It takes a special kind of spouse to accept the life and trials of a prospector, says Shawn Ryan, who many say is among the best rock hounds in the business.

Cathy Wood, Ryan's wife, is that special kind of woman.

"She is the backbone of the business,” Ryan said in an interview this week during a break at the 34th Annual Yukon Geoscience Forum in Whitehorse.

"She is the main frame.

"The reality is that 80 per cent of the people in this business for the last 20 years got through these up and down cycles, and the only reason we are still in business is because of these spouses that are supporting us.”

Ryanwood Explorations was named Prospector of the Year at the geoscience forum's gala on Monday night. It was in recognition of the company's role in driving what's being called the Yukon's second Gold Rush, in the White Gold District some 100 kilometres south of Dawson City.

Admittedly, times are lucrative now for Ryan and Cathy, and their two children.

But it hasn't always been that way.

For the first six years of the 12 Ryan has been prospecting in the Yukon, he and Cathy lived in a small "tin can” in Dawson City, the last four of those years with their two young children, and not a lot money coming in.

Prospecting, says Ryan, is like shopping for the right chocolate bar in a candy store – your partner has to accept you might not find it, but you still have to pay to shop.

"So really, that is why she deserves the award,” he says.

After learning last Sunday that their company had been selected for Prospector of the Year, Ryan insisted Wood fly to Whitehorse from Dawson on Monday to share in the recognition from the Yukon Prospectors' Association.

But Wood isn't just moral support. Far from it.

She too has done her time stomping around the bush with her husband, right up until she was seven months pregnant with their first child when they started prospecting near White River in the late 1990s.

"It was a nice surprise,” she said in a telephone interview after returning to Dawson earlier this week.

"There is a lot of good people in this business and there is a lot of good work that is being done. So it's nice to be recognized, especially when there's so many good people who've been doing a lot of good work over the years.”

While she is still very much hands-on, it's more as business manager who keeps the books, tracks the 8,000 to 10,000 mineral claims Ryanwood has in its inventory, and expedites supplies for their exploration crew.

She cooks, too.

For years now, Wood has been preparing meals at her home and freezing them to be shipped out to the field camps.

Crews look after their own breakfasts and lunches, but it's nice to have a home-cooked lasagna or shepherd's pie after a day climbing around in the mountains, she says, adding it's more efficient and cost-effective to supply the meals than fly in groceries and have the crews cook their own.

With the business growing, Wood notes, Ryan's parents have been visiting for the last couple of summers and helping out with food preparations.

She says during their three weeks in Dawson last May, they helped prepare 1,300 man days of dinners.

There was a couple of days just to role 2,000 meatballs.

"We couldn't have done it without them,” says Wood.

She says with the business growing, Ryan is also having to spend more time at home in the office and less in the field.

As their 11- and 13-year-old kids get older, however, both are hoping to get back to the bush more – because that's what they love, that's why they're in

the business.

In some ways, Wood believes, the company's success is rooted in the school of hard knocks the couple experienced when they began prospecting here

in 1997.

It was a time when the mineral exploration industry had been knocked off its feet by the fallout from the Bre-X gold scandal that rocked the investment

community around the world.

"I kind of feel because we started in a really rough time, it kind of taught us a lot of lessons about how to be careful with your money,” says Wood. "It kind of

feels like when you learn to do with less, everything extra is a bonus.”

"We are comfortable now,” says a modest Ryan of the success Ryanwood Explorations is enjoying.

This year alone, the company has entered into eight or 10 agreements to option off mineral claims, including several hundred claims in the White Gold

District to Underworld Resources Ltd., a deal worth several hundred thousand dollars, and maybe more.

Underworld has reported significant success with its exploration drilling. Its drill results ignited this past summer's staking rush in the area close to the

confluence of the White and Yukon rivers.

Of the 14,000 quartz claims registered across the entire Yukon so far this year, approximately 8,000 were staked in the White Gold District.

Companies that option or purchase mineral claims from Ryanwood are also required as part of the deal to hire Ryanwood to conduct soil sampling and

other grassroots exploration work.

Ryan says he believes he and his crew are best positioned to do the work, because they know the ground and therefore bring with them the highest

percentage for success.

The requirement for Ryanwood's involvement doesn't carry on up into the more technical drill programs, but in the early stages, it's a must, he says.

Success for one, Ryan maintains, means success for all.

"You are spending money on these exploration programs and I know how it works,” he says. "I want the best bang for the buck, and I can stretch my

dollars a long way.”

Ryanwood, for instance, had a crew of 28 working on Underworld's claims this summer, 17 of whom were dedicated to collecting 26,000 soil samples and

mapping the location they were taken from.

"He has by far one of the best soil sampling crews around,” Underworld exploration geologist Jodie Gibson said in an interview this week. "The best in

Canada, if not the world. They are a machine.”

Ryan says he expects the White Gold District is only going to get busier and brighter with the shine of more gold.

Last spring, Ryanwood optioned off three properties in the district to Kaminak Gold Corp.

Located just south of the claim blocks controlled by Underworld, Ryan expects the Kaminak claims will prove to be just as promising.

"I think we found the twin brother, or its big brother,” he says of the properties optioned to Kaminak.

Ryan, who was also awarded the Prospector of the Year in 1999, says year after year he has watched placer miners in the Dawson district find and mine

new ground.

It's like watching the footprints of a sasquatch forever leading to the way to the Motherlode – the source – but never arriving, and never seeing the

sasquatch, he says.

"Now we have the first visual of the sasquatch.”