For 15 years, Gregory B. Sparks slipped into the nooks and crannies of Guyana’s interior, seeking the next Omai.
He raced over waterfalls, made trails through the forest and killed poisonous snakes daily, searching for what every miner seeks: gold. In his relentless quest, he built companies, trained men and invested millions of dollars. Sparks, a pipe-puffing American, is now President and Chief Executive Officer of Sacre-Coeur Minerals Limited, a Canadian exploration company.
Its subsidiary, Sacre-Coeur Guyana Inc, has been exploring the Million Mountain area in the Lower Puruni, Region Seven for the past five years. Sitting in a chair in a bungalow at the Million Mountain camp, Sparks, a mining engineer by training, said that in 40 years in the business, he has worked all over the world including Africa and in neighbouring Venezuela.
Sacre-Coeur started at Million Mountain in 2004. To date, the company has invested US$35 million in its operations, Sparks says. Currently, it employs about 100 persons and over 90% of these are Guyanese.
The murky Puruni flows around the fenced compound of the Million Mountain camp. Bungalows, workshops, the dining hall and other structures dominate the trimmed landscape. But it is a row of tents which commands attention, looking more like something that could be used to camp on the moon rather than somewhere in the isolated hinterland. A health centre provides medical services, a water treatment plant provides potable water, and there is satellite internet. The various facilities are of a considerably higher standard than the majority of mining camps. “We try to provide reasonable standards for the men to live and work in,” Sparks said. All the buildings and tents are meshed to prevent insects from entering. They are working to improve the facilities, Sparks said as he took this newspaper on a tour of the camp last Saturday.
Some employees had last week complained about the high prevalence of sickness, particularly malaria, which plagued the camp recently. They had accused the company of neglect, saying that contamination of the water system could be one of the reasons for them falling ill. Sparks showed the results of tests done at Eureka labs in Georgetown which found the water “good” with only one tank, his, given a “poor” rating. There were no contaminants.
Sparks acknowledged that at one point, 30% of the employees were ill and said that measures were immediately instituted by the company to combat this. He said the situation is now normal. The company does not neglect its employees, he emphasized. He said after the upsurge in malaria, the camp and its perimeters is now fogged twice daily and the men are tested regularly for mosquito-borne diseases at the fully equipped medical centre. Sick workers in need of further medical attention were transported to the city via the road and Sparks pointed out the heli-pad, which can be used if there is any emergency.
Sparks noted that there are many cases of malaria in the area and miners turn up at the company’s camp seeking treatment. He said one of the reasons for the disease re-occurring in the men, is that once they feel better, they stop taking the medicine. He said that it is hard to determine what caused the sudden upsurge and is of the opinion that with more miners entering the area, and falling sick, they are vectors for the
disease. He has never been sick at the Million Mountain camp, Sparks said, and it has been five years since he had malaria. “I wouldn’t ask my men to live in a place I wouldn’t live,” he added.
The men (there are no women in camp) are expected to work hard. The camp’s power plant is activated at 4:30 am and the 12-hour workday begins at 6 am. The company employs labourers, mechanics, welders, heavy equipment operators, geologists, geo-technicians, surveyors, line cutters, cooks, among others. The work week is six and a half days for six weeks and then two weeks off. Those on the lower end of the salary scale, the labourers, earn $5,000 per day and the turnover rate is low, Sparks said. These are mainly heavy equipment operators on probation, who were not hired full-time because they were not up to the company’s standard. He said there is a shortage of heavy equipment operators in Guyana and the company has trained some of these. According to Sparks, most of those they employ are by personal recommendation and they want to attract and keep the best people.
Ovid Jones, the camp’s manager, began working with Sparks as a labourer and progressed to his present position. He is a “real success story,” Sparks said and can operate every piece of equipment.
To get to Million Moun-tain, one travels via the Essequibo River to Itaballi then on a bumpy trail, which is in an “exceptionally good condition” at the moment. The trip on the trail took just under three hours. In the rainy season the trip can take as long as 20 hours. Sparks said they pioneered the road to the camp until other companies pitched in and the government has now hired MMC to maintain it. Pioneering the road was interesting, Sparks said, recalling they used to travel to the area by river over rapids and waterfalls. While he enjoyed those trips, it was not efficient for transporting supplies, he said. He has had his share of adventures, recalling that at one camp, years ago, they killed three or four of the venomous labaria and parrot snakes daily.
For 15 years and continuing, Sparks has stuck with Guyana. The country is attractive because it has the “right geology to hold major gold deposits” and basically “underexplored potential in a fairly stable environment,” he said. Sacre-Coeur is hoping to be the next Omai “two or three times over,” he added. He pointed out that Guyana has the same geology as Venezuela but is a lot easier to work in, as regards corruption, which is “nothing like what you’ve got” here. He said though that crime is a concern.
Sacre-Coeur is primarily an exploration company though it has started an alluvial mining operation. Sparks boasts that the company has one of the best drilling programmes in the world and certainly in Guyana. He said the programme had one of the lowest costs, best productivity and a good safety record. They are developing gold reserves and should a major deposit be located, would likely sell the property or enter into a joint venture with another company, whichever would bring the best benefits to shareholders, Sparks said.
More miners have started operations in that area and while some occasionally encroach on Sacre-Coeur’s property, this is not a major problem, Sparks said.
The bush can be a dangerous place to work and names always have a story behind them. Girl Hole is where a girl was crushed to death; Brenda Hole is where a woman named Brenda was crushed to death and Japarts Corner is where a Japarts trailer transporting an excavator, tumbled over a cliff.
Long, long ago a pork-knocker known as Ocean Shark claimed he had found 100 pounds of gold in a stream at the foot of Million Mountain. 100 Pound Creek was named. Ocean Shark, now a legend, may have been the typical pork-knocker with a shovel and dreams but with hi-tech equipment and a highly trained crew, Sparks is hoping to prove Ocean Shark correct.