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

By Kevin Krajick

When we think of treasure hunters, we tend to think of gold or silver, but diamonds are rarer than either, and humans have been hunting them for half a millennium. Two such diamond hunters are Charles Fipke and Stewart Blusson, the prospectors who struck it rich in a region of Canada's Northwest Territories called, appropriately enough, the Barren Lands. Their adventure is the centerpiece of this diamond-hunting story, which combines excitement and danger, disappointment, tragedy, and the kind of luck that changes your life forever. Fipke and Blusson became extremely
wealthy men; others who spent their lives in pursuit of the elusive glittering mineral were not so fortunate. Krajick, a journalist who reported on the Barren Lands diamond rush for Discover magazine, is a smooth storyteller with a novelist's ear for dialogue. But these aren't flamboyant fictional characters living out made-up lives; they're real people, and this is what really happened to them. A can't-miss for fans of real-life adventure.

Read an excerpt at: http://members.fcc.net/krajick/prologue.htm.

Hardcover - 464 pages 
(October 2001) 
W. H. Freeman & Co.
Dimensions (in inches): 1.51 x 9.58 x 6.61 

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