Diamonds are Yellowknife's best friend

The new civic motto around Yellowknife is that the town is where "a golden history meets a brilliant future."

The gold ore that drove the early economy of Canada's North isn't entirely history, but depressed world prices for the metal keep potential mining operations mired below profitability in most parts of the region.

What glitters in recent years, of course, are the Northwest Territories' diamonds, the "brilliants" of the municipal slogan.

As several international firms work to extract the initial $24-billion of the stones estimated to lie beneath their claims, Yellowknife has sprouted the least likely of Arctic industries: Diamond cutting and polishing plants.

"Normally, this industry has only been developed in Europe, Israel and India," remarks Darrell Beaulieu, chief executive officer of the First Nations-owned Deton' Cho Corporation, which runs one of those plants in partnership with Goldeos Ltd. of Calgary.

"What we're doing is finishing the products that are mined from the lands here."

Earning that right took a determined effort by the territorial government to insure that a portion of the stones are processed locally rather than in Antwerp or Tel Aviv. The result, says Beaulieu, whose company belongs to the Yellowknives Dene, has been significant for First Nations people in the region.

"We were looking at employing Aboriginal students from our community and this industry has brought a whole new component to the existing economy," he comments.

Deton' Cho's 25 workers in diamond finishing include Dene students who are under-going a three-to-five year training in sawing, lasering and polishing the stones.

"These skills are transferable and the students can take them wherever they want," says Beaulieu, noting that current projections anticipate some 25 years of diamond extraction in the Territories.

Deton' Cho's recent enterprise in diamonds is clearly a new direction for the community, yet not without analogies to its traditional activities. The company has long served the mining industry in the region, building and catering work camps and assisting with haulage.

Diamonds are in one sense just the latest example of how the community has managed to see to it that resources beneath the ground translate into opportunities on the surface.

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