Ilakaka City: the Wild West is over!

Until the end of 1998 there was just a hamlet in the Ilakaka area, stretching about 150 km long and about 50 km wide in the extension of the craggy mountains of Isalo. The city is named after the river which crosses – and where today a great multitude of miners gather to sift their gravel.

 

In the beginning there were just a few of stones traded by farmers with a local agents, but all of a sudden the rumours about gemstones and fortunes to make spread like wildfire. In a rush people from all ethnic groups gathered, so that today, the municipality of Ilakaka has between 35 and 40,000 inhabitants. But meanwhile the life has cooled down to a normal.

 

2018 Ilakaka celebrates its 20th anniversary! Renown for its sapphires to which we must add a dozen minerals that made up the foundation of its wealth, many treasures are still waiting to be unearthed. One reason for that is the cumbersome method of so-called artisanal mining, few machines much handwork, but it offers the populace a means of subsistence.

The peculiar hardship to find Ilakaka stones lies in the fact that are hidden amongst alluvial deposits, that is to say one does not find the stones where they crystallized, but the erosion during millions of years have displaced them and water has concentrated them in “gemmiferous gravels”, in the form of rolled stones, in ancient rivers called paleo-channels.

 

Little is knows, that sapphire are not always blue! Most Ilakaka sapphires shine pink to purple but gems have been found in all colours of the rainbow! These are high in demand, while the most famous is of rose colour, and called Felapaiso.