It’s -21˚ Celsius in Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Locals tell me it isn’t too cold – it should have been -40˚C. But what really gets you in this town isn’t the weather, but rather the routine in its diamond business.

Events follow events. Take this week. Diavik, Canada’s second diamond mine, began its very first small-scale operation. It will still take 18 months before the mine will be in full production, but, as of February, the first rough diamonds will be available for sale at Rio Tinto’s Antwerp office or at Aber Diamonds in Toronto and/or Antwerp.

Three hundred kilometers northeast of Yellowknife, at the Ekati mine, North America’s first underground diamond mine opened this week, when BHP Diamonds president Jim Excell cut the orange ribbon inaugurating the Koala North kimberlite pipe exploitation. Koala North is a small pipe, wedged between two larger kimberlites, Koala and Panda, and was only discovered four years ago.

This proximity makes it unfit for open pit mining as its mouth would have run into the neighboring pipes. BHP-Billiton will, however, gain valuable underground mining experience, as in three years it will also have to go underground with the Panda production.

Near the Yellowknife airport, a Tiffany vice-president is giving instructions on the huge diamond plant it is building in this city. Interestingly, Tiffany – which will obtain between $50 to $100 million of rough each year from the Diavik mine – is not deterred by the relatively high labor cost in the city, as it expects to sell the Canadian polished diamonds at a considerable premium.

It also hopes to get an allocation from BHP and Rio Tinto. Actually, it is hard to find qualified labor in Yellowknife – as the “best job” in town is working for mining developments. So, yes, Yellowknife suffers from a diamond labor shortage. Today’s newspapers are carrying huge advertisements in which Deton ‘Cho Diamonds is looking for diamond sawyers, bruters, polishers and brillianteers (with a minimum of five years experience required.) Together with the Rosy Blue and Sirius factories, there are some 150 workers employed in the diamond business. But it is growing.

Across town, public hearings are taking place on De Beers’ Snap Lake mine. The aboriginal leaders are quizzing the De Beers Canada staff, headed by John McConnell, on environmental and socio-economic issues. There is so much happening on the “diamond front” that the Federal Government issued this week a tender for Yellowknife contractors to read the newspapers and submit (electronically) all the local diamond news to the feds in Ottawa.

At the Aurora College another class graduated in diamond studies, which have delivered almost 60 new workers to the labor force in the past three years. The local people have the highest expectations from the added value that will be generated in the diamond business. The decision-makers realize that the success of the Canadian diamond cutting and polishing sector depends on the market premium generated by the diamond brand.

Canadian diamonds are icy clean – none of the problems associated with Africa are affecting their goods. Initially, quite a few major players in the business dismissed manufacturing in Yellowknife as unfeasible – a delusion. They will all turn out to have been wrong.

This conclusion is based on one other event this week: a meeting of the governmental Diamond Committee which will review all the applications of major international diamond manufacturers that have indicated their desire to establish factories here. The local mines and government enjoy the luxury of selecting only the very best.

However, these companies aren’t stupid; they know what they are doing. They realize that within a decade there will probably be four or five additional diamond mines, in Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan or in the NWT. Presently, 50 percent of all worldwide diamond exploration by De Beers, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton is spent in Canada.

More and more players in the diamond industry are gradually getting used to the idea that Canada may well become “bigger” than Russia or Botswana. The best way to secure a position in Canada is by coming in now. Whoever will come now, will find himself in the best of company.