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Canada's Dirty Little Secret
By Greg Clark
Staff Writer
posted: 05:45 pm ET
16 March 2000
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yukon_finder_000316 The identity of the finder of the Yukon meteorite remains a closely-guarded secret, as does the location where he or she picked up a chunk of the now-famous space rock. The meteorite created one of the brightest fireballs ever seen before it exploded in the sky somewhere near Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory January 18. Witnesses saw the brilliant streak stream across the morning sky, and then explode with a flash that left behind an expanding streak of smoke. The explosion -- which is estimated to have had the energy of 2,000 to 3,000 tons of dynamite -- rattled windows and shook the snow off roofs in the town of Carcross, a village about 120 miles (190 kilometers) north of Juneau, Alaska. 
A resident of the mountainous, forested region where chunks of the exploded rock fell to Earth found a piece of the meteorite. Within a week that person took it to officials at the Canadian Geological Survey, loaning them for scientific analysis. The finder is staunchly committed to anonymity, however, and so far even the efforts of the most persistent meteorite collectors to communicate directly with him or her have been unsuccessful. New York meteorite dealer Darryl Pitt is one of the people who has been trying contact the finder, but so far he has only been able to exchange messages through a liaison in the Canadian government, he said. Pitt has also been unable to find anybody willing to divulge the location where the piece was recovered. "The precise locality of the strewn field remains a very very tightly-kept secret," Pitt said, "And apparently a couple of other people have found samples, but so far they are hanging on to them." Pitt said he has heard offers of as high as $200 per gram for pieces of the Yukon rock. The price makes the land where the meteorite fell a veritable gold mine, which may be why those who know are keeping the location to themselves. But even such lucrative offers don't seem to have loosened tight Canadian fists. The high cash offers also can't unlock Canada's tight export-control law that covers meteorites, though. It may make the Yukon find off-limits to those outside of Canada. Although the country allows the export of meteorites for scientific research, it is very difficult to get an export license to take privately-owned specimens out of the country. Canadian scientists are planning efforts to recover more samples of the Yukon meteorite, Pitt said. He has heard of plans between the Canadian government and the University of Calgary to send a meteorite-hunting expedition into the rugged country where the Yukon pieces might have fallen.
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