Beauregard said. "It's the rusty rocks that are of interest."

That rust can represent sulphide ores which can be mined.