July 6, 2025 Return To River Lot 152 The group hunt of June 21, 2025 was very successful indeed. As a matter of fact this short follow-up is well deserved. One of our new Keystone Detectorists Club (KDC) members spotted an unusual looking stone on the field while metal detecting. This ground find was a brownish red looking piece that didn’t quite have the shape of an arrowhead but… see the first picture. The following week, I spent some time with Sid and Pam Kroker; the archeologists that oversaw the dig at the Winnipeg Forks in around 2008. Sid readily identified the piece as “Tongue River Silicified Sediment (T.R.S.S.). Tongue River is in South Dakota. The piece is a flake from a larger piece. Some knapping was also present on this artifact but was probably discarded as it might not have been turning out as desired by the individual who handled this piece a thousand plus years ago. That’s a great find Marielle. Well done! On July 6th, I returned to the same location for a follow-up. It had rained quite heavily a few days prior and I was hoping it would help me spot more ground finds. It did! Mowing and weed control had also been done on the field and that would now allow me to metal detect in a wide area that had been inaccessible to the group on June 21. 16.5 more lbs. of recovered artifacts: mostly iron. That brings the total weight to 71.5 lbs. I extracted 6 ball bearings from the shattered bearing. The average weights of the 6 balls were 1.703 grams. This was to compare to the weight of the small musket ball found by the group that weighed in at 2.981 Grams. Could that too be a ball bearing? One of the field pictures looks like spaghetti with a side of lettuce… can you spot the iron wire mixed in with the roots? It took a Pinpointer to find that hit. The first grouping of finds, after cleaning, is most of the iron, the second grouping is the fun stuff. Here is a listing of the highlights found: 6 - Ball bearings: average weight - 1.703 grams. 1 – Partial Jack Knife 1 – Killdeer Bird Nest 1 – Copper Clock Gear or Movement 1 – Big Iron Machinery Plate 1 – Complete Brown Glass Bottle Stopper 1 – Horseshoe Nail 1 – Innie Tinny Winnie Square Nail 1 – Harmonica Piece 1 – Partial Dry Cell Battery Post 1 – Sedimentary Rock with Multiple Cultivator Scratches and Marks Colored and Patterned Ceramics and Glass Roger References: h t t p s : / / w w w . w i n n i p e g f r e e p r e s s . c o m / h i s t o r i c / 2 0 0 8 / 0 7 / 2 2 / d i g - a t - forks-uncovers-800-year-old-footprint h t t p s : / / w w w . p r o j e c t i l e p o i n t s . n e t / M a t e r i a l s / T o n g u e % 2 0 R i v e r % 2 0Silicified%20Sediment.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapping

July 12, 2025 Monty’s and Roger’s Excellent Adventure It was indeed a most excellent adventure for the both of us on Red River Lot # 151. This is the river lot immediately over from our Group Hunt. See: June 21, 2025 - An Exceptional Group Hunt . In fact Monty, Randy, and I had metal detected on this lot a number of years ago. One comes to realize that a site is never truly cleaned out. Ground conditions, frost and farm equipment always seem to bring more artifacts up to the surface every year. Not to mention that as detectorists, we are probably missing a lot of surface area on any initial sweep, however tight you think that your ground coverage might be. And there’s also the fact that an item might not register a signal on a pass in one direction but come at it, say from a 90 degree angle and all of the bells go off. East to West versus North to South sweeps can make a world of difference. So with that preamble, I shouldn’t be surprised that we found as much unique material as we did. The highlight for Monty has to be the 1914, 5 cent piece. They were the size of today’s dimes but thinner if you can imagine that. Oh and made of silver too. Yes, treasure! Monty did follow that up with a Canadian 1984 penny. Go Monty Go. The shotgun shell bottom was marked: Kynoch No. 12 Birmingham. These date from anywhere between the 1890’s to 1918ish. The horseshoe has got to be the biggest horseshoe that I’ve ever seen. It weighed in at 1.6 lbs. and the dimensions are 6 ¼ inches x 6 ¾ inches. Huge !!! Last but not the least of the excitement is what we initially believed to be a meteorite. The jury is still out on that idea. It’s very heavy for its size at 45.3 grams. It’s about 1 ½ inches long, 1 inch wide and less than a ½ inch thick. It’s definitely metallic but totally nonmagnetic. So, could nonferrous indicate nickel? Upon cleaning, I can see that it sort of has two holes through it and what looks like pits all over. If it's slag from any sort of welding then it should contain some iron and thus be magnetic. Oh and yes, I just now found out that most meteorites do contain iron so I’m at a loss here as to what this is. I will most certainly have to do some follow up with this item. You’ll know more when I know more so keep checking the posts, especially once the metal detecting season is over, like in winter. In the meantime, stay posted and check in from time to time. The summer is far from over and there are lots more excellent adventures to come. Of that, I am sure! Roger Reference: h t t p s : / / n e w s . m i t . e d u / 2 0 2 3 / s i m p l e - h a n d - m a g n e t s - e r a s e - meteorite-magnetic-memory-0420 https://www.ualberta.ca/en/science/meteorites/index.html

July 16, 2025 Optimist Club Park. An Urban Outing. I had noticed this park in old St. Boniface last winter. It’s out of the way, tucked in, between Bertrand Arena and a small quiet residential street (Thomas Berry St.) that most people would never really notice. These can be great places to metal detect as few other detectorists would have ever been there. There are lots of similar small parks all around Winnipeg. Well, things got interesting very quickly… Monty and I met there at about 4:30 in the afternoon… try getting to these places before the afternoon traffic crunch. Off to the side, under a row of bushes was someone, whom I assumed to be homeless: sleeping. There were a number of kids and parents out playing and of course it doesn’t take very long before you have a small following of people shadowing your every move. We did however get a “Hot Tip” on a lost item that would well be worth finding. I’ll say no more than I might well be inclined to go back at some point in time and look for this lost treasure. The finds were quite mixed. Lots and lots of pull tabs (18) and bottle caps (19) as is typical in any public setting. My best find was an ornate “Pinky” ring. It’s only base metal but it is cute. For some strange reason, most of the coins were dated from the 1970’s and 80’s with the oldest, a Canadian penny, being 1969. No US nor any foreign coins were found. Then 12 inches of heavy gauge copper wire is probably worth more than the pennies in copper. Yes, the huge ugly scratch across the face of the 1989 penny is totally my fault. A rookie error. Of interest was part of a wide harmonica reed. The Matchbox car is dated and marked 2016. FDC 91 Luke Skywalker. It is an older area. Judging by the layout of the row of bushes and of the huge cottonwood trees, I think there might well have been a house or houses here once. As is common with many city sites, there is a nice topsoil layer of 2 or 3 inches followed by a layer of fill that was used to level the grounds. The larger iron pieces came from that fill as did the coal Klinkers. My take away from today is that I most certainly prefer an open field than a city park. They both have their pros and cons but should I return to this site, it will be in the early morning to about noon. You always have to be so careful of freshly broken glass. Roger

July 20, 2025 Mark’s and Roger’s Excellent Adventure Well, this clearly is a follow up story to “Monty’s and Roger’s Excellent Adventure” from a week ago. And, it was indeed an adventure as metal detecting always is. The intention of this outing is to salvage as many artifacts as possible on this stretch of farm land before the heavy machinery moves in and lays down a new road. This post is a continuation of most of the posts for June and July. This time around, I wanted to concentrate on the triangular piece of open land on River Lot # 153. River Lots 150 through to 153 are all areas where the new road will be built. I had metal detected in this area before but I wanted to sweep through it as best as we could and salvage as much as possible. See: June 9, 2024 - Between the Highways . Mark joined me today. We started by doing a wide sweep all around the triangle’s perimeter. Mark had to leave by 11:30 so after our first go around; we crossed the road over to River Lot 152. Evidence and remnants of a previously unknown homestead were found here and we were both eager to continue metal detecting where with the “Group Hunt”, we had left off. The group had done very well there. See: June 21, 2025 - An Exceptional Group Hunt Once Mark left, I returned to the morning’s initial focus and re- directed my detecting efforts on the triangular area on River Lot 153. The finds are pictured as follows: The first panel of finds are from River Lot 153. The second grouping is from River Lot 152. The really good artifacts are becoming harder to find. Although one has to keep in mind that an area is never truly hunted out. Today was tool and file day. We found three different types of files, an 8” punch, and a small open end spanner. Mark found what was left of a leg hold trap. I don’t know what the white colored aluminum container would have been but it’s of a very thick gauge. Not to be mixed up with the modern white fuse. Bolts, nails, fencing staples, and wire fragments seemed to be the order of the day for this field. There has never been much glass or ceramics to be found in this area, at least not on this side of the Old 14 Highway. The Two Little Points School was just over on the other side and that's where the finds were always the best. River Lot 152 proved to be more interesting and fruitful. The find of the day goes to Mark with the horse collar bell. Unfortunately it has a piece missing as is the ball that would have been inside. I found what looks like the remnants of a pocket knife and I’d love to know what the round, iron, grated piece is. I have no idea but it’s built solid. It too might have been a bell of sorts. I particularly like how someone, long ago, decided to create his or her own chain link with fencing wire. It’s very innovative. Some interesting finds provided by Mother Nature are the mushrooms. They are fruiting from buried corn cobs that were buried by last year’s tilling. I have yet to identify the variety but I believe it to be a Marasmius or possibly of the Agaricus family. Notice that the stem has no ring but is scaly. And then there is the “Little Christmas Tree”… Kochia (Kochia scoparia), sometimes known as Summer Cypress. It’s considered a noxious weed in Manitoba. Roger Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassia_scoparia https://classicbells.com/info/History.asp https://www.mushroom.world/show?n=Marasmius-oreades

July 31, 2025 The Latest - New Location River Lot 150 has been overlooked. I metal detected on almost all of the River Lots that form part of Two Little Points but not River Lot 150 and not on the western side of the Old 14 Highway. This might be my last opportunity to do so. It is the southernmost edge of the 20 acres of land that has been set aside and dedicated to rerouting the old road. A 20 acre crescent takes in Lots 150 through to 153. It’s on this stretch of open farmland that we did our Group Hunt. See: June 21, 2025 - An Exceptional Group Hunt . Also see the three main hunts on the July 2025 posts. This will be my fourth visit in July. Both ends of the crescent form neat triangles… hence on the ends of River Lots 151 and 153. The real sweet spots were the two middle lots directly west of the old Pembina Trail. The Pembina Trail eventually became Provincial Highway # 14 and then it just became the Old 14. Other than being used by the “locals”, it fell out of service when Highway # 75 was built in 1949. I hope to bring a group out again to this area before heavy construction begins and the road gets redirected away from the river’s edge. I was not expecting to find much this time around, although one never knows. As is my habit when on a farm field, I tend to dig everything. That means even all of the low signals. Yes, I did dig up a lot of junky stuff like round nails, fencing staples and wire and well… see the pictures... Some of these are extremely corroded. My goal here is to salvage. It’s more about not leaving anything of interest behind. What I also get is a good and sound idea of what lays on this river lot before parts of it are forever covered over. On this outing, I collected yet another 14 lbs of material; mostly big iron. One of these low tone (iron) signals came back as a partial horseshoe nail. Nice! One strong signal, a solid 26 on my display that usually yields pennies, came back as a square cut piece of copper, possibly a harmonica part... So much for seeing a date! The round brass ball looks to me like it’s the top end of a bed post. A prize find was the thimble; unfortunately it was flattened by years of field work. The button is also nice. The brake pad was a bit of a surprise. Does anyone know if Freddy Krueger is missing a finger? Roger Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitoba_Highway_75 https://www.istockphoto.com/search/2/image- film?phrase=antique+thimbles