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

May 12, 2026 Two Little Points. Finally, after a long winter I am back on a farm field. Accompanying me is Keystone Detectorist Club (KDC) member Ray. It’s very windy out so a warm jacket and gloves are definitely needed. The soil conditions are interesting; dry and powdery for the first 2 inches on the top then moist thereafter and clay being clay, well tacky. The highlights of the day were two fold. I managed to find silver, a 1939 Canadian dime and at least one good sherd of pottery, possibly two. Ray found himself a lucky horseshoe and together we collected 40 lbs. of metal, mostly iron… mostly Ray’s doing. I ended up picking up a lot of glass and ceramics too. The volume of it all took two separate takes of photos. This site never ceases to provide a wide variety of finds. I’ve been metal detecting here for six years now and the material just keeps on showing up. I thought I’d spotted an arrowhead… looks like an arrowhead, has the point and the back end of an arrowhead, so I called Ray over for the big reveal… It’s a broken clamshell. Aaahhhh…. The larger looking, round copper cylinder revealed a distinct ornate design once it was cleaned. I reached out to my friend and fellow KDC member Randy who immediately identified the artifact as a “Trench Lighter”. Other notable items found are two copper grommets and a buckle that were probably part of horse tack. The two black graphite round items, one with verdigris on it, are the cores of a dry cell battery. The shoe anvil for making shoes is unfortunately broken. An 8 inch punch and the half of an axe head were also found. That thing with the two spikes, well that’s anyone’s guess. Let’s just call it Vintage Goth ! Roger Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cell

May 15, 2026 A Quest for the Principal Meridian Marker. Here we are, seven of us, the hardcore crew, braving the strongest winds we’ve ever seen. It’s a beautiful day for metal detecting. Not too hot, not too cold, not wet, just super windy. Anyone bring a boat anchor to keep you tied down, opps… there goes my hat again. I have a saying… the moment you find something good when metal detecting: like a 1907 Canadian Silver Dime for example, you might as well pack up and go home already, because that was the find of the day by Chuck… we weren’t even out twenty feet into the field yet, on our way to our first destination, when there it was: Treasure! Chuck’s other big find was a Blackberry phone. Really? A big thank you from all of us goes out to Roger, the land owner, who has generously allowed us access to his property to search for the Principal Meridian Marker. We had assumed that it would be located at a spot that lies directly south of the Bourne off the highway that states “about half a mile south of this site”. The north south section line for land passes right through the monument so that’s where we started looking. However, new historical information tells us that the surveyors chose a spot exactly 60 miles from the US border and 10 miles west of the Red River. Roger, the land owner, says that he has seen the marker, a large brass disc, at a slightly different location and that it sits about 10 to 12 inches deep. He was kind enough to drive me over to where remembers having seen it some years ago. A farm field becomes a very large space once you’ve got boots on the ground and you’re swinging a 14” coil around. No, we didn’t find the Principal Meridian Marker on this attempt but one of the surveyor’s campsites was found. Robin from OK John’s Metal Detectors found information online that tells where some of their camps were located. Ancient cutlery, shotgun shells and ceramic plate shards were found in these locations. Not all of the finds are shown, just the ones left behind by our detectorists, for me to clean and to curate. Here are some of the details. The shotgun shell headstamps and issue dates are as follows: Rem-UMC Nitro Club No 12 (1915 -1942), Remington UMC Nitro Club No 12 (1911 – 1914), two are Eley Canada No 12, these were made in Winnipeg sometimes between 1912- 1918, Winchester Repeater No 12 (1896-1927). Two and a third horse shoes were found. The complete one shown is 4 ½ inches across by 5 inches in length. The punch tool is 4 inches long. The big ornate copper ring is possibly part of a kerosene lamp. Two broken keys ? , the stem of a spoon, and a harmonica reed piece are shown. I am presently trying to have the dishware pattern identified and dated. Surprisingly, no square nails were recovered, only 3 modern round ones. A lot of copper wire was found. And the prize for “cute” goes out to the barbed wire piece that, to me, looks like a deer or some animal caricature. More Principal Meridian Marker adventures should be coming. I will advise our club members if and when. It cannot be too long after seeding and ideal weather; well that’s anyone’s guess. Now I have to rest from fighting the wind all morning, we’ll regroup, and go at it again sometime soon. Thank you to Robin of OK John Metal Detectors for the extra photos of finds from the hunt. Its nice great to have members pitch in. Enjoy the finds… Roger Reference: https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/principalmeridian.shtml

May 26, 2026 Red River Lot 154. A Walk Through… Here I am again on Red River Lot # 154. It’s my favorite hunt. Yes, that’s the location of the long ago defunct proto-town of Gauthier. This location once housed a Grist Mill, a Blacksmith Shop, and an Inn for weary travelers on the Pembina Trail by the name of Le Cheval Rouge. Once the iron rails of the CN arrived and located a train station in Letellier, this little hamlet dried up and died. The buildings were repurposed to farming, new buildings went up, were used, got torn down and now we are left with the artifacts and relics that litter this area of the field. But long before we even had the first settlers planting stakes at the river lot corners, the aboriginal inhabitants also had a presence here and they too left their signature in the soil by way of pottery sherds, arrowheads and stone tools. What is interesting is that when you study history you quickly realize that choice real-estate then, and I mean way back then, was choice real-estate back in colonial days and it is still so today. A story was once told to me while in Europe: A caveman is walking through a glen. He spots a pretty flower and walks over to see it up close and to smell it. By going over to the flower, he left a curved trail in the grass. Another traveler passing through a few days later saw the same flower and followed the faint curved trail through the grass going over to see the flower. Weeks later the flower is gone but the trail in the grass remains and the next travelers follow the same curve in the grass without giving it much thought. Later the Romans came through, building roads as they went, and the curve in the road is now paved over with cobblestone. Centuries later, a motorway was being put in and yes, it too followed the curve in the glen. Today, no one knows why a given road in Europe has an odd curve but it just does. River Lot 154 is no different than so many other similar places where there may have been an attraction and or the real-estate is good. This specific location in the field is on a slight rise that places it high above the Red River. It also gives you a commanding view of river traffic from both ends of the river from a great distance. This area gives you ready access to drinking water, fish and wild game in what was a narrow forested river crescent. The land is productive and rich and it’s been in use for millennia. I have a copy of the 1871 survey along with the surveyor’s notes and diary. It shows habitation. I have also obtained aerial photographs of this site dating May 1930. They show a collection of farm buildings and equipment along with what would have been the living house. By the 1950’s the buildings were all gone. All that now remains are the artifacts of past lives that find their way to the surface for a passerby to pick. Today’s surface haul is probably my largest yet. This is not the first time that I pick surface finds at this location. See: November 6, 2024 - A Walk In The Mud . I have also extensively metal detected here in the past. See: May 11, 2024 - The Group Hunt and the Finds . I am presently setting up a grid for an archeological project later in June… stay tuned and check Metalman9.ca often! While I was setting up this archeological grid, with a flag at every 50 feet, I covered a lot of ground and picked, picked, picked… In total 25 lbs. of glass, ceramics, coal, some stone and iron too. Of special interest are the pottery sherds and a possible arrowhead, albeit broken. The sherds are called “Selkirk Pottery” and are between 300 to 850 years old. Other special finds are the badly damaged early marble, possibly of German origin, and lots of graphite rods that were once dry cell batteries. I have no idea what the black tiny striped or grooved item is but it reinforces the idea of cleaning all of your finds to reveal otherwise unseen details. The glass and decorated ceramics are just so attractive, even in their present form. On the panel showing the iron finds, you’ll see the form used by a cobbler to make a child size shoe. Unfortunately, there were no inscriptions on the cigarette lighter. The grayish looking single stone with the exclamation mark down its center is a whetstone. Yes, all of this material was just lying on the ground. I can only imagine what else lies hidden just below the surface. Roger

May 28, 2026 Red River Lot 105. St. Pie, Manitoba. I have a cousin near St. Pie that farms a series of Red River Lots. St. Pie was another proto-town, like Gaultier, that never grew and disappeared when the railway built a train station in Letellier in the late 1890’s. St. Pie is located on the Old # 14 Highway halfway between Letellier and Emerson. I happened to meet up with my cousin Alain, at a local function last year and the topic of metal detecting naturally came up. Alain was most gracious and accommodating to offer up his farm fields to me for detecting. He even pointed out choice locations where some of the old homesteads could be found. Wow… it’s a metal detectorist’s dream come true. Today, Randy and I headed out, with old maps and aerial photographs in hand to locate and to metal detect on whatever homestead site we could find and find we did. It was a half mile walk through a field that had just been seeded. The vehicle had to stay on the road. This first site couldn’t be missed, metal detector or not. There is glass, ceramic, and metal everywhere on the surface of a slight ridge that gives in towards the Red River. It’s soo… hard for me to resist picking up all of the shards that I see. I’m here to metal detect remember! Well we both did great. There is a lot more that remains to be discovered here but that will have to be for another day. This week had been exceptionally hot and today quickly became a +30C day so we headed back to the vehicle at about noon, having put in a good three hours plus into this adventure. The pictures feature both Randy’s finds and mine. The finds in the bucket are as they come out of the field (not a pretty sight) and the next picture shows them all cleaned off and displayed. I cannot emphasize enough the benefit of cleaning all of your finds as you never know what significant detail may be revealed from under decades of soil, dirt, and corrosion. The most exciting and historic find was a Canada Militia button. Other than being corroded, it’s in perfect condition. The thread holding it in place must have broken because the clasp on the back is complete and intact. I have no idea what the curled up piece of copper is but I don’t dare unroll it so as to not damage it further. The sewing thimble is also very cool. I ultimately did pick up some glass and choice ceramic shards. The images and designs are stunning. Randy and I both found harmonica reeds and horse collar bells. There is also a large piece of lead with markings left by someone working on it. In Randy’s finds, you’ll see two Model T tire stem covers or protectors. Roger Reference: https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/stpieromancatholic.shtml