PROFILE — Bryant expects diamond hunt to stir interest in

The active search for diamonds in Canada’s North has sparked interest in Alberta’s mineral potential. The first documented find in the oil-rich province was made in 1988 by Tom Bryant, who discovered two diamonds near the Montana border. The stones are of gem quality, a professor at the University of Alberta said recently.

Bryant, 36, says VSE-listed company Golden Marlin Resources has vended in on his find, which is only one of several diamond discoveries he made in different parts of Alberta. He says exploration groups have been staking claims all over the province and “there will definitely be good news soon.” A self-employed placer miner, Bryant studies the “nooks and crannies,” which can be bypassed by specialists and company geologists. He was raised in Stirling, Ont., a farm community at the edge of the Precambrian shield. Deloro, Eldorado and Marmora, where some of Ontario’s first gold discoveries were made, are a bike ride away. His visits to these mining towns instilled in him a love for prospecting.

In his youth, he played prospector, and on one canoe trip thought he had found the “motherlode.” His parents waited patiently as the child sat for hours panning mica with an old pie plate.

Bryant graduated in 1977 as a cartographic technician and in 1978 as thematic cartographic technologist from Sir Sandford Fleming College in Lindsay, Ont. He won an award from The Ontario Institute of Chartered Cartographers for excellence.

He and his wife, Christine, moved to Alberta in 1978 and worked with the provincial ministry Alberta Transportation in the Cadastral Mapping section for 2.5 years before he returned to prospecting for both placer and hardrock minerals. He specializes in the recovery of fine gold. He has operated his own mining outfits and acted as consultant to many smaller placer operators. Priced at $12.95, his book The Modern Goldseekers Manual has sold about 10,000 copies. As well, he writes for two mining magazines in the U.S., Popular Mining and Modern Gold Miner.

The mining community has so far dismissed prospectors in Alberta, a province known largely for oil and coal, says Bryant. “It is my hope that exploration dollars will now be available to the people who have been working quietly to locate mineral deposit here. Alberta is one of the most underexplored provinces in Canada when it comes to metallic minerals.”

Although Bryant expects the diamond hunt in Alberta to become exciting in early 1993, he does not dream of being a diamond miner. “I would rather be out looking for the next deposit than growing ulcers trying to make a mine.”