More than a hundred years have passed; much has changed; and yet so much about mining is the same.

This thought is prompted by reading Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp by Douglas Blackburn.  First published in1898, reprinted in 1908; and now available in a printing from 1989.  Also available as an ebook. 

It is, as the cover tells us, A Tale of Transvaal Officialdom, being incidents in the life of a Transvaal official, as told by his son-in-law Sarel Erasmus, late Public Prosecutor of Prinsloosdorp, Market-Master of Kaalkop, Small-Pox Tax Collector of Schoonspruit, etc., etc. 

In the preface to the 1908 edition, the author assures us: “This portrait of a Transvaal official of the old regime is not a caricature; not one character or incident has been invented, but each and all have had their prototype in actuality.”

The official is Piet Prinsloo, a Voortrekker who comes to the Transvaal, buys a farm, becomes Landdrost of Vrededorp, is verneuked out of his farm on which gold is found, salts his new farm, and becomes Mining Commissioner of Kaalkop.  Through no fault of his own, but owing to the ill-reports in the newspapers, the untrustworthy English, the over-concerned Predikant, and sundry prying officials in Pretoria who demand account of the money paid him as Mining Commissioner, he and his family trek to Rhodesia.

In this slim book of but 134 pages, we come to love, admire, despise, and laugh at Piet.  But we recognize that he and his type were real and still are real.  The same situations occur today in spite of sanctimonious pronouncements by politicians, academics, and starry-eyed young ladies.  It is still the pursuit of money with which to clothe the vrou and educate the kerels. 

You must read it and to encourage you, here is how he lost his first farm:

When a gold reef was at last found on it [his farm], and he sold the farm, he was again verneuked by science.  A Johannesburg syndicate had offered him twenty-five thousand pounds, and he was going to ride into the Rand and get the money, when the great John Brown, who is what is now called a millionaire, came to the farm.

“Piet,” said he, “I will give you a hundred thousand pounds for the farm; not in pieces of paper like those swindling Johannesburg Uitlanders, but in golden sovereigns, Kruger’s and Queen Victoria’s,” and Brown showed him a bag full of more gold than he had ever seen.  Next he showed Piet a long writing, which, being in the Taal, he could almost understand, for it was not like the Uitlander’s agreement, which was in English, and full of strange words.  So Piet signed it without first consulting Katrina [his wife.]

Brown counted out the money.  First he counted one hundred sovereigns, and Piet, who could not write arithmetic, laid them out in rows on the table, like spans of oxen, sixteen in a span, for he knew that six spans made one hundred less four.  Next Brown counted out one thousand, which took Piet a very long time to check, for one thousand is sixty-two spans.

“There,” said Brown, “goes one hundred; there goes a thousand–one hundred thousand.”

This tale of verneukery continues.  I leave it to you to get the book to see what transpires.  Piet gets his own back on the Uitlanders when he salts his new farm.

Sometimes the story is, to our modern ears, brutal.  Be prepared but not judgmental.  Recall that my paternal grandmother was of Boer stock and they fought the Uitlanders and were incarcerated in the concentration camps.  It is a long time ago. 

To end this posting, I come right up to today and mining in South Africa.  Today, I received this email:

Good day sir: I once read an article where you commented and attached your email address. I thought it would be beneficial to get in contact with you. My name is Freddy Kaniki, a 3^rd year mining engineering student from Wits University. Over the years I have applied to numerous mining engineering companies but to no avail even though I grew up in South Africa ever since I was 6 months old. I am in desperate need of a bursary or any assistance that will allow me to get vacation work-without which I cannot graduate due to lack of exposure in the industry. My plea to you is for assistance in any form for me to get a bursary or putting me in contact with Mining companies where I can complete my vacation work assignments. Thank you for understanding, God bless you.

Can anybody help this young man?  Surely there is a way!  When Australian mining conference pontificate, why can this young man not get help?  If you can help him, his email is Freddy Kaniki freddy.kaniki@yahoo.com>

At this link is the site for a conference described by its organizers in these words:

The Mining for Development Conference 2013 provides an opportunity for governments, communities, companies, industry representatives and civil societies to discuss ways to ensure that mining activity contributes to economic and social development.

Here are details of the organizers:

In partnership with the Australian Government, The University of Western Australia and The University of Queensland have established the International Mining for Development Centre to assist in lifting the quality of life in developing nations through a more sustainable use of mineral and energy resources.

IM4DC commenced operations in October 2011 to assist in improving incomes, employment, enterprise opportunities and life outcomes for people in rural and urban areas of developing countries. IM4DC facilitates establishment of world class mining industries to boost overall economic development. The benefits of the work of IM4DC for developing nations are realised principally through increased skill levels of key personnel within government, universities, research institutions and civil society organisations to bring about:

• Improved policies and practices in the governance and management of extractive industries and their interactions with society and the environment
• Improved legislative frameworks
• Improved knowledge of a country’s resources base
• An ability to continue to build local capacity in minerals governance and mining.

At this link are summaries of the papers being presented at the ongoing conference.  Browsing at random through the summaries, I chanced on the following:

“An African Progress Panel chaired by Kofi Annan stated that the key to managing nonrenewable resources successfully is a coherent long-term national strategy, embracing all stakeholders that can convert temporary natural resource wealth into the permanent human capital that can expand opportunities across generations,” said Mr Lowcock.

The panel identified five main components:

1. An enduring contract between governments and citizens sustaining the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

2. Ensuring the benefits are distributed sustainably across society, both by spending on basic services, but also by putting in place the infrastructure and skills needed to foster inclusive growth.

3. Progressively strengthening the linkages between the extractives sector and local markets, maximizing value added.

4. Developing resources in a way that protects and benefits host communities, and safeguards the natural environment

5. Providing civil society groups with the political space to monitor what is going on, including in contracts, concessions and licensing agreements.

This sound so impressive that I am converted.  Now which country were we talking about again?  Must be Australia, right; or is it Guatemala? It cannot be South Africa, for sure; they cannot afford to pay the workers what they want. 

No matter; this ranks high as being the best of the best of conference keynotes.  Absolutely unassailable, unarguable, and unimplementable.

Or maybe the country being talked about is Afghanistan.  Hear the words of the honorable minister:

His Excellency Mr Wahidullah Shahrani, the Minister of Mines for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan discussed the nature of these challenges and the opportunities that remain. Mr Shahrani described the vast mineral wealth that lies under Afghani soil, which has a potential value of between US$1 trillion and $US3 trillion dollars – even with less than ten percent of the country’s geology surveyed in detail. Mr Shahrani said that within 10 years mineral extraction could contribute up to $1.5 billion annually to Afghanistan’s economy, and up to US$3 billion in a further three or four years. This would see mining contribute approximately 40 percent of the country’s economy, and lead to the creation of 500,000 long term jobs. But he said the mining sector’s growth to date was hindered by Afghanistan’s history of conflict, and the limitations associated with state ownership and centralised planning. The government has subsequently recognised the importance of the private sector and made changes to its legal and regulatory environment to attract private investment. This has included the transformation of the Ministry for Mines and Petroleum from an owner/operator to a policy maker and regulator.

Can these sentiments survive the pullout of American forces?  We surely hope so.  Afterall the Chinese are already mining there under the protection of boys from the American MidWest. 

Then there is Mrs. Ejigu from Ethopia:

Mrs Ejigu said that to stimulate and diversify the discussion around the topic, they have established the African Mining Development Centre and are encouraging political ownership of these issues among African governments. “Previously, the mining sector in Africa was not linked to social development and it was considered a curse,” she said.“But it was not the commodities that were cursed but the management of them that was a curse. This has to be changed.”

She says that political leaders in Africa must take ownership and link the development of resources to social and economic development of their countries, to take their people out of poverty. That means changing the mindset of mining companies. “Just extracting and going is no longer good enough,” Mrs Ejigu said. She noted that the Ethiopian government is committed to the mining sector.“The wealth that can be generated can never be a curse but viewed as a critical part of our growth and will support poverty reduction.”

I cannot resist closing this piece with the following rant that hit my email this morning.  I do not know who wrote it, but it is radical and at odds with the positive tone of the above-mentioned conference.  Shows there is still a lot to do.

I think we all need a history lesson and some critical independent thinking. Following the multiple dam busts of the 1990s (Omai,Los Frailes, Marinduque) the global  industry launched a branding campaign asserting mining as “sustainable” with a focus on environmental sustainability and set itself the goal of getting that language into the  text. Around that time I can remember a PDAC session where one of the industry presenters was showcasing environmental processes to assure minimal environmental  impacts from massive waste rock and tailings impoundments stating “we are really a waste management industry.” In the 2000s social issues came to the fore,human rights abuses, the realities of the resource curse, and lo and behold, the industry rebranded itself (starting with a series of meetings organized by ICMM in the early 2000s) and started to assert, against near overwhelming real world evidence, that mining equals development. This was paired with a major push to get language linking mining and development into the Rio text. And lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago in a multi-stakeholder meeting I heard a mining executive claim ” we are really a development industry.”

If just saying so over and over, and getting language into global texts, made it true we would all be better off. But hard facts and reality on the ground the world over seriously get in the way of this nice story. It is time to recognize that the emperor has no clothes. Large scale mining is still what it has always been, a business with huge returns for a very small elite based on extracting non-renewable and finite wealth from the earth. The local environmental and social impacts during mining are still devastating with more losers than winners, particularly in developing countries and in remote and vulnerable communities in developed countries, and exacerbate poverty in ways not offset by CSR or local development projects. The national impacts of investor-state agreements that favour the company, and of transfer pricing arrangements and capital flight to tax havens around the world is equally devastating at the level of national economies in most developing countries. And when we start to look seriously
at the very long term legacy costs that the industry is still not willing to take on (re: Robert’s story below), we begin to realize just how dearly and how long term we are all going to pay for the outsized profits and wealth accumulation of a few today. In Canada alone there are thousands of legacy sites that the tax payers now have to pay to clean up and manage: a bill that is already in the billions of dollars – and counting….

Those who are not fooled by branding exercises and wishful thinking are the growing numbers of community members who oppose mining the world over, often at great costs to themselves, and those who are fighting to make protective provisions such as FPIC real, and the growing number of governments who are taking a harder look at the contracts they sign, insisting on better returns, banning certain kinds of mining altogether (at the risk of being sued), or insisting on permit conditions that protect the state and tax payers in poor countries from future costs.

At this link is a magnificent collection of photos of some of the largest mining open pits and meteorite craters.  The text that accompanies the photos is prejudiced: the message is that mining open pits have forever changed the landscape–although craters have had similar impact.  You are left wondering what the writers really think. 

I am in Iowa and this is a landscape like no other in North America.  Without going in to detail, about 14,000 years ago glaciers retreated leaving behind rich clay-covered lands that now are highly productive of corn, soya bean, and the accompanying pigs, chickens, and breakfast cereals that “consume” said agricultural products.

The topography of Iowa is like no other: random, with flat areas in between crazy vallies, mounds, and wetlands on no erosional logic.  It all reflects the happenstance of melting glaciers in last retreat. 

Most of the flat land is corn and soya bean field.  Where the land is rugged with vallies and mounds, are the dwelling places of the rich.

Today I spent a magic time on the 60 acre estate just recently bought by the son of old friends.  We walked with grandkids and kids along grass lanes bordered by trees and ferns more lush than anything Disney ever imagined.  We saw a deer bounding across the grass to a distant rise.  We saw the sun dappled through the trees and the pond rippled by a light breeze.

The old house on the rise with a view is enormous: lots of small rooms and vain decorations.  He and his wife will pull down walls, remove wall paper, tear out carpets, and make big, modern open spaces with money from parents who worked hard and did well, passing the money to the kids who now confess: “I do not know what I am going to do.”

“Maybe I will buy old tractors at auctions, fix the tractors up, and sell them to equally rich collectors.  At least that will keep money moving through the system.”

His mother, who must be a multi-millionaire, still drives an old Mercury and frets about buying car seats for the grandkids at the Goodwill Store.  She frets that “people are made to work.”  But frets about two sons now luxuriating in unearned money, lack of skills, and the pleasure of doing nothing in particular.

Just a few miles away, I visited with an ex-son-in-law.  At forty, he is still studying for something through one of those commercial colleges that provide him with large scholarships of government money.  They seem to teach him nothing that can be turned into a paying job.  Yet he persists, determined in the belief that, well-educated, he will get the high salary job and lots of money.  Meanwhile he studies at taxpayer expense, sprout Libertarian philosophy, sleeps with the new girlfriend, and looks after his six kids, the eldest of whom may start work next week at the local hardware store if he can pull himself aways from the vicious girlfriend. 

I remarked that these two instance prove the American way:  many of all socio-economic strata do not work, do not produce, but live good lives on money from parents, taxpayers, and the wealth that underpins the system.  It is not a Democrat or Republican thing; this is a competitive system that rewards those who work, supports those who need, and makes so much money that all can eat and sex well.

In a dull strip mall in a vast, dreary room of ugly proportions and excessive sound, I met those who are the leaders of the local construction union.  They are young, motivated, hardworking, and from my perspective, honest, decent, and motivated.  We talked of union politics; demands for an extra four to eight percent; the intrusion of non-union contractors to build the new university buildings; and the struggle to survive on fifty thousand a year.

I am in town to celebrate the graduation as a civil engineer of my younger daughter.  I cried as she and the other new civil graduates passed over the stage to get their degrees.  I reveled in conversation with the professors who taught them.  I laughed and cried with the parents of the other girls who graduated as civil engineers with her, and their bright futures at seventy to one hundred thousand a year.  I am jealous over their decisions to do masters and doctors degrees at the great university that is the University of Iowa.  The future is theirs–what a wonderful promise and achievement.

I looked at the farms, the 60-acre estates, the dull bars where they drink, the union hall where they cooperate against venial corporations, the varsity halls of learning, and the small apartments where they live, and I am encouraged.  For surely out of this diversity will come renewal and new life.  Surely the deadweight of untaxed, inherited wealth, the moribund union demands, and the despair of not knowing what to do will be overcome by these new graduates and their new skills as civil engineers.  For as civil engineers, we are charged with using the forces of nature for the benefit of mankind. 

I know they will live up to this ancient and noble charge.

In the post just below this post (at this link), I wrote about a project manager for a consulting company who won’t let the engineers talk to the client.    He retains the sole right to communicate with the client.  I have never hitherto come across so adamant a mandate of exclusive communication. 

I have often managed projects; I have often been the mere engineer on the project; I have often been the specialist on the project.  As project manager, I always encouraged the project staff to communicate with the client.  As engineer and specialist I have always been encouraged to communicate with the client. 

Let us define communication.  Of course letters and memos from the consultant to the client are signed by the project manager before issue to the client.  That is simply common sense. 

Of course, we have always been careful to select those who attended meetings with the client.  They have always been carefully vetted and trained in appropriate communication and information transfer.  And of course, in any meeting with the client, the consultant’s project manager has the final say, at least one step behind the client’s project manager.  That is just common-sense meeting management. 

In many projects, there occur informal interactions between client staff and consultant staff.  You cannot stop people talking.  Of course the consultant junior who blows smoke and wafts weird in casual conversations with clients does not last long or progress far.  That is simply the way the world is. 

Those three instances of communication are however, but a pale shadow of the deeper communication edict that I wrote of in the preceding post.  I was probably thinking when I wrote more fo the following which I dredge from the past and a consulting practice that was just beginning and is now a success.  This is what they wrote and disseminated. 

• All staff will be encouraged to develop and deal with their own clients in pursuit of the ideal that the consulting practice is a series of practices under a unifying and supporting umbrella;
• Every staff member will stand on his/her own legs and not need the consulting practice for job security, but want to be with a larger group for the satisfaction and effectiveness of teamwork and participation in the type of project that a larger team attracts;
• Work for fun and profit — work is not enjoyable or sustainable unless both objectives are satisfied;
• Will pursue growth where growth takes/leads. The consulting practice is not in business to grow a business, it is in business providing professional services that staff decide to offer and that fill client needs;
• Will diversify in association, discipline and location to better serve clients, diversify risks and increase the interest value to staff and gain international technology;
• Will promote technology development and training and share knowledge and technology with the broad surrounding profession;
• Will function as extensions to client offices as part of client team.

That is such a far cry from the follow I previously wrote of who said:  “I have managed projects of 800 people.  I never let the engineers talk to the client.  That is what project managers are for–to talk to the client. I am here to take over this project and make it happen.”  Or when his boss said: “Get the engineers involved only when it comes to analyzing the embankment stability.”

To further promote discussion of this issue, I repeat here parts of some of the comments from the original posting.

Comment 1:  I cannot agree more. Too many “Project Managers” from engineering firms think they know it all. In most cases they know little.

Comment 2.  As a Project Manager AND and an Engineer, I fully support the statement from this fellow. This is Project Management 101. There must be only ONE channel for communication between client and contractor/consultant. That channel is through the respective Project Managers. I have seen countless projects cocked-up through well-intentioned engineers and technical experts tweaking this and optimising that, to the point that the scope of work no longer fulfills the Client’s original design brief. Remember, even three-ring circuses have a Ringmaster. That Ringmaster is the Project Manager.

Comment 3.  Nothing wrong with bringing in a guy to “make it happen”. We have all been involved in projects with numerous meetings, everyone attending, with the outcome of the meeting is to have another meeting. The do’ers on the team generally appreciate a manager who moves things forward; the slackers on the team don’t like this since it forces real decisions to be made rather than having more meetings.

“I have managed projects of 800 people.  I never let the engineers talk to the client.  That is what project managers are for–to talk to the client. I am here to take over this project and make it happen.”

The above is not a figment of my imagination.   It is a real statement by a fellow I met today.  

I am at loss for words to describe my response.  One young engineer confided to me: “I will not work for him.”

Another specialist asked: “How can you get good ideas raised and evaluated?”  

“Internally.” was the answer.

The sheer arrogance of this fellow astounds me.  His incredible confidence in self frightens me.

His boss said: “Get the engineers involved only when it comes to analyzing the embankment stability.”

My reply: “What is the point of a conceptual design done without the engineers?  What is the point of analyzing a concept that is wrong and unengineerable? Why compare impossible-to-build alternatives?”

My sympathy is with the clients beguiled by such over-confidence and misplaced arrogance.  It alll sounds good in meetings, but there is no substance to the advice or subsequent decisions.  Yet the client pays for all this consultants’ bullshit.

Maybe peer review is the answer.  At least that is my advice to clients: demand an independent peer review report before you belive or act on the advice of any consultant.  It cost lots of money, for peer reviewers are expensive.  Yet it is worth every cent. 

No matter how much confidence you have as a client in your chosen consultant, make sure another, independent consultant as peer reviewer looks over the chosen consultants work before you decide, act, or commit funds.

I am in Huntington Beach, California and thus California Dreaming.  Or at least living the dream that is Orange County—a bastion of white, Hispanic, and Vietnamese wealth, power, and privilege.  The Bentley now stands outside the small townhouse where once (fifteen years ago) there stood a cheap American car driven by old people, now dead.  The hue of colors at the pier is vast–although, thankfully, there are still young ladies in bikinis (of all hue) on roller-blades bedecking the streets.  As my son once said: “Dad, no man should be enabled to fall in love so often during a mere walk down the street.”

The people are still conservative and reactionary.  The man with prostate cancer who is without a job and subsists on charity said to me over cigars: “I won’t pay Obama-care for people who do not work.”

He has not worked in years; he subsists on unemployment insurance & hand-outs from friends, including my son-in-law, a school friend.  He rides his Harley to great noise.  He cleans garages and paints the boats moored in the many marinas, and generally is happy for his son and two daughters who subsist by means he will not discuss.

The Republican who had to sell the apartment in Newport Beach to pay taxes admits the Republicans have lost their way: “My daughter is back living with us and drawing the great American comic book. Her gay friends are now all married and she is without community as of yore.”

The grandchildren now both go to karate and kick high & fierce.  The ex-wife drives a Honda Pilot and sells designer jewelry of non-blood diamonds.  New Priuses drape the driveway.  High-end eating places serve large helpings of over-spiced food to fat people.  The local bike store sports $6,000 road bikes that I desire and lust after with passion.  My grandson and I spent happy hours examining these bikes and dreaming.

Mining is obviously a topic with those I dinnered with.  We work internationally and bemoaned politics in Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada.  We shook our heads in sympathy with a mining lawyer grown old & incompetent–his Chinese clients must now seek elsewhere for legal advice on opening mines in California.  We fondly recollected his late wife, a mining landsman.  She died so young and vigorous.  “Remember that last meal in the Italian place in Dana Point?”

I could go on thus forever; but why?  So here are a few pictures of this land so near and yet so far.

Yesterday in the post just below this post, I bemoaned the fact that there is no general model or method out there to estimate the cost of mine tailings management.  That issue remains valid today.

I have however, been informed that there is a cost model for gold heap leach pads.  It is compiled by Fred A. Leonard.  He currently provide service via his private consulting practice in Winnemucca, Nevada.  Contact me for his phone number.

His model is generally available through CostMine. 

Incidently, if you want to learn more about heap leach pad design, construction, operation, and closure go to the EduMine course at this link.

Or come to the conference later this year on heap leach pads.  See this link.

It costs between $1 and $40 a ton to build, operate, and close a mine tailings facility.  That is as specific as I was able to be when answering a question today in response to an enquiry from Australia.  There is a surprising paucity of data out there on the cost of tailings management.  We have details of salaries & wages.  We know the compensation of mining company executives.  We know how much it costs to engage and retain even the most expensive consultant.  But we have no data-base on tailings costs.

There are many reasons for this mystery.  First is that tailings management costs are site-specific.  Second is that they are not very exciting—most folk want to know what they should earn, and care little about tailings costs.  Third, nobody has set out to gather and publish the data.  Forth, most mines probably do not know or care.

Maybe we should plead with the folk at CostMine to address this cost deficiency.  Maybe CostMine could survey mines and ask them what their tailings costs are and publish the data to our edification & delight.

Failing that we are left with the old-fashion methods:  list operations; list quantities; establish unit rates; and work it all out.   There is only one man that I would trust to do it accurately.  Contact me if you want his name.

Keep in mind that as in all mining estimating, you will have to attend to varying degrees of accuracy depending on the mine planning phase.  It in prefeasibility, the accuracy is low; if in feasibility, the accuracy is reasonable; if in detailed design, the accuracy should be precise; if constructing & operating, the costs are actual; and if going to closure, well best shudder, pay, or say you are bankrupt.

I would guess that in a nice climate, the cost of conventional slurry, hydraulic fill tailings deposition is $1 to $3 a ton.  Add $2 to $3 if the climate is arid and you have to desalinate or pump long distances.  Get involved in thickened tailings and the promise (false) that it offers, and you must add $3 to $5.  I do not comment on paste tailings on surface, for I do not believe it is viable at any cost.

If you choose to filter press and dry stack, you are in for $5 to $10 a ton.  But consider the cost savings associated with a lesser water cost.  And beware the potential need to add cement to control moisture content and get a required strength.  Cement is expensive.

And if you go for polymer amendment remember the sky is the limit.  Polymer amendment works—that I can attest—but even the consultants are costly.

In conclusion, do not seek industry averages, for they are meaningless.  Get a qualified cost estimator and work out the detailed costs.

Good luck and let us know what you conclude.

One of the miracles of the free-market system is that when one person sells a share, there is another who is buying.  Who are the current buyers when all are seemingly selling?

I chatted today to one buyer.  We meet occasionally outside at the back of the office building for a smoke. Our conversations are casual as is the advice/opinions re investment in this blog posting.

He is 75 and rich.  He still works a full day as a stock buyer & seller.  Except for a thirty minute snooze after lunch.

He confided to me that he believes the current downturn in mining is a two to three year thing.  “It will be a long time before we see the crazy prices of yore,” he said.

“”But I buy selectively,” he said.  “For there are some great bargains out there.  Of course I can afford to wait three years.  I can afford to loose lots in return for long-term profit.  I concentrate on value mines, on potential, on the promise of the future.”

He still believes that the rest of the dispossessed world wants to live like we do, and that mining is the only way they will ever be able to live as we do, regardless of what David Suzuki says.  “People do not eat scenery; they do not raise kids from working as tour guides or recycling plastic.  You must grow the food fertilized by potash mines, take the kids to soccer with oil sands bitumen, and heat with coal or uranium.”

“And I believe I can and will make money investing in this future.  This I do for my kids and grandkids.”

So patience, persistence, and long-term perspective when investing now in falling mining shares.  Let us know how you fare/fair.

In the heat that now, unseasonably, envelops Vancouver, we rode yesterday some twenty-eight kilometers up the Lower Seymour Reserve.   All the way up to the salmon hatchery and beyond to a new view-point looking over the dam and reservoir.

Our road bikes did well on the asphalt.  We had to go slow along the gravel path through the old-growth forest.  But it was worth it.  My riding companion, shed shirt and pants to dip, very briefly, in the icy cold river.  I sat dangling feet in the water and admiring the scenery.

Which brings me to the topic of this posting: a job as a translator in the mining industry.  For the riding companion is from Quebec, and is fully bilingual.

“Why not take a job as a translator in mining?  Get to know  something of the mining industry; get to know the technical terms; get to know the players–those who need people fluent in both languages?”

I have had the chance to benefit from translators skilled in mining.  Many meetings in Santiago where there was simultaneous translation.  Some conferences; some meetings; some one-to-one discussions.  None would have been as productive as they were if the translator had not been there.

Two of my EduMine courses have been translated into Spanish and they are busy on the third—the one on tailings.  I have had to answer many a question of content and smooth rough English into smooth Spanish.  It is fascinating to go read one’s own writings in Spanish.  “Could I really be that eloquent?”

Thus if you have a facility for language, consider translating in mining.  You could join those professional companies that provide translators on demand & contract.  You could join one of the larger mining companies with operations in many provinces and states.  Or just freelance.  All my reports for Guatemala have been translated by a skilled lady working freelance out of her house.

Let us know if you know of other opportunities for translators in mining.