A October 08 www. bus- ex. com 111 De Beers Canada long and winding road reached a milestone in July with the historic offi cial opening of two new diamond mines in Canada. On Friday 25 July, De Beers Canada cut the ribbon on its Snap Lake mine, located 220- kilometres northeast of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. The very next day, the celebrations moved to the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario for the opening of a second mine, Victor. These events are historic for a number of reasons. Although the name De Beers is synonymous with diamonds ( the company has been involved in all aspects of the diamond business since 1888, and is recognized internationally as the industry leader) Snap Lake is the fi rst mine to be opened by De Beers outside of Africa. It's not Canada's fi rst diamond mine, of course. That honor belongs to BHP Billiton's Ekati mine, opened in 1998. A second diamond mine, Diavik, opened in 2002, owned by a joint venture between the Harry Winston Diamond Corporation and Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group. Both of these mines are also in the Northwest Territories. A third mine, Jericho, was opened in 2006 but closed about 18 months later after the owner, Tahera Corp., fi led for bankruptcy protection. So technically, Snap Lake is Canada's fourth diamond mine and Victor is the fi fth. De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer, grandson of Ernest, the fi rst Oppenheimer to chair the De Beers diamond mining company in After writing last year about De Beers' progress towards its fi rst diamond mine in Canada, Martin Ashcroft fi nally has the opportunity to cover not one, but two offi cial openings Offi cialopenings