The World Needs More Prospectors
Returning from our prospecting travels, we finally heard some world news and learned about all the shooting and stabbings. What is going on? Why have so many young men given up on their futures? If they had hopes for a better life, would they do all these horrible things and throw away that future?
On those cold nights in our prospecting camps, I read books on the state of our world and was disappointed. Apparently, our young people are hooked on social media, Tick Tock and whatever else there is out there. This is all new to me because I don’t have a Facebook account, can barely use e-mail and don’t like to talk over the phone for more than five minutes. When we’re prospecting, we seldom have cell service so no risk of spending time on the internet.
When I was working in South America, I wouldn’t have contact with the outside world for weeks at a time. Making an international phone call to my wife would take half a day of waiting in line at the one and only international phone booth in the nearest village so I didn’t call home very often.
My thinking was that if I’d just go over that next mountain or take that next sample, I’d hit the big one. The strike that would make the company I was working for a lot of money. It would bring jobs to a part of the world where there weren’t any. The increased wealth creation would enable hospitals to be opened to service people that had never seen a doctor before.
When the company I was working for discovered and developed the Korri Kollo Mine in Bolivia, schools and hospitals were opened. There was also a small business development push so that, especially women, could start small businesses, develop some independence and diminish the scourge of spousal abuse. That was a lot of good resulting from the work prospectors did in discovering a very large gold deposit and I was part of it.
Today, even though we are retired, my wife and I prospect for our own financial benefit and to help rural areas develop jobs. It gives us a good feeling but it’s hard work. Most of the time we find interesting geology but no mineralization so we move on to other areas. I once had a boss that told me: you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a princess; in other words, you have to look at lots of areas before you find something of interest and then you have to sell the idea to a mining company and hope they can sell it to investors to raise money for drill-testing your idea.
Taking a break while sampling for gold in the Nevada '‘quackies.'“
That’s a lot of if’s. But a prospector must have a dream; the future will be better than the past. That he’ll find that outcrop with stringers of gold if he just keeps climbing that mountain or the next mountain. If he gives up, he’ll no longer be a prospector. The old timers would say that “he’d broken his pick.”
We need more young men with the dreams of a prospector. Prospectors don’t need Facebook accounts and don’t rely on social media to tell them what the next fad is or what’s the next cool thing to do. Although I do use the internet to learn where someone found a deposit and what the latest geologic theory is, otherwise, you’re most likely to find me pounding on a rock, wearing hiking boots, jeans, T-shirt and a hat. Guess I wouldn’t make it as an influencer on Tick Tock.
Having dreams doesn’t just apply to prospecting but that’s what I know best so I’ll use the analogy. If more young men put down their phones and picked up a rock hammer looking for that strike, whether it’s gold or something else, hopefully we wouldn’t have all these shootings and stabbings. I think we would have more optimism in the world. The downside is that I would have more competition in finding that next deposit. But that’s OK with me. I hope to see more young men and women in the hills following their dreams - just don’t claim jump me if I find that strike first.
