The Prospectors' Pick

About the Book

Immediately after WWII ended in 1949, Yellowknife, located 500 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, was already the centre of a gold boom with three new producing gold mines. It attracted prospectors, promoters, entrepreneurs, politicians, recently discharged servicemen, the mining and geological fraternities of the world, bankers, businessmen, bush pilots, preachers, teachers, nurses, natives, field and bush men, newly married couples, and rascals. Prospecting spread over all the NWT and although thousands of small gold discoveries were made, but most proved to be negative. The old town of Yellowknife soon became an overcrowded, unsanitary place, but in spite of healthy problems everyone had their own play and went about their daily businesses. A new town site was soon developed, and it is now the capital of the NWT and the centre of the Canadian diamond business. I was part of the boom and life there was, to say the least, exciting.

About the Author

Geddes Webster was born in Yarmouth, N.S. on April 30, 1918. He graduated from Dalhousie in 1939 (geology), and McGill in 1941 (mining and metallurgy). Upon graduation he was assigned to Defense Industries in the manufacture of small arms munitions and then to Canadian Industries as plant supervisor manufacturing nylon for parachutes. After the war he worked for several Yellowknife prospecting companies, and soon became the Mining Recorder and the Assistant Mines Inspector for the NWT and the Yukon. Soon after that he was appointed the Acting Administrator for the NWT. As the boom declined he joined Transcontinental Resources as a senior field Engineer and was then assigned to Calgary as Manager of Bralsaman Petroleums, a junior oil and gas exploration Company. In 1946 he joined Investors Diversified Services in Minneapolis as their senior resources analyst, and in 1951 he came back to Canada where he was the research partner for the brokerage firm Wisener and Partners. He was also a Member of the Ontario Securities Commission for four years. After a brief illness he became an independent consultant and has served on several boards of junior mining companies. He was instrumental in developing the great Windy Craggy copper-cobalt deposit in Northwestern British Columbia. That property, which was confiscated by the B.C. Government and the area turned into a World Heritage Park, now lies dormant. Since then he has been an independent consultant and entrepreneur.