May 7, 2026 Churchill Drive Park in Riverview. So here we are: Winnipeg, May 5th, -2 C with snow on the ground. Yes, SNOW, with a 30% chance of rain this afternoon. Our daytime high is expected to reach + 3 C. It’s a perfect day to go metal detecting in Winnipeg! Of course it is. With that in mind, Monty and I decided to push back our outing to Thursday, May 7th. So much for braving the elements eh! It’s a hobby, not a life sentence. We met up at Churchill Drive Park a few days later. This is my first time here. Monty’s been here a number of times before and he’s talked me into trying out this location. He’s made some good finds here in the past. The park boasts a gorgeous view of the Red River as it curves its way north around Riverview. It is quite an extensive park, but narrow. Old city archival maps show this area to have been very active in the past. In other words, there’s a lot of history under our feet. Now, let’s see if this place lives up to its reputation. Monty was right! This park does offer some good finds but there is a lot of deep buried trash too. He found a homemade brass wrist bracelet with a large amethyst stone. It is classic 1960’s to early 70’s Hippie’s bling. Monty asked me what I thought it was, I said it’s Gaudy! But truth be known, this is a classic piece of jewelry. Where’s the Antiques RoadShow when you need them? Like most city parks and open landscapes, the top horizon of the soil is where the easy finds are, like the 1987 Loonie, found between surface tree roots. There is a top layer of nice top soil followed by trashy clay fill bottom that was used to level out the field. One of the deep hits that I came across was the Kipper Snacks tin can. At 5 inches in, it rang like a bell on my detector. The soil is still very moist from spring melt and deep objects appear closer than you think. It’s at about 4 inches in that I pulled out a 1959 (Year of my birth) penny. The other early penny was 1964, and the remainders were mostly from the 1980s, much like last week’s hunt. See: April 30, 2026 Optimist Park in Old St. Boniface. The tally is: $1.16 found between the both of us, 1 golf ball, 9 bottle caps (they beep like nickels so you have to dig them up), 3 pull tabs, 1 house key and the lock mechanism to go with it; maybe. There was also a brass belt buckle and a 3” craft pin. The larger pieces like the 7” by 4” trowel, the big nail and rod were found in the bushes along the walking trail that skirts the river. Yes, there is a lot of “junk” deep in the woods from what appears to have been encampments. The purpose of this exercise is to show what can be found, or not, in city parks. There is variety here. Open park, walking trails and river side woods. It is a great way to start off a new metal detecting season. Know your site and hunt accordingly. Best of luck to all of you out there. Roger Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_hippie_movement https://hippieshop.com/collections/jewelry?srsltid=AfmBOorbl9 Tl4O-wO8DMW- 4drQNSCGAySjT4PdLclQpow0NAQiJDeHQT