Mineral Exploration

10 S P R I N G 2 0 1 6 Photographs : Cour te sy the Mineral Deposit Re search Unit I n 1981, Vancouver was home to a vibrant minerals industry and venture capital market, and the outlook for geologists graduat- ing from the University of British Columbia that year was bright. By mid- 1982, however, a severe recession hit, triggering an exodus of major compan- ies and slashed exploration budgets. For the class of '81, it was a memorable introduction to an industry where the only constant is change. Fortunately, the industry was soon revitalized by the junior mining sector, which made impressive discoveries in the '80s and early '90s, notably Hemlo (gold), Lac de Gras (diamonds) and Voisey's Bay (nickel-copper-cobalt). Many geologists worked for juniors led by promoters such as Murray Pezim, or teams such as Bob Hunter and Bob Dickinson. Others formed their own juniors, typically financed by Peter Brown, the founder of Canaccord Genuity, with additional help from flow-through-share funds. Joanne ( Joey) Freeze worked with both junior and major companies before teaming up with a Peruvian geologist to form Candente Resource Corp. in the late 1990s. (Various assets were later spun off to form two other companies.) She says the industry is more mobile now and has more high-tech tools, but the business is still "all about the rocks" and unravel- ling the secrets they contain. "Computers help compile the data and model it, but they still need a human brain to imagine what [treasures] could be hiding." Freeze says she is surprised by the present gender balance of the industry (women comprise about 16 per cent of people in the industry), as women com- prised 30 per cent of the class of '81. "I don't think there are barriers to women, just the lifestyle of exploration that isn't so conducive to family life." Freeze's classmate Doug Forster says the biggest change since he graduated is the global nature of the business. "In the 1980s, most UBC geology graduates worked on exploration projects in the Americas. Today, Canadian geologists work in almost every country in the world, and the North American capital markets raise funds for projects from Albania to Zambia." Forster gained valuable experi- ence with Hunter Dickinson and was Class of '81 NAVIGATING 35 YEARS OF INDUSTRY CHANGE By ViVian Danielson

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