If you've ever helped to install a curtain rod or a towel rack at home, you've no doubt used a power drill to make a few holes in the drywall. No big deal, right? Now, imagine drilling a hole up to 2,400 metres through solid rock! That's more than four times the height of the CN Tower!

Data obtained from sample rocks on surface and from airborne geophysical studies provide geologists with clues

about possible mineral wealth deep underground, but the only way to know for sure is to drill down and extract samples of rock from the hole.

The process is called diamond drilling because the bits are made of industrial diamonds, and the sections of rock are called core samples. Diamond drilling and core sample analysis provide mining and exploration companies with the hard facts they require to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a mine. Often, a mining company will sink dozens of holes to define an orebody.

Mike Brisson, 39, joined Boart Longyear Inc. of North Bay as a diamond drill helper in 1989 shortly after dropping out of high school. His father worked as a diamond driller for 25 years and a brother is a Boart Longyear foreman. Diamond drilling runs in the family.

"There's good money to be made in it," says Mike. "A helper starting out today can make $60,000. A diamond driller can make more than $80,000."

Arctic
Diamond drilling companies like Boart Longyear operate year round and all over the world. Mike mostly works close to home in the Sudbury area, but has also drilled for diamonds in the Arctic and for uranium in Saskatchewan.

Lately, he has been drilling in the Sudbury area, working 12-hour shifts on a five-day schedule. That allows him to go home every night and spend weekends boating and fishing. Diamond drills operate 24 hours a day, so Mike alternates between day and night shifts.

The current boom in the mining industry has drilling service companies scrambling to meet demand. Drill rigs are busy and there's no shortage of work for helpers and diamond drillers.

"The industry goes through cycles, but I've been fortunate," says Mike. "I haven't been laid off in 10 years."

There are no specific college courses or apprenticeship programs for diamond drillers, but everyone new to the industry is required to take surface common core training, which is offered by diamond drilling companies and by NORCAT, a Sudbury-based training provider.

Expertise
Despite the lack of formal college or apprenticeship programs, diamond drilling is a very specialized trade requiring a high degree of expertise. Drilling through so called "bad ground" and keeping the hole on course are two of the more common challenges diamond drillers have to deal with.

"In good ground, you can drill 20 feet in an hour and a half," Mike notes.

Every half hour, they send an instrument down the hole to tell them where it's going. If it's veered off course, there are special tools called wedges that they use to get it back on course.

Anyone interested in a career as a diamond driller should be reasonably strong and mechanically inclined, he says.

"You also have to be the kind of person to really focus on working safely because you can get hurt if you're not careful."

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