Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 30, 2008

YELLOWKNIFE - Fourteen potential prospectors both amateur and professional recently got an immersion into the art - and business - of prospecting, thanks to a one-week introductory prospecting course offered by the NWT Geoscience Office.

Tamlin Gilbert, left, and Walter Harry took part in the NWT Geoscience Office's annual prospecting course earlier this month, where they learned the ins and outs of the prospecting trade. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

"You can't take the course and become a prospector - you need a licence for that - but this does give you a fairly comprehensive look at the trade, which is a lot more complicated than you think," said Walt Humphries, a Yellowknife prospector who teaches a portion of the course.

"There's some people who think you can just pick up a shovel and go out and start looking. First of all, you need to be 18 and you need a licence. But also, because we live in the NWT, there are a lot of other steps you have to take before you even go out into the field."

Diane Baldwin, a community minerals adviser with the NWT Geoscience Office who teaches the geology portion of the course, agrees there is a lot of groundwork to be done before the actual prospecting begins.

"You have to research the area, check the land ownership to make sure there isn't another claim to the land, whether the area is worth prospecting, and collect maps of the area," she said.

Baldwin, who has been teaching the course since its inception 10 years ago, said her students are most surprised by the sheer amount of mineral potential in the NWT.

"People don't realize there's lots of areas that haven't been prospected," said Baldwin. "The potential here is so great. It really sparks students' interests and makes them want to go out looking."

Throwing a prospector like Humphries into the mix is helpful to the students because it exposes them to an equally important side of the business, added Baldwin.

"He has a different focus. He's looking at the economic aspects of looking for minerals. A prospector can look at things without the blinders of what the geology is, whereas I tend to talk more about the chemistry and geology of minerals, and take the students through different samples of rock that I bring with me."

U.K.-born Tamlin Gilbert recently came to Yellowknife with his wife. He doesn't have a job and was looking for a productive way of staying busy, and thought the prospecting course would be an ideal way to find out about Yellowknife's mining origins.

"I'm not really exposed to this kind of thing where I'm from, so this looked new and exciting," he said. "I'm not serious about prospecting, but it does interest me."

Other participants in the course included three Grade 8 students from Range Lake School, who took part in the course after they heard their teacher was taking it, said Baldwin.

The prospecting course is offered nearly every year in Yellowknife and in other Northern communities depending on need.