Alan Willy

How did you get your start in the mineral industry?

I don’t know exactly how I, a kid raised in Swift Current in the heart of SW Saskatchewan farming and ranching country, wound up in geology at the University of Saskatchewan. I do remember that in Grade One there was a corner display unit outside our classroom with all sorts of rocks and minerals to interest a 6 year old; in a kid’s imagination galena was silver, pyrite was gold and quartz crystals were diamonds. About the same time I got a Golden Nature Guide stamp book on rocks and minerals from my parents and a bit later an introduction to rock hounding was given to me by my uncle’s brother from B.C. There was not much to collect in my region except for a few fossils, barite and gypsum crystals, beach cobbles and flint arrowheads. I started U of S 1965-66 thinking I would be a chemist with no thought of becoming a geologist. As it turned out my marks were not so good in chemistry! As I had found first year of University a big change from high school, I decided to take a year off to work and returned in 1967 with the thought that I would try every science until I found one I liked. I guess you could say that Dr. Mel Stauffer lured me in to studying geology with his excellent teaching of the Geology 101 course and later having obtained a good paying junior assistant summer job with the Geological Survey of Canada sealed the deal! In 1969, a summer job with the Saskatchewan Geological Survey set me off on my life time career as a mineral exploration geologist.

What was the most fulfilling project you ever worked on, and why?

I would say the most fulfilling project I every worked on was the Kitts-Michelin Uranium Project of Brinex Limited in the Central Mineral Belt of Labrador. I was hired to be the Project Geologist by Dr. Gerald Harper, Senior Geologist for Brinex in 1978. Up to this point in my career I had found it difficult to really test my abilities as a uranium geologist and Brinex gave me the opportunity to hire personnel, plan, budget for and execute this project. The most exciting part of this was the discovery of a line of highly mineralized uraniferous boulders following the ice direction on Melody Hill. The grades were stupendous but, alas, a couple years of intensive surface and diamond drilling exploration could not locate the source of the boulders. Time ran out for uranium by 1982 and that part of my career ended but I felt like I really had been give the opportunity to test my knowledge.