(Originally posted to Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program)
What I Did On My Vacation
To be completely honest, I can’t remember the last proper vacation I’ve been on… From a financial standpoint, I just haven’t been able to make it work. That being said, I still love visiting new places but rather than visiting tropical locales or far away places, I often find myself taking small day trips.
One of the most recent and memorable day trips I took was to Bancroft, Ontario for a geologist lead guided rockhounding tour. For those of you unfamiliar, rockhounding is the word used to describe hobbyist geology and rock collecting and Bancroft, Ontario is one of the best places in the province for it.
The Peterborough-Bancroft-Madoc region is one of the most attractive to the geologist and mineral collector in Ontario due to the abundance of fine mineral samples and the many interesting geological features to be seen.”
– D. F. Hewitt, Geology and Scenery, Peterborough, Bancroft and Madoc Area: Ontario Geological Survey, 1969
My travel companion on this trip was my mom, she’s always been such a good sport and really supportive of my weird hobbies. So we hit the road bright and early and headed off to Bancroft to meet with the geologist. We met local geologist Chris Fouts at a local rock and crystal store where he gave us a brief lecture on the type of crystals we’d be looking for: Corundum.
(iRocks.com)
Corundum is one of the hardest minerals, ranking at #9 on the Mohs hardness scale. Ruby and sapphire are actually the red and blue varieties of corundum. Unfortunately it is very very rare to find vividly coloured corundum in the location we were headed. We’d most likely be finding pieces of brown, tan or green corundum.
After our lecture we all piled into our vehicles and hit the road again, following Chris north to a secluded dirt road. On foot we followed a small trail leading into a wooded forest and up a steep incline. Once we made it to the top we found a large rocky landing and got to work.
Safety goggles on and pick axe in hand, I spent the afternoon sorting through the large chunks of heavy feldspar. We found huge garnets lodged into the feldspar and lots of little pieces of corundum. It wasn’t until I found one piece of rock with two hexagonal barrel-shaped crystals in it that I was super excited! I ran to show Chris and he said it was one of the best pieces of corundum he’d seen from the location! Now, brace yourself for this beautiful, spectacular crystal….
I know, pretty incredible, right? If you squint and look really closely, you can almost kind of see the two crystals. Hahaha! It’s pretty pathetic looking, but I’m still very proud of my find. The entire experience was so fun and if you have even a passing interest in geology, I highly recommend attending one of Chris Fouts guided tours! Here are a few more pieces of corundum I found…
Some other crystal pieces I found
Sources
- Sprit Nectar (facebook.com/spiritnectar)
- The Arkenstone (www.irocks.com)
- Geology and Scenery, Peterborough, Bancroft and Madoc Area: Ontario Geological Survey (geologyontario.mndm.gov.on.ca)
- Mindat: Corundum (mindat.org)
- Lakeside Gems (lakesidegems.com)
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