M E T A L M A N 9

M E T A L M A N 9

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July 10, 2022 - Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver, BC.

July 10, 2022 - Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver, BC

July 10, 2022 Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver, BC. Arrived at about 17:45 on a warm Sunday evening. Found a parking spot in an otherwise packed parking lot. Paid our parking fee, unloaded the van of our beach toys and chairs and off we go. I am absolutely blown away at the sheer numbers of beach goes and little wonder. This is a gorgeous beach, great sand, long and wide and all within a 5 minute walk from downtown Vancouver. A sandy beach within the heart of a major Canadian city. Amazing. It only took us a few minutes and a bit of a walk to find ourselves a perfect spot. The beach was touted on line as “Dog Friendly”, however that is only the far northern end of the beach as the very polite lifeguard informed us. But she did say…. Anything after the second white post… is out of her official lifeguard area and we could settle there, unhindered, so we gracefully move our stuff past the post. Yeah… dogs on the loose and out comes the metal detectorists, Miranda and I. We had no problem finding little treasures. You know, the usual, Pull Tabs, Pop Bottle Tops and the like, even the metal wire thingy that you find on wine bottles to keep the cork in. Beware of broken glass! Ouch !!! The sand was nice and deep and not too rocky. Easy to detect and dig. It’s by the edge of the ocean shore where you discover just how difficult it is to dig up a hit. The waves fill up your hole faster that you can dig. I must have looked like a rabid badger trying to get this piece of metal out before the next wave. We got to make good use of a hand held sand scoop. Great tool in sand. Not so good in wet clay. Found a few nice rocks for tumbling too. Overall: a great evening. The dogs had a champ of a time. The water was warm and comfortable to swim in and we got to watch the sun arc its way to the west. We would have stayed to see the sunset over the ocean but we felt that it was time to go as is often the case after a long day of tourism. Best get back as I don’t know Vancouver that well to drive around in the dark. Vancouver, Kitsilano Beach and its many other urban beaches are just awesome and well worth the visit. They equate and rival Miami Beach and Venice Beach hands down. As far as real treasure goes, well that my friends, it’s always in the eye of the beholder and I think we all found some here on Kitsilano Beach. Roger

July 12, 2022 - Cypress Mountain, West Vancouver, BC.

July 12, 2022 Cypress Mountain, West Vancouver, BC. This is a Gold Panning story. Gold is a metal after all, right? So here we go… We arrived in the early afternoon after a steep uphill drive in the van. Just follow Cypress Bowl Road; it leads to Cypress Mountain Ski Resort. The initial signs were not good. No flowing mountain streams seen and lots of bear warning posters about. A short stop midway up at an awesome view point and then up the mountain some more. Finally, a deep gorge, rushing water and a safe parking spot close by. This place was way deeper than it looks on the picture. There had been construction of a culvert passing under the highway decades ago and there still remained the outline of a slope for machinery to get out. This was on the right side. One the left were more recent rock and mudslides. In fact under the roots of one perilously perched pine tree was a two foot wide rock, just hanging there, bottom exposed and ready to rumble. True wilderness. Down the sloping service road, down an even steeper mud and gravel bank and onto the stream bed itself. The water was clear and very cold. Snow melt. In fact it’s Miranda that first noticed snow under some pine branches. Her first words were “Is that someone’s tent under there”? I should have taken a picture. We found some comfortable bigger rocks at the edge of the stream to sit and pan from. It’s then that I realized that I’d forgotten my mini 2 foot shovel back at camp…. Drat! Plan “B” kicked in. My trusty garden hand trowel. I looked for and found a big rock on an inside bend and dug behind it for what I hoped would be pay dirt. Then we both panned and panned some more. Then I dug in the bank itself, then I dug deep near what looked like bed rock then behind and under another big rock. Well, you get the picture. We dug and we panned and we panned and we dug… sound like a song from the 70’s Eh! Remember Jim Stafford and Wildwood Weed. Well we panned lots alright but no gold. Not even a speck. No black sand either. Black sand is a good indicator of possible gold. No surprise really as this area is not known as being gold bearing but Miranda and I had a great time and got good practice at panning. Yes, there is technique to it and as I found out, digging in rocky gravel and bending over your pan is hard work. Did I mention frozen fingers too? Man that water is cold. We managed to crawl our way back out of the stream’s bank using willow saplings to pull ourselves along. The rest of the climb out was just an old fashion steep climb. Got to the car, panting but safe and played out. What a day… and what a view on the decent drive. Priceless! Hey… not a total loss: as the last picture clearly shows. Roger’s Eh! How convenient. Roger

July 12, 2022 - Cypress Mountain, West Vancouver, BC.

July 15, 2022 - Greenwood: Night Sky Campground, BC.

July 15, 2022 Cypress Mountain, West Vancouver, BC. Yup, another gold panning story. I just didn’t do a lot of metal detecting on this trip unless you count the Loony, the two Pennies and the rusty nail that was found at our Vancouver - Capilano campground lot. Only used the pin pointer for those finds. Too easy Eh! The Night Sky campground sits right next to the Kettle River in the West Kootenay Mountains of Southern BC. Yes, this is known as a gold bearing area. The campground itself was very basic but the access to the river was just perfect. Like 10 feet behind our picnic table: perfect. The water was definitely warmer than the last location that we panned in and shallow enough to walk most anywhere in the river with no danger of being swept away. Maranda and I had a good go again at panning. Seems like I do all of the digging but two pans in action at the same time is doubling our chances of finding gold. Right? Well you’d think so but finding any kind of gold is an art. Location, location, location. Inside bends, right on bedrock or crevices in the bedrock, and at times, right behind and under large boulders. Anywhere that gold likes to hide. Gold is an extremely heavy element and it likes to sink deep. We panned out a lot black sand which is composed of heavy iron ore grains of magnetite and hematite. Black sand is an indicator for the possibility of gold. Twice, Maranda found what I believed to be a miniscule flake. We promptly secured it in a small plastic bottle called a “Sucker Bottle” to be reexamined and identified at a later time. It could also be iron pyrite. That’s right “Fool Gold”, too small to tell at this point but the two finds were exciting all the same. While digging deep in the river’s bank itself, I found the well-worn glass cup handle shown along with the coins from our previous camping spot. I also added a few pictures of some very interesting rocks that we picked up at various locations during our trip in BC. Just for the rock hound amongst you. All and all a fun adventure overall. I’m looking forward to putting my new found panning skills to use at some other site like maybe in the Whiteshell or in the Nopiming Provincial Park. For the time being, I’ll get back to my true and original passion of metal detecting. I seem to have better luck metal detecting than I do at gold panning. Stay well friends… Roger

July 15, 2022 - Greenwood: Night Sky Campground, BC.