August 2024 - Bancroft, Ontario - Canada

Thursday - August 1, 2024

We went out to Canada this year, with the intention of visiting the Bancroft Rock and Mineral Show. Bancroft is the Mineral Capital of Canada, and we decided to give ourselves an extra day to be there and so we left on a Thursday with the hopes of spending some time exploring the area before our planned itinerary. However, one of our travelers only had their REAL ID license, which no longer works to cross the border into Canada. We stopped in Port Huron to consider our options over lunch, and we ultimately decided to try and print a copy of their birth certificate in the hopes that it would work - and it did (that one time only). To go to Canada, US citizens will either need their passports or their ENHANCED LICENSSE; a lesson we all learned  on that interminable day! So, we ventured onward into Canada and began what felt like the longest drive. The stormy weather and the rush hour traffic along the 401 and the 407 highways dragged on, but we eventually got to Bancroft around midnight. By this time, the weather cleared up and we could see a beautiful starry night outlined by the Milky Way Galaxy. 

Friday - August 2, 2024

Our first rocky stop was the CN Rock Pile on the Hastings Heritage Trail. This is a pile of rocks that was dumped here from the Golding-Keene Quarry while they were constructing the railway. Most of what's in this pile is the fluorescent minerals hackmanite within albite, biotite, nepheline, sodalite, and scapolite. This pile had been overturned for the mineral show, so we got to find some good rocks and mineral specimens here! 

Our next stop was the Princess Sodalite Mine, a nice little place that has a pile you can pick through and pay by weight. The piles they have include a variety of rocks and minerals from across Ontario, not just Bancroft. A definite must stop for a sampling of Ontarian rocks and minerals! 

Next up we went to Egan Chutes Provincial Park to check out a waterfall. We parked our car and had a quick PB-Banana sandwhich lunch, put on our nets to protect ourselves from the black flies and mosquitoes, and started a long hike along the river bank towards the waterfall. It was hot and humid, and we ran into three folks on the hike that were going to swim in the river. The hike took us through some thick woods and we eventually emerged along the steep high banks of the York River. The exposed bedrock at the Egan Chute is made up of nepheline rich gneiss and syenite approximately 1.5 billion years old (as part of the Grenville Orogeny). The waterfall itself is a result of the glacial retreat 10,000 year ago. This was a wonderful stop that was very well worth the hike and spending time on the rocks while the water flowed beneath our feet. 

From here, we drove east through the beautiful vistas of Bancroft and onto Quadeville , views that have left us with the sense that "we wish we lived here" as we made our way to Kauffeldt's Grocery in a town called Brudenell, Lyndoch and Raglan to purchase permits to enter the Beryl Pit Mine. We got to the mine and parked our cars, got our equipment, and hiked about half a mile to the pit. It was in the upper 80's and the humidity was around 90% - and the flies were ruthless. Our excitement was too great to be deterred by the temperature or the bugs, and we ended up exploring and mining through the pit for minerals such as beryl, tourmaline, quartz, rose quartz, smoky quartz, feldspar, garnet, and many more. We spent a few hours here, looking at our stash and thinking "how will we haul all this back to the car?". Indeed, we left behind quite a few samples, but what we didn't realize all along was that we were slowly being dehydrated. The bug nets trapped the heat around our heads and at some point it was more merciful to remove the net and breathe than it was to be bugged by the flies. We got back to the car, packed our treasures, and began the drive back to Bancroft as the very late afternoon began to fade out into the evening. 

As we made it back to Bancroft around an hour later, the Sun was about to set. We decided to drive up to a place called Eagle's Nest Lookout. This wasa steep drive up this "mountain", followed by a "quick" hike that revealed views of Ontario and an ashy sunset that was dampened by the smoke from the wild fires. This was a fitting end to our day as we took in the susnet views and enjoyed the serene silence that came along with it. We made it back to the house and we called it a night - not realizing that we were going to wake up to some severe dehydratation the next day. 

Saturday - August 3, 2024

On this morning, we realized that we were feeling collective symptoms of headaches and overall groginess, and it wasn't that long before some of us realized that we were all simply dehydrated! Water and some gatorade with breakfast fixed our ailments, and we were ready to face the day. Today was the day we decided to attend the Rockhound Gemboree Rock and mineral show. It was another hot day, and the show had no AC inside the buildings it was held in. There were hundreds of vendors, with very few familiar ones that we've seen in the Detroit area, but plenty of local Canadian vendors with specimens from all over the country. Some of the best vendors we visited were ones who were collectors from the various mines in Quebec and Ontario, and were the most friendly and kind people who had a big passion for rocks and minerals. We even got to see some metorite vendors and educational set ups. In between, we had some snacks and tried some authentic poutine from the food vendors that were there. Overall, this was one of the better mineral shows we've seen and been to, and we can't wait to go back in the future! 

After we had our fill with minerals from the show, we set onward to Wilberforce and stopped by the Schickler Fluorite Occurrence. This was a heavily wooded area that we hiked through, and along our hike we got to dig (literally) for crystals of scapolite, fluorite, and apatite from the soil. I don't think we got to the mine pits here, but nonetheless we managed to find some beautiful purple fluorites and the classic green fluorapatite hexagons. We would have continued on to the pits here, but we were all growing tired from hiking out of the woods and Samer had to brave the long hike back to the car to come back and pick up everyone from the side of the dirt road. Wee were still tired and dehydrated - Canada has been surprisingly hot and humid during this trip. From here, we went further west beyond Wilberforce to the Desmont Mine (aka as the Homer Yellowknife Prospect). We were met by a narrow road, and a steep trail up onto a mound were minerals of diopside, scapolite, titanite, and molybdenite were found. This site is known for having diopside with calcite rich rocks that contain minute amounts of thorium that renders some radioactivity. We did not spend a lot of time here, but we did come back with some excellent samples of diopside and calcite, some with molybdenite. Overall, a very intriguing site with lots of room for exploration, but the mosquitoes, along with our dehydrated spirits, shortened our stay and we decided to call it a day. We went back to the house, had dinner, organized our minerals, and got some rest in preparation for our drive back home the next day. Overall, Bancroft was indeed a Canadian experience, one that we wish to experience again knowing what we know now, but with hopes that the next time around it wouldn't be as hot or as humid!