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Last month, Burgundy Diamond Mines suspended operations at the Point Lake mine, part of its Ekati mining complex, which was Canada’s first diamond mine when it opened in 1998.

A confluence of factors has diminished the allure of natural diamonds.

Factory-made diamonds, often called lab-grown diamonds, have soared in popularity. Arriving on the market in a big way only seven years ago, they now account for more than 20 per cent of the global market for diamond jewelry.

The lab-grown stones, which take only a few weeks to manufacture, are much cheaper than the real thing. A two-carat genuine diamond engagement ring is priced at about $35,000. Its lab-grown counterpart can be purchased for $3,500.

In the current cost-of-living crisis, natural diamonds are a tough sell, especially with cost-conscious millennials and Gen Z buyers.

“I don’t want us to start our marriage with a bunch of debt over a ring,” an Edmonton fiancée told the CBC recently.

Most luxury jewellers have yet to embrace synthetic diamonds, But midmarket retailers are obliged to because that’s what customers are demanding.

Mainstream jewellers report that customers are seeking synthetic diamonds and that real ones don’t cross their minds.

Buyers of synthetic diamonds can purchase much bigger stones and expensive settings and still pay less than for a natural diamond.

And synthetic diamonds don’t carry the ethical baggage of real diamonds, which have long been implicated in human rights abuses including forced labour and child labour in Africa’s major production regions.

Lab-grown diamonds, made with chemicals under extreme heat and pressure and forged in a chamber, are much easier to trace, providing buyers with peace of mind.

Concern over “blood diamonds,” mined in African conflict zones and used to fund insurgencies, helped spur development of the Canadian diamond industry.

But the 10-to-30 per cent drop in prices in different diamond categories over the past two years forced the closure of Point Lake, which its owner describes as “subeconomic.”

The Diavik diamond mine in the N.W.T., owned by Rio Tinto PLC, is scheduled to close early next year. And a third N.W.T. mine, Gahcho Kué, is expected to wind down by 2031.

All three of the territory’s diamond mines reported losses last year.

De Beers, which invented the modern diamond industry with savvy marketing (“A Diamond is Forever”) and dominated the market for most of the 20th century, lost $128 million (U.S.) in its latest quarter.

Its owner, London-based mining giant Anglo American PLC, has placed De Beers on the auction block. De Beers is the majority owner of the Gahcho Kué mine.

Mass production of factory-made diamonds dates from the mid-20th century when companies like General Electric made what were then called industrial diamonds. They were used in oil-well drill bits among other rugged applications.

It’s unlikely that real diamonds, formed over a billion years deep in the Earth, will disappear entirely.

Each real diamond is unique, with its own distinct cut, colour, clarity and carat (weight).

By contrast, synthetic diamonds are forged in a limited variety of shapes, colours and designs.

Prices for synthetic diamonds have been dropping alongside those of natural stones as competition has intensified among producers of factory-made diamonds, notably China and India.

As prices of synthetic diamonds continue falling with further technological advances, the appeal of factory-made diamonds as symbols of romantic commitment “looks set to crumble,” the Economist said in a February report on the troubled industry.

But a comeback for real diamonds is also unlikely. Consumers have become accustomed to synthetic stones, which are proliferating in costume jewelry and account for 50 per cent or more of diamond sales at Walmart, supermarkets and online discounters.

And the improved technology by which lab-grown diamonds graduated from oilfields to jewellers’ showcases will become further refined, able to simulate if not replicate the complexity of real diamonds.

Real diamonds won’t be widely missed. They were sold at ridiculously high markups, as anyone who has sold a diamond at a pawnshop has discovered.

Like gold, real diamonds have limited practical use. And their mystique as symbols of enduring love has always been synthetic, manufactured by De Beers’ copious advertising. At least synthetic diamonds are honest fakes, if such a thing is possible.

The thing to mourn is the loss of diamond mines that have been an economic mainstay in the Canada’s Far North for more than 30 years. For most of that time, the people who worked in the mines, including many Indigenous Peoples, had reason to believe that the industry would be forever.