Geologist Violet Smith pioneers family run consulting business in Guyana

Violet Smith grew up in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni region of Guyana, eventually settling in Bartica, a small commercial centre 80 km inland from the Atlantic Ocean. The town – at the confluence of the Cuyuni, Mazaruni and Essequibo Rivers – was considered the gateway to the gold mines and diamond fields of the interior. As a young girl she would watch the steamers come in and trucks, loaded with camp supplies, disappear into the swampy lowlands on their way into the country’s dense rain forest. Just about every household in town had at least one prospector in the family who would disappear for months and sometimes years at a time to hunt for minerals. Locals called them “pork knockers” – after their diet of pickled pork from the wild pigs that sustained them while away from home. Continue reading at The Northern Miner.