Customer Reviews

Fire into Ice: Charles Fipke and the Great Diamond Hunt

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I live in Chucks hometown and have met him on occassion. Having lived in the artic for many years, and worked in the stock market arena, doing private placements many times, few people know what it has really taken for this man to accomplish what he did especially in the diamond industry. No overnight success many years in the making, hard work ingenious thought. It takes a special person to do it. Call him eccentric if you will, Hats off to him, great read, as adventourous and different as the prospector himself. And NO I am not a friend of his at all, met him twice. If you have the chance to meet him personally maybe you can listen to a personal snippet of what the backbone of the Canadian mining industry is all about, borrowed cups of coffee meals on tabs in local restaurants, long nights in cold dark places, plain hard work, which sometimes doesn't get rewarded, and this time did.

Super good read, and tells it like it is.

As a keen observer of the stock market, I was quite interested to "dig" into the background of Chuck Fipke and how he discovered diamonds in the Canadian Arctic. When the Diamet discovery was first announced it was an extraordinary revelation to the "jaded" Canadian Mining community. Frolick does a very good job of embroidering the details of Fipke's exploits as a young, driven, globe-trotting geologist. His first job at Ok Tedi Gold Mine in Papaua New Guinea with BHP/Kennecott, working at the secretive JCI Gold in South Africa, the duplicity of Cominco management while in the Amazonian jungles etc. Unfortunately, the storey of the actual diamond discovery only takes 2 of 58 chapters!. Little is learned about the financial manouvering conducted behind the scence's by BHP and DiaMet after the discovery was announced and the book stops when Fipke's active involvement ends. One discovers little of the tremendous challenges faced and overcome before the actual production of the first commercial diamond discovery in North America. In sum, more of a hagiography to Chuck Fipke than the story of a remarkable mining achievement in Canada, but nonetheless - a worthwhile read.

Have you seen the Indiana Jones trilogy? Well, Chuck Fipke is that man. In fact, if Hollywood had made a film about Mr. Fipke, people would have discounted the events as "impossible, incredulous, non-believable"! I've only read a few chapters at this point and cannot put the book down. Simply an extremely exciting book. I want to buy a couple books for friends.

Fire Into Ice is three books in one, principally it is a stimulating insight into the mind of an exploration geologist/explorer; however, it is also an introduction to anthropology and the stresses and strains of marriage. An excellent read, but you should keep an Atlas close at hand.

This book is an exciting story about a modern-day adventurer.
This book follows Chuck Fipke all around the world and ends up in the Arctic.
I could not put this book down.

I am not a prolific reader but a family member handed me this book when I asked for a suggestion for some reading for an upcoming vacation. I opened the book the first morning on the beach and finished it by sunset. I was mesmerized by the adventures of Chuck. I agree with the other comments that this an adventure novel but it is also a must read for anyone that enjoys biographies of people that lived a life that teaches us how to truly live a life holding nothing back. Regardless of his wealth, Chuck should have few if any regrets in life and I am sure that there is nothing left on his bucket list that can top the adventures he has already had. If you do Chuck, please send us an update!

Living, and having been in several of the countries and places described in the book, I could not help thinking that Charles Fipke could well have been there, but the author had not. It also seemed more about CF than the discovery of Etaki and all that went before that.

Charles Fipke and the Great Diamond Hunt is a hard book to put down. Fipke's determination and ability to see beyond conventional wisdom should be a great inspiration to all readers.

A True Story that reads like an action adventure novel