The secret behind his fairy-tale success? Science, persistence and a lot of patience.
Shawn Ryan lived in a tin shack for years in the Yukon with his young family before uncovering the so-called White Gold district, not far from the fabled Klondike zones of the late 1800's era.
"In 2004, after about eight years of hunching over maps and sampling soil, Mr. Ryan finally found the first signs of what he had been digging for so deeply, when assay results indicated geochemical markers associated with gold."
“There haven’t been too many prospectors that found a discovery that opened up a mine. That will be neat if that happens,” Mr. Ryan, 47, said in a recent interview from his home in Dawson City, which he describes as an upgraded 900-square-foot shack.
“I kind of feel like the Clampetts on the way to Whitehorse and into a bigger house,” Mr. Ryan joked.
Ryan has since earned millions with his discovery in share options, and one large mining company has moved in. This past year Ryan was named Prospector of the Year by the British Columbia mining exploration industry. He has turned out to be one savvy businessman.
The allure of a mining discovery and the ensuing rush of interest has been played out before in numerous other locations in the world. For every lucky prospector there are many others who never hit pay dirt.
