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First off, the picture is not a picture of me - its of my husband in raingear! I look a lot like this in raingear. We were on a club outing this February at the Fraser Valley bars looking for jade (nope), jasper, agate. quartzite and anything else that needed to be lugged home.
We are building a rock workshop in our back yard after realizing that queuing up at the club workshop and paying per slab to cut stuff wasn't so good. We live on Vancouver Island which was an arc island complex - basalt, enrichments of sulphides and copper gold and silver, and lots of pretty but low key lapidary stuff - flower stone, Dallasite (brecciated jasper), jasper....Unfortunately the metamorphics around here were low pressure low temperature so lots of serpentine and greenish olivine colored rocks rather than huge pegmatite crystals etc.
We belong to Ripple Rock Club (Campbell River) and The Courtenay Rock and Gem Club (Courtenay) and both have keeners and interesting field trips. We are a short drive away from a river that one can find flecks of gold in and slightly longer trips to defunct mines that yield the usual stuff - pyrite, magnetite, some garnets.
We are up for trading stuff - our common stuff for your common stuff. Don't bother telling me about one inch sized cabinet specimens for hundreds of dollars. I'd rather go to the beach and return with easy rocks in my pockets.
If anyone reading this is coming to this area or lives in Oregon and wants to host some rockies at some point for a field trip or meet some here let me know. Like everywhere - what we have is plentiful and ho-hum but maybe exciting to other people. Paulette
We are building a rock workshop in our back yard after realizing that queuing up at the club workshop and paying per slab to cut stuff wasn't so good. We live on Vancouver Island which was an arc island complex - basalt, enrichments of sulphides and copper gold and silver, and lots of pretty but low key lapidary stuff - flower stone, Dallasite (brecciated jasper), jasper....Unfortunately the metamorphics around here were low pressure low temperature so lots of serpentine and greenish olivine colored rocks rather than huge pegmatite crystals etc.
We belong to Ripple Rock Club (Campbell River) and The Courtenay Rock and Gem Club (Courtenay) and both have keeners and interesting field trips. We are a short drive away from a river that one can find flecks of gold in and slightly longer trips to defunct mines that yield the usual stuff - pyrite, magnetite, some garnets.
We are up for trading stuff - our common stuff for your common stuff. Don't bother telling me about one inch sized cabinet specimens for hundreds of dollars. I'd rather go to the beach and return with easy rocks in my pockets.
If anyone reading this is coming to this area or lives in Oregon and wants to host some rockies at some point for a field trip or meet some here let me know. Like everywhere - what we have is plentiful and ho-hum but maybe exciting to other people. Paulette
3 Comments
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Comment by Paulette Egeli on August 5, 2020 at 1:19am
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Crystalhunter - The British Columbia Lapidary Society is the blanket organization for rock clubs all over BC. If you join a club in your area you are covered (insurance wise) and welcome to take field trips with any other club in BC and also other provinces because the BCLS is a member of the Canadian association as well. I am not going to list contact numbers here, but the address is lapidary.bc.ca and the email is bcls@CIA.com.
My husband and I are members of both the Courtenay Gem and Mineral Club and Ripple Rock Gem and Mineral Club. We attend both clubs and take and make field trips with both. For two years the CR club has gone to Hope BC in Feb (low water) and searched the Fraser River bars - we may or may not go next Feb because most club members have piles of what there is (not jade) in our backyards already. (I would go again)
The clubs are inactive in the summer but Terry (husband) and I go on trips whenever we can. We were at Rock Candy Mt. two weeks ago and lugged back packs of fluorite and also assorted easy stuff from rock cuts, creeks, gravel pits etc from here to Calgary and back.
The woods are closed now but maybe we could meet you and show you some banded chert/"jasper" in the Arrowsmith area or go gold panning . The chert is red, some red and green, some green and cream and is somewhat fractured but some slabs are good enough to make cabs from and all can be tumbled. I had heard there were Herimer double terminated crystals on the island - they are showing up for sale in rock shows. The BC Lapidary Society Objects are among others: to promote and encourage the study, collecting, cutting, polishing, and engraving of gemstones, minerals, rocks and other geological materials and lapidary work generally, as a hobby otherwise than for the purposes of trade industry or business. Not that rockhounds don't participate in tailgate sales and swaps but one shouldn't plan on supporting one's self with the proceeds of rocks collected on club field trips or returning to such an area and cleaning it out. There is a certain tension between the hobbyists and the venders - including internet venders.
Be thoughtful who you tell where you find your pretties. But if we get to know each other, or you join a club then maybe I'll get to see one in place.
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Comment by Crystalhunter on August 5, 2020 at 2:29pm -
Thank you so much for your comments. I have often thought of joining a club to learn more but it seems not to happen for one reason or another, but you are right and I will make more of an effort to join either in Duncan or Victoria or maybe both! LOL
I loved my trip to Rock Candy Mine, sat next to Bob digging for Barite crystals and we found quite a few! I went on the ‘rocking through the okanagan’ trip but next year I hope to go for the ‘vug’ trip. How exciting it would be to have a fresh, never explored vug waiting for me. He was very interested in the crystals that I have been digging, so much so, that he would like to make a trip to the island and do some digging.
I have also seen the crystals at rock shows and at the Rockhound shop in Victoria for sale. I can't believe the price they are asking! My friend and I dig them for the fun and the thrill but I have seen several people up there who dig them for profit. One day we found this great hole filled with mud and we didn't have time to get all of the crystals out before dark, we returned early the next morning and it was cleaned out but on of the people who seem to think they can live on the profits, he was up there in the dark with flashlights cleaning out the hole. There used to be quite a few regular diggers but now that a lot of the area is covered up there aren't very many spots left to dig and the good thing about that is that the 'profit diggers' are no longer up there! I would love to take you digging but no promises on finding any crystals, but you might find a fossil. I went last weekend and only found a few small ones but it was fun, a great view and at least we didn't go home empty handed.
Anytime you would like to take a couple of newbies out and teach them a few things, we will be there! LOL
Thank you again and I look forward to meeting you one of these days.
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Last week I went to Rock Candy Mountain near Grand Forks with Bob. It was great! I hope to go on his vug trip next year.
I would love to go on field trips around the area if any one is interested.