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Roadside Mine, Lakeside Sculptures, Loon Lake
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 1590
A few places to investigate today - first, an old mine I'd recently spotted on the side of the highway. I've driven by it at least a hundred times without spotting it, it's well sheltered by a tree, visible only for a fraction of a second - if you're looking.
I brought a flashlight but no rubber boots. Next time...
Over the side of the road, on the lakeshore, someone's building some rather interesting sculptures. I head down and check them out.
They're pretty cool, and I'd like to take more time to photograph them better, but he's a bit shy, he's out here to escape people like me, and so I take a few quickly and leave.
The hike up to Loon Lake is long. Maybe only 3 KM, 6 KM all told, but all at 30 and 45 degrees, up, up, up, and I'm not even halfway there when my fitness app on the phone tells me I've done my days walking...before I get to the end I'll have set records. It's bollocks, of course, a side-effect of having taken my pulse with it...
I have hopes for this, the old mining reports mention some possibly interesting minerals around the old mines...
An old cabin on the far side of the lake...
Swamp filled with skunk cabbage
detail of some shrubbery...
...an old mining road has become a waterfall
At the end of the track, remains of an old mine, some small stones that are clues to what might be found, nothing good, the wrecked timbers and cables suggest the mine was probably further up the mountain - along the same track that was a road, maybe in a few weeks it'll have dried out a bit...
Maud Lewis
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2134
At first I thought the movie looked promising, but then I grew annoyed that perfectly good Canadian stories have to be told by Americans and acted with English and American actors. Cultural Misappropriation.
In any event, the trailer for the movie can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCJO6Ax_ev8
I won't recommend it. But if you're curious as to who she was you can read the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Lewis, or watch this old CBC biography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIr8PAO0RSA or a NFB short on her life: Maud Lewis - A World Without Shadows.
(Maud Lewis's hours in Nova Scotia, now in a museum)
(One of Maud Lewis's many cat paintings)
And then there's this: http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/maud-lewis-painting-found-in-ont-thrift-shop-bin-to-be-auctioned-1.3342494 and this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/maud-lewis-painting-new-hamburg-thrift-store-auction-bids-125k-1.4084862
Meteorite Men
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1841
Add to my list of time-wasters: Meteorite Men
"Visitors from outer space...crash land without warning...and can lie buried for thousand's of years!!" Comic book blurbs, bad computer graphics, the same image of a meteorite crashing over and over again, shedding debris, it's another "Weather Channel" spectacular. The same narrator (I'm pretty sure) as "Prospectors" - the short lived weather channel show about prospectors finding gems in Colorado, it's pretty much the same formula. 2 guys who go all over the US and the world looking for meteorites. There's the focus on the weather or temperature outside, the exaggerated perils of snakebite and scorpions, the "cool gear" they need to accompany their trips, whether it be state-of-the art metal detectors or boilerplate covered aqua-suv's, motorcycle-with-sidecar ATV's, giant metal detectors made out of PVC piping and duct-tape, but no amount of gear gets round the fact that they're just- at the end of the day- a couple of middle-aged guys with metal detectors roaming around fields.
The Formula, the same as above, occasionally pair the hunters with a "local" expert who knows where the meteorites are going to be found, a lot of searching with no luck, explanation of the jargon (Meteorite - v - Meteor-Wrong - EVERY EPISODE! WE GOT IT ALREADY!!!) , explain the types of meteorites, explain how a metal detector works, explain what a strewn field is (every episode? Really? REALLY?) finally the patience for all this searching and drivel is rewarded with a find or two, the narrator informs us of the inestimable contribution to science they're making, followed by the expert evaluation of their finds, a dollar value assignment on every find, as it's made, (would this be as interesting without the dollar value?), and you're very much left with the impression that if these two guys can make it, so can anyone.
While I don't doubt it's all true, I have to wonder a bit at some of the contrivances. For example, thy're in Sweden, pick up over 2 days $30,000 worth of finds, and then they leave? Would a gold prospector abandon his claim after 2 days? I don't think so...
Anyways, you've been warned.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357GmOHOz7s - I include this because the first episode is set in Canada - Alberta/Saskatchewan, the Whitecourt and Buzzard Coulee sites.
and this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcGREEGQbQV3x-CnOXcXTg/featured which is one of the meteorite men's own youtube channel where he condenses interesting information on meteorites to digestible blurbs of a minute or so. More information, less dross...
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