Barren lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic

Krajick, Kevin

ISBN 10: 0716740265 / ISBN 13: 9780716740261

Published by Times Books, New York, 2001

About this Item

442 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Record # 469598.

Seller Inventory # 469598

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Barren lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic
• Publisher: Times Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0716740265
• ISBN 13: 9780716740261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

In the tradition of Sebastian' Junger's The Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Barren Lands is the extraordinary tale of two small-time prospectors who risked their lives to discover $17 billion worth of diamonds in the desolate tundra of the far north.

In the late 1970's, two men set out on a twenty-year search for a North American gem mine, along a fabled path that had defied 16th-century explorers, Wild West prospectors, and modern geologists. They are an unlikely pair: Chuck Fipke, a ragged, stuttering fellow with a singular talent for finding sand-size mineral grains, and Stew Blusson, an ultra-tough geologist and helicopter pilot. Inventive, eccentric and ruthless, they follow a trail of geologic clues left by predecessors all the way from backwoods Arkansas up the glaciated high Rockies into the vast and haunted "barren lands" of northern Canada. With a South African geochemist's "secret weapon," Fipke and Blusson outwit rivals, including the immense De Beers carte, and make one of the world's greatest diamond discoveries- setting off a stampede unseen since the Klondike gold rush.

A story of obsession and scientific intrigue, Barren Lands is also an elegy to one of earth's last great wild places, a starkly beautiful and mysterious land strewn with pure lakes and alive with wolves and caribou. An endless variety of primeval glacial rock formations hide copper, zinc, and gold, in addition to diamonds. Now that the barrens are "open for business," what will happen to this great wilderness region?

Barren Lands is an unforgettable journey for those who, in the words of a nineteenth-century trapper, "want to see that country before it is all gone."

About the Author

Kevin Krajick is a prizewinning journalist whose articles have appeared in National Geographic, Newsweek, The New York Times, Science, Discover, Audubon, Smithsonian and many other publications. He was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Public Service and won the American Geophysical Union's 1998 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism. He lives in New York City.