Jane Gaffin is a Whitehorse-based freelance writer who specializes in mining.

Ron Berdahl has recently discovered what is believed to be Canada's first emerald showing. For his spectacular find, made within the last month, the Yukon Prospectors' Association named Berdahl the 1997 Prospector of the Year.

The 39-year-old will be honored during the Geoscience Forum's banquet at the Gold Rush Inn this Monday evening.

Selection is made by a nomination process, explained YPA president Jim McFaull. Names are put forward and were voted on by ballot at the November prospectors' meeting.

Berdahl, who is the YPA's vice-president, missed the vote. He was delayed elsewhere and came to the meeting late.

"He was notified of the results just as he walked into the room," McFaull laughed heartily. "By the time he rolled in, he'd already been nominated, elected, chosen and blessed."

Berdahl muttered humbly that he thought the celebration should be postponed until he found a producing mine. But that's not the criteria as far as the group's membership is concerned.

Selection is based on a justifiable prospecting effort. "Just finding something like that is impressive," praised McFaull about Berdahl's discovery in the NWT's Nahanni area.

"Emerald showings are extremely rare and hard to find. As far as I know, it's the first emerald showing in Canada. And it may only be the second one in North America. "The fact that he found one is an outstanding achievement, especially in the big area of the Northwest Territories.

He did everything right." Whether it ever becomes economically mineable is of no consequence, continued McFaull about the emeralds, which are more clear in color than deep green.

"The showing may be nowhere near Colombian gemstone quality, but they're certainly prismatic crystals. In my opinion, as a prospecting venture that was a major coup just to find it.

"Ron is a good prospector and in about the top five per cent. He's done lots of good work and been quite busy these last several years. "But the emeralds, I think, cuts a rank above, just by rarity alone. That is the proverbial needle in the haystack. And it is what won him the Prospector of the Year award."

Berdahl, who's busy trying to outrun winter, was persuaded to interrupt a major house-building project on the Carcross Road to talk about his emerald find.

Based on rarity and strangeness of the gemstone business, he had to be elusive about specific location. "There's only about 10 emerald mines in the world that make money," he advised. "The chance of competing with the Colombians and their beautiful dark-green emeralds is fairly remote."

However, he plans to dig deeper into the prospect with the hope that the emeralds will darken and grow larger.

"Some of the quartz crystals are two inches in diameter. They're pretty, the green crystals against the white quartz.

"The procedure is to find the best of what you think you have. You take them either as specimen pieces or as actual cuttable-type gemstones to the Tucson gem and mineral show."

The annual Arizona show is the traditional place to trade gemstones and determine what the market will bear.

"Right now, I think they're valuable as specimens," added Berdahl, who started prospecting for gold as a team in his home state of Wyoming.

"Supposedly, and possibly, it's one of the first showings in Canada and one of very few -- maybe second -- in North America. Definitely a rarity." He believes the stones will have some value just as collector pieces.

Berdahl, who has a biology degree from the Fairbanks-based University of Alaska, claims he wasn't searching for emeralds when he found the outcrop. "All great finds you stumble across, right? Like the Klondike."

He and one of his two young sons had gone into the area by helicopter to enjoy the remote beauty. They looked at caribou and soaked in the hot springs.

He also had tungsten on his mind because other people don't. He has a long-term faith in the metal. And major deposits exist immediately across the Yukon border on the NWT side of the map sheet.

Since there's evidently an association between moly, tungsten and emeralds, it can be assumed he knew the possibilities that gemstones could be present.

He'd also read technical papers written by local gemologist Lori Walton.

By far, 1997 has been a banner year for Berdahl. The gemstone property is among a collection of more than 20 he owns.

Several gold and base-metal properties are optioned to a Vancouver company, a Calgary junior and to Cominco.

One copper-gold prospect -- the first he staked in the Yukon in the mid-1980s -- is going through an optioning mechanism at the moment.

Besides all this action, he is involved with a company he named Liberty. It is a fresh listing on the Alberta Stock Exchange.

"I've put in my apprenticeship time and it's starting to pay back," said Berdahl, who is obviously pleased by his good fortunes this year.

In March and April, he and Whitehorse friend Ricardo Colaci were sponsored by a Vancouver-based company to check out the mining potential in Argentina, South America.

Colaci, who hails from Buenos Aires, knows the language, mentality of the country and has contacts. The pair plan to return at an unspecified future date to continue their productive adventure.

Berdahl, who entered the profession when independent prospecting was practically dead, admitted he wouldn't force anybody to go into the business. But he thinks people are natural-born gamblers. "That's why they buy lottery tickets.

Prospecting is just a way to do what I like to do. "It allows a person freedom. It's a meager living with a chance for a big pay off.

"With hindsight and knowing 10 years ago what the odds were, you wouldn't touch the prospecting business with a stick." But he equates finding something big as always the carrot at the end of the stick.