“Eighteen ninety-eight. A prospector on his way to the Yukon got lucky. Overnight this place was a boomtown.” Tyne laughed. It sounded like a hiccup. “Meaning the population soared to a whole one thousand. Wasn’t until this century that mining had any real economic impact.”

“How many mines operated here?”

“Con opened in ’36, shut down in 2003. Giant opened in ’48, shut down in 2004. Depleted reserves, high production costs. Same old corporate bullshit. ‘Profits are down, so, chump, you’re out of a job.’”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said.

“Me, too.” Tyne wagged his head. “Con was really something. Her workings go down a hundred and sixty meters and extend under most of Yellowknife and Yellowknife Bay, almost to Dettah. And Giant wasn’t no slouch. In 1986 she was one of only a handful of mines churned out ten thousand gold bricks. I’m talking worldwide.”

I recalled another of the Giant mine’s claims to fame. In 1992 a disgruntled miner murdered nine men, six of them scabs who’d crossed the picket line. His bomb demolished their cart while two hundred meters underground. The crime was the worst in Canadian labor history.

“We understand you’re involved in environmental conservation,” I said.

“Someone’s got to take a stand.”

“For the caribou.”

“The caribou. The lakes. The fish. Diamond mining is going to destroy the whole damn ecosystem.”

That threw me. “Diamonds?”

“Treasure under the tundra?” Tyne’s voice dripped disdain. “Death to the tundra is more like it.”

Ryan slipped me a look. Enough circling. “You say you know Annaliese Ruben’s family,” he said, wishing to get to the point.

“Knew her father pretty well. Farley McLeod was quite a character.”

“Was?”

“Dead. He and I worked for Fipke.”

“Fipke?”

“Seriously?” Tyne looked at me as though I’d asked him to explain soap.

“Seriously.”

“Chuck Fipke is credited with discovering diamonds in the Arctic. Which he did with a guy named Stu Blusson. Everyone thought the two of them were crazy. Turned out they weren’t. Now, thanks to them, the caribou are taking it in the pants.”

“Diamonds have replaced gold in the territory?” I asked.

“Seriously?”

Tyne loved the word. This time I didn’t play parrot. “How many mines?”

“Ekati opened in ’98, Diavak in 2003, Snap Lake in 2008. She’s the only one underground.”

“Where are they?”

“Couple hundred kilometers north. Snap Lake is De Beers’s first mine outside of Africa. Now they’re trying to bring another one online. Gahcho Kué. Won’t be a caribou left when these bastards get through.”

My knowledge of the diamond industry was limited. No. That’s being too generous. I knew that Cecil Rhodes founded De Beers in the late eighteen hundreds, that the group was based in Johannesburg and London, and that it was responsible for 75 percent of the world’s diamond production. I knew that Angola, Australia, Botswana, Congo, Namibia, Russia, and South Africa were diamond-rich. I had no idea Canada was a player.