Hidden gems -- in the WSJ and in the Northwest Territories
It was a throwaway line from an interesting-in-itself WSJ piece [PDF] on the new X-Prize for genomics that really caught my attention:
"The $10 million purse is being put up by Stewart Blusson, a Canadian geologist involved in discovering a trove of diamonds south of the Arctic circle in 1991. He is funding the prize because of a love for science and "out of the box thinking."
You KNOW there's got to be a good story behind that guy! A few clicks and his wikipedia profile confirms it:
After school, he joined the federal Geological Survey of Canada, leading regional geological mapping and research programs in the central Yukon and parts of British Columbia. During that time he survived a serious helicopter crash and a Grizzly bear attack. In 1969, Chuck Fipke, a geologist, needed to be rescued from the side of a mountain where he had been stranded for close to a week. Blusson was the helicopter pilot that saved him. From this first encounter, Fipke and Blusson became friends and prospecting partners.
(...)
In 1981, he and Fipke began searching for diamonds in the Northwest Territories, concentrating their search on indicator minerals commonly associated with kimberlite, a host rock for diamond. They found kimberlitic indicator minerals near Lac de Gras in the Northwest Territories in 1985, and their first kimberlite at Pointe Lake in 1991. In 1998, Ekati opened, a joint venture between BHP Diamonds Inc. (51%), Dia Met Minerals (29%), Fipke (10%), and Blusson (10%). Blusson's net worth in 2002 was estimated to be $295 million (US).
And a Businessweek book review just puts the icing on the cake:
At the center of freelance journalist Krajick's story is Canadian prospector Chuck Fipke, a ruthless eccentric whose saving grace was his resolve. As kids, both he and his sometime partner, Stewart Blusson, were beaten up regularly by their fathers, and as adults, it showed. Even by frontier standards, they weren't quite socialized, cheating not only colleagues but also at times on their families. In short, they had the perfect personalities for the job at hand: finding diamonds in a forsaken place that was either frozen or, when thawing, infested with man-eating insects and bears. All the while, they had to try to raise capital without tipping off the competition, including snooping crews from the likes of DeBeers Consolidated Mines, which could be as fierce as the grizzlies.
Classic. What a character. What an entrepreneur. I would love to meet this guy.
