Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 12/01) - Numbers cannot define all of the benefits the discovery of diamonds has brought to the North.

In a land where well-paying jobs with a future have historically been limited to government bureaucracies, diamonds have brought a resurgence in hope among more adventurous young people.

Yellowknifer had a chance to talk to two young city residents who are part of the 1,050 employees at Diavik.

Jerry Connors

Sporting Oakley sunglasses and a discman, Jerry Connors is a personable, easy-going 27-year-old who has called Yellowknife home since 1987.

Connors is headed back to the mine after a week in the city that included the purchase of a 2002 Jeep Liberty.

Working three weeks in and a week out for contractor Lac de Gras Constructors, Connors is part of the massive rock-breaking operation. To keep the trucks that carry gravel to the dike full, Connors and his co-workers produce 23,000 tonnes of crushed rock daily.

"I think it's an awesome place to work," he said during the flight back to the mine. "But it's hard work when you're working, it's hard to put up with the dust."

Connors started working at the mine in May. Three months earlier, a friend of his at the mine site told him he should get his resume in. Connors gave a copy to his buddy, who dropped it off at the mine and Connors was later offered the job.

"My first couple of months I was working 4-2s" (four weeks in and two weeks out), he recalled. "Toward the end it drives you kind of nuts."

The former driver for Northwest Transport said the routine at the mine is pretty straightforward -- eat, sleep, work, repeat. He works the 6:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. shift.

"You can stay up and watch TV or play games, but you're usually so tired from working you just go to bed," he said.

Connor's bosses at the crusher -- "two really good people" -- are American and among the many Southerners he's worked alongside at the mine.

He hopes to stay on at the mine once it goes into operation.

April Desjarlais

A high school trip to a Barren Lands science education camp put April Desjarlais on a path that led to Diavik.

Desjarlais was among the first group of students to visit the Daring Lake camp, run by the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development. It was then she decided she wanted to be a biologist.

Interspersed with summers and holidays working at Indian and Northern Affairs, she spent five years earning a science degree at the University of Saskatchewan.

When the 17-year resident of Yellowknife graduated, Diavik was top of her list..

"The idea of being back on the Barrens full-time really appealed to me, so I called them up and they basically gave me the job."

It didn't hurt that one of her bosses at DIAND, Murray Swyripa, was heading up Diavik's environmental department.

But Desjarlais had it tougher than most in other ways. She was one of just a few women working at the site and, at 23, much younger than most of her co-workers.

But Desjarlais said there is not much more she could ask for in a job.

"There's always a new challenge, always something new," she said. "One day I could be doing an aquatic effects program and the next day chasing a grizzly. Basically, the sky's the limit. Most people my age aren't getting anywhere near the experience I'm getting."