In late 1942, Britain was desperate to win the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic. German U-boats had sunk hundreds of Allied ships containing millions of tons of cargo that was needed to continue the war effort. Prime Minister Churchill had to find a solution to the carnage or the Nazis would be victorious. With the support of Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten, eccentric inventor and amateur spy Geoffrey Pyke proposed a dramatic project to build invincible ships of ice - massive, unsinkable aircraft carriers that would roam the mid-Atlantic servicing fighter planes and bombers on missions to protect shipping from predatory U-boat wolf packs. This is the fascinating story of the rise and fall of Project Habbakuk and how an outlandish inventor, the British Navy, the National Research Council of Canada and a workforce of conscientious objectors tested the bizarre concept in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, far from the theatre of war.

It is said that the sparkle from Canadian diamonds mimics the awesome and seductive radiance of the northern lights, and yet, until 1991, no one thought diamonds could even be found in Canada. No one except two geologists who went in search of diamonds and found them on the Lac de Gras Barren Grounds at Point Lake near Yellowknife in Canada's Arctic. The discovery by Chuck Fipke and his partner, Dr Stu Blusson, caused great excitement in international diamond circles. Today, Canada is the world's third-largest producer, by value, of rough stones. Why? In contrast to gems mined in Africa, Canada's stones are considered pure 'ice' and they are also 'clean' - not tainted by bloodshed and war as they are in such parts of the world as Sierra Leone and Angola. The discovery of diamonds in Canada's Arctic is an amazing story of perseverance in the face of immense odds. And the story has a very happy ending.

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.