EXPLORATION ROUNDUP — Fipke determined to climb every mountain

The man who sparked the great diamond rush in Canada’s Northwest Territories is too busy with new projects to spend much time celebrating government approval of this country’s first diamond mine.

When Dia Met Chairman and geochemist Charles (Chuck) Fipke began searching the North for diamond-bearing kimberlites more than 10 years ago, he raised more eyebrows than cash, at least in the early years. But with federal cabinet approval of the mine now in hand, the $1.2-billion project at Lac de Gras is expected to be up and running by late 1998.

“I don’t worry about vindicating myself,” Fipke tells The Northern Miner from his office in Kelowna, B.C. “This worked out well, and that was great, but there are too many positive things to worry about to go around saying, `I was right.'”

Australian mining giant Broken Hill Proprietary owns 51% of the project. Dia Met owns 29%, and the remainding 20% is split between Fipke himself and fellow geologist Stewart Blusson.

Officials from the two companies and from native groups and the federal and territorial governments attended the official signing of a draft environmental agreement in Yellowknife — an agreement that removed the final hurdle to cabinet approval.

As Fipke was out of the country, he was unable to attend the Nov. 1 signing.

But he says BHP has done “an excellent job” in planning the project.

“I’ll tell you how it feels,” he said. “I remember when I was working as a student geologist in the Yukon. I had a long journey — a 35-mile hike — and I had to pass over top of this mountain. It was quite a challenge to get to the top, and when I did, I looked around and a noticed there was another, taller mountain . . . and another, and another. I still have some mountains to climb.”

Dia Met reports that it has found another kimberlite pipe field, but Fipke is not saying where — only that the company holds 100% of the property. He is also involved in the search for gold deposits in Nevada and Yemen (see accompanying story on page B5), where the proprietary technology he used to find diamondiferous kimberlites in Canada’s North has been adapted to find gold.

“I’m already onto other challenges,” Fipke says. “You don’t get very far if you rest on past laurels.”