SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Jen Pilon's eyes light up when she talks about diamonds.

"They are my life," she says.

She might sound like a woman with a penchant for expensive jewellery. However, Pilon's relationship with diamonds goes much deeper than that.

Jen Pilon, Canada's first female certified diamond polisher, demonstrates the different "facets" of her job. - Erika Sherk/NNSL photo

Diamonds actually are her life - her professional life, that is.

The first certified female diamond polisher in the NWT and Canada, Pilon's love affair with the sparkly carbon began seven years ago. Having moved to Yellowknife from Ontario, she saw a diamond polisher at a trade show. Her imagination caught, when she saw a four-month course advertised, she signed up.

"I was taught on little tiny ones," she said, laughing, "for less expensive mistakes."

There were only four people in her class. The foremen from the Yellowknife diamond polishing facilities would come by every Friday and check out the students' work.

"Within two months I already had a job in a polishing facility," she says.

At Arslanian Cutting Works, her employer for the last seven years, she was matched up with an Armenian mentor, one of the diamond professionals brought in to train Northerners after the NWT diamond mines started producing.

The idea of crafting facets out of rough diamonds appealed to her, she says. "I'm very artistic, I wanted to do something different when I moved here and I like to work with my hands."

She wanted to prove her mother wrong, Pilon says. "My mother said, 'you can't be perfect' and ' you can't have the perfect job.'"

This job requires perfection, no doubt.

"If you make a 0.05 millimetre mistake marking a four-carat rough [diamond] it costs about $3,000," she says.

It never gets boring, Pilon says. "You're doing the same thing over and over and over, but no two diamonds are the same at all. I find rough diamonds here have a lot of character."

She became the first female diamond polisher certified in Canada when she passed her test in 2005. Pilon says there are now more female diamond polishers in the formerly male-dominated trade, though it's still a fairly rare occupation – Canada only produces so many diamonds.

Laid off from Arslanian in May along with all the other polishers – some have since been hired back – Pilon, 38, now works promoting territorial government certified diamonds: the Polar Bear and Polar Ice brands.

On Thursday she was demonstrating her trade at the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre. She's demonstrated there for three years.

"People love it, the opportunity to see diamonds actually being polished," says Jenni Bruce, president of the Northern Frontier Visitors Association. "It's very fascinating because it's one of the very few industries where the human factor is still so important."

As a diamond polisher, Pilon is "top-notch," says Bruce, "She's highly sought after for her skill."

Pilon has been doing demonstrations twice a week all summer, Bruce says. The visitors' centre is hoping to keep providing demonstrators throughout the year.

People are excited to see a diamond polished. In this case, they'll see a very well polished diamond. "I've been polishing the same one for three months," Pilon laughs.