Brian Testo, better known as ‘Griz’, is the man behind the latest discovery of diamonds in northern Alberta. His company, Grizzly Diamonds, reported last week a ‘highly encouraging’ result from a small sample of ore from a kimberlite formation about 45 kilometres northeast of Red Earth Creek .
Testo told The Leader in a phone interview last week that the kimberlite (a volcanic rock formation that sometimes contains diamonds) designated BE-02 is “hugely diamondiferous,” based on results from a 56-kilogram sample.
“The majority of kimberlites don’t have diamonds,” Testo says. “But when they do, it’s really something.”
Testo describes himself as a former pipeliner and prospector who was the first to stake a diamond claim in Alberta, back in 1988. He used to stake claims and then sell them, he says, but more recently has gotten more into development of his claims, of which he says he currently has three million acres in Alberta.
On its claims near Red Earth, Grizzly Diamonds has located two kimberlites, one of which turned up the encouraging diamond results. Testo says the company plans more test drilling this summer.
Kimberlites are nothing new for the Buffalo Head Hills area. A company called Ashton Mining found more than 20 of them there, beginning in the mid-1990s. It went as far as to extract bulk samples after finding diamonds in smaller samples from several. But the company’s enthusiasm for the project wore off after a few years and a couple of takeovers, and not much has been heard from its Alberta project in recent years.
Testo figures Ashton missed the boat on the Alberta opportunity.
“If Ashton had spent a little more time and money in Alberta they wouldn’t have been taken over,” he says, adding that in his opinion, Alberta is the right place to be looking for diamonds.
Ashton’s Buffalo Hills properties are now owned by Encana (43 per cent), Shore Gold and Diamondex, with the latter being the operator of the programs. A news item on the Diamondex website says the company is proceeding with a $7 million plan for further sampling of some of the kimberlites discovered and sampled earlier by Ashton.

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