The Big Hole

In the same year that Jesse James robbed his first bank, some younger boys on the other side of the world were playing alongside a river in South Africa. The year was 1866. The place the boys called home was not that different from the American West. They lived near Hopetown, a small community on the northern edge of the Karoo desert, near the Orange River.  It was a day like many others. On that particular day, one of the boys found a pebble with a yellowish tinge on the ground. He liked it and decided to keep it as a toy. Sometime later, 15-year-old Erasmus Jacobs handed it to a neighbouring farmer, who asked about it because he enjoyed collecting unusual stones. The farmer eventually passed it along to a wandering peddler. The traveller in turn sent the stone in an ordinary envelope to a man who knew something about gems and minerals in another town hundreds of kilometres away. It turned out to be a rather special find.  Dr. William Atherstone of Grahamstown identified the stone as a 21.25 carat diamond.  It was the first diamond found in South Africa...and what a diamond.

Eureka

A large gem was cut from that original crystal and it was given the name of Eureka, for its historical significance.  A year later, it had achieved fame and was shown at the 1867 Paris Exhibition.

Back in Africa, Lady Luck seemed to be wandering around Hopetown in disguise. About three years after Erasmus Jacobs had given the pebble to his neighbour, that very same farmer, a man whose sharp eye for gems evidently had become even sharper, did not misread a second opportunity. He came across a young native shepherd who had found another stone. The farmer must have liked what he saw because he immediately turned his back on his own livelihood, trading practically all of his animals to the boy in exchange for the gem. In giving up five hundred sheep, ten oxen and a horse, Schalk van Niekerk made his fortune and changed the future of South Africa.

The shepherd had found a large crystal of 83.50 carats.  Van Niekerk sold it for $56,000.  It made its way to Europe and was fashioned into the spectacular 47.69 carat, pear-shaped Star of South Africa jewel.

It started a Southern diamond rush.

Birth of a mine

In a very short time, 800 claims were staked on the little hillock believed to sit atop vast diamond fields. The hill, "Colesberg Copje," stood on land owned by the DeBeers brothers.  Miners arrived in their thousands and, ant-like, started working their way down into the ground. The DeBeers company was founded at this time by Cecil Rhodes, who had arrived at the beginning of the rush and rented water pumps to the miners.

The hill soon vanished and the site became known as the Big Hole. From 1871 until 1914, many thousands of men, using just basic hand tools, picks and shovels and trowels, dug deeper and deeper, eventually removing more than 2,700 kilograms of diamonds.  The town of Kimberley sprang up at its edge.

The Big Hole is still there, 463 metres wide and 240 metres deep. It has since been filled by about 40 metres of water that accumulated over time.  The Hole is one of the largest hand-dug pits anywhere in the world. More sophisticated mining operations continued underground far beneath the hole for some time. Altogether, the mine shafts extended to a depth of over 1,000 metres.

As an immigrant living in South Africa, I visited Kimberley with my family back in the 1960s. Being a child at the time, I could identify with 15-year-old Erasmus Jacobs.

My dad snapped the photograph shown above.  The place is impressive. When you see it for the first time, your stomach churns.


Notes:
For other giant wonders, including the Diavik diamond mine in Canada and another one in Russia, see Top 10 Strange Holes in the World

Artists

It's a beautiful summer day in Vancouver. The wonderful thing about a lazy weekend afternoon is that the mind feels free to wander back and forth, from ideas about the future, to things lived in the past, to concepts we rarely consider during the busy work week.  I'm thinking about movies, books and conversations about creativity. Browsing through this blog, I run across something I had posted a few years ago. It seems to fit with the present train of thought:
 
The posting was about a quote from American novelist William Faulkner in an industry newsletter sent to me by e-mail.

I had been wondering how to define art. That's a difficult and subjective thing.  Yet there it was, in Faulkner's words, clear and neat:

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by 
artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when 
a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life."

I don't know if you agree, but I think that's very good indeed.

It's a good reference point for a summer day thinking about movies and stories and illustrations.

Okanagan wine country

Visiting a close relative in Kelowna (British Columbia) on a rainy autumn weekend, my wife and I decided to take a drive through the Okanagan Valley, well-known as an important wine-producing region in Canada.

We thought we'd drive south from Kelowna and visit some of the wineries in the area before heading back to Vancouver.

The OkanaganValley is long and narrow, about 160 kilometres in all, running in a north-south direction from Vernon to the U.S. border. Several deep, narrow lakes fill the valley floor, dominated by the largest which gives its name to the entire valley.

It's ideally suited for wine production because it sits in an area of "rain shadow," between the Coastal and Monashee mountains. Rainfall in this valley is lower than in other parts of the province as most precipitation falls on the western, or Pacific, side of the Coastal range. The long summer days and bright sunlight favour grape ripening, while the lake air limits temperature extremes. The micro-climates along the sides of the valley offer unique wine growing opportunities.

We started off with a visit to Cedar Creek Winery, on the east side of Lake Okanagan, across the water from Mission Hill, the region's biggest winery. Cedar Creek in contrast is a mid-sized operation, producing about 38,000 cases of wine per year. It commands a beautiful view of the lake. Like all the wineries in the area, the owners offer tours and wine tastings. In the vineyard, we admired some bright rose bushes. They serve an important purpose. Roses are the first plants to attract pest infestations and serve as a valuable signal of any impending hazards to the grapes.

Each of the wineries we visited referred to the importance of the aging process in oak barrels. Cedar Creek buys ninety-five percent of their barrels from France, where oak trees have been grown for this purpose for hundreds of years. Janet, our guide, showed us three special barrels that were made from a tree that was planted in France back in 1650. The other five percent of barrels used at the winery come from American oaks. Each kind of oak imparts a unique flavour to the wine. We were told that each barrel holds enough wine to fill 300 bottles. The cellar was filled with many rows of them. The barrels are not cheap. We were told they cost about $1,200 each.

A fire almost destroyed the estate in 2003. Fortunately, the wine maker had previous experience with forest fires in California and he organized men and earth-moving equipment to dig a fire break around the property. Before evacuating, he soaked the buildings and the trees. The fire spared the winery, but damaged the one next door. It was a devastating event for the town, as more than 230 homes in the area were destroyed.

Later we crossed the Kelowna bridge and visited Quails' Gate winery, where we ate an early evening dinner in the restaurant. We looked down the hill at all the vine rows stretching towards the lake, this time on the west bank. Proving the estate's name was not mere fancy, we saw a family of quail strutting between the plants. To the south, the sandy-coloured Mission Hill bell tower rose above the evergreens on the hill.

This part of West Kelowna is also interesting for another reason: the nearby Mt. Boucherie winery sits on the side of a dormant volcano. Boucherie mountain rises only 417 meters above sea level, but tens of millions of years ago it was much higher, standing at approximately 2,000 meters . The combined effects of wind erosion and glacial ice sheets have reduced its size and rounded it's top. However, the volcanic rock is very visible and it's a still favourite spot for climbers and geologists.

The next day we headed south on our way to Penticton. We drove down through Peachland and Summerland and admired the changing scenery on both sides of lake. Since the 1980s, the Okanagan has attracted more investment each year. Over 200 wineries are now located in the region. Daytime temperatures in the northern part of the valley are on average about 4 degrees Celsius cooler than the southern reaches. The soil in the north tends to be composed of clay and gravel, while in the south it's sandier. For these reasons, white grapes grow better in the north, while red grapes, which require warmer temperatures and more sunlight, do better in the south. Common varietals in the north are Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Riesling. Southern varietals are Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah.

We learned that all along the valley grapes are grown on geographical features named "benches." These are outcroppings on the hillsides that favour agriculture and benefit from moderate air rising from the lake, afternoon sun and reflected heat off the rocky ridges behind them.

Near Penticton, we visited the small Nichol winery on the "Naramata Bench," rising on the east side of Lake Okanagan. It has a rock face to its back and fields sloping down towards the water. Because of the rain that day we were the only ones in the wine shop, so we had a lengthy chat with the seller and enjoyed the wine tasting. Harvesting this year will be weeks behind schedule because the cool, wet spring and the early fall is retarding grape ripening.

Lake Okanagan ends at Penticton, and a short distance south from there you encounter Skaha Lake on the way to Okanagan Falls. Along the way we saw a large group of aboriginal people performing a kind of ceremony on the banks of a river. We continued on towards Oliver. The country here starts to change, looking more arid. Sage makes its appearance on the hillsides and fruit tree plantations dominate the valley floor. The region between Oliver and Osoyoos on the U.S. border is actually the northern tip of the Sonoran desert. The Sonora, in various forms, starts in the Baja Peninsula and extends all the way up the western part of North America behind the rain shadow of the coastal mountain ranges.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the Burrowing Owl winery, halfway between Oliver and Osoyoos on the "Black Sage Bench, " not far from Lake Osoyoos. This large winery grows over 13,000 acres of varietals. Owned by the Wyse family, this estate commands a great view of the valley and the lake to the south, arid mountains at its back.

The proximity of the mountains sometimes brings surprises. An employee told us that few days earlier a bear cub had visited the fields. "We won't begrudge the bears a few grapes," he said. The area also is home to snakes, so pickers need to be careful. The winery has guest rooms, a pool and a large restaurant, among other attractions.

That evening we headed west again, rising up from Osoyoos to enter the Similkameen Valley. As we drove towards the dimming sun along the Crowsnest Highway, we were treated to extraordinary mountain scenery and unspoiled landscapes. We passed through a string of towns that owe their heritage to the gold rush of the 1860s and now focus on agriculture and ranching. We continued home with our few bottles of wine in the trunk. The Similkameen Valley deserves another trip of its own.


Links:

Cedar Creek winery
Mission Hill winery
Quails' Gate winery
Mt. Boucherie winery
Nichol vineyard
Burrowing Owl winery
The Okanagan Valley

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I try to find time to write short articles about things that interest me.
Some are posted on Helium.com.
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