Here’s a little blast from our past! On the elusive Superior Agate Hunt!
I mean, WAY back in 2007. It’s important to note that perhaps some of these locations may no longer exist, or they may be on private property. It’s important to note that you need permission from property owners if this is the case. Cheers and enjoy our tour of the north shore of Lake Superior!!
We’re back!! We had the most wonderful weekend trekking about the forest north of Sault St. Marie, and I’ve decided to post some of our adventure photos. Maybe you are travelling along this route, and you’ll find some helpful info. The pictures you are going see were taken with an old Kodak digital camera, so the quality won’t be super great, but you’ll get a good idea.
See that blurry girl in the photo there on those in interesting rocks? Yes, that’s me, sitting outside of a cabin next to the water that we rented at Montreal River. We stayed at the Twilight Resort. An old friend of mine told me that it would be a great place to begin our adventure of the weekend, plus it is such a gorgeous place to stay with an amazing view. My dear friend told me that you might even get lucky and find an agate while walking along the shoreline. Due to the water colour staining the rocks, I really couldn’t see much. It was quite early in the year, and if you look in the background of the photo, you can still see the ice and snow on the ground.
Our adventure beings on Friday. I managed to get “just about everything” we could possibly need packed on Thursday (with a lot of effort) and into the back of the truck. It was a bit crazy as my other half had just gotten back from out of town and we had about a zillion things to do before we left.
THIS IS AN AWESOME BOOK!!
The book you see in the picture is one of the publications we decided to use on this trip. It’s called Geology and Scenery of the North Shore of Lake Huron Region. This book is like a travel guide that talks about some fabulous side trips you can take, as well as the local mineralogy and old mines that are in the area. It’s in a series of books – and not easily found… I spent a LOT of time with my nose in the pages reading off information as we drove west from Sudbury towards Sault St. Marie (there are a LOT of cool things to learn that I didn’t know about!). Again, I point out that many of these locations are on private property, so just be sure you have permission if you are going to travel to some of the destinations located.
I found this book at the Sudbury Gem and Mineral show quite a few years back, and it’s become one of a set we never travel without now when rock hounding. There are quite a few that were made that cover a lot of Ontario’s old highway locations.
One of our first stops was at Rydal Bank. This is a small town that is about 8 miles north of Bruce Mines. It’s very quaint and worth checking out. We were on the hunt for Pudding Stone! If you look around the area, you will see many homes that show off larger boulders with these beautiful red pock marks, which are easily visible even from the road. A bit of info on the area: there is a prominent ridge that marks an outcropping of the Lorrain Formation, and you can find what is called “Pudding Stone”. This is a quartz jasper pebble conglomerate (or mixture).
This is a really pretty rock that is an off-white cream colour with beautiful dashes of red. Here’s a picture of a boulder I found (and left) so you could see how interesting it is. The red marks are the Jasper. We shifted our drive to north of Highway 17 towards the dam area. Note to anyone reading now, you can use your phone to Google Map these locations. Rydal Bank is located 10 km north of Bruce Mines. The village of Rydal Bank is located at the junction of Ottertail Lake and the Thessalon River. We didn’t find a lot of stones near here, but it’s worth a visit. There were only a few small pieces that looked like they had gone through a gravel machine to help maintain the area. It was really neat to look down and find these little goodies here and there while we walked.
After exploring this part of the area, we decided to take a side trip towards a high rock formation we could see in the distance. We were curious, it wasn’t on our plan to go here, but we decided to take a small side trip. As we travelled, you could see a high ridge that we figured “might” have been the ridge the book was talking about, where more Pudding stone could have been found.
You can see what we were looking at it in the picture. There is a white coloured ridge that is pretty high up on the hills. At this time we didn’t have a car with GPS maps so we were working with a lot of paper and cups of coffee.
Along the way, we discovered a pretty good side road that goes to the left up towards the hill called Nethery Road. Of course, we took it (checking first to make sure that there were no private signs posted – there were not). It was a good thing we were travelling with a large 3/4 ton pick up truck, as many of the places we went would not stand up to a regular car. This road led us to Humphry Cemetery. This is a very old site, crested high up on the hills looking over the scenery. This cemetery is located about 10 1/2 KM from highway 17 at Bruce Mines and up 2 km east of Rydal Bank on highway 638 off Nethery Road. This is a dead-end road, and you can see the gravel pit we also visited from there. There were some beautiful old headstones but out of respect for the family members, I’m not posting any photos. Some of the dates were prior 1900s. It was a beautiful location.
The Gravel Pit – Rydal Bank Area
It was pretty quiet in the area, and no rock trucks or equipment could be found, so we felt okay about continuing the exploration of the area. We did a good check to ensure that there were no trespassing signs as well. As you can see by the picture of my other half standing near the white rocks, it’s quite the place! At the bottom of this hill was a large gravel pit – we didn’t find a lot of pudding stone here, just the odd piece here and there. We poked around here for a while to see what we could find, but for the most part it was all white stones. Please note, you do need good shoes if you are going to walk around this area. Don’t wear sandals like I do.
Back on the highway, we went, and we went on through to Sault St. Marie. We took a short side trip down Wolf Lake Road (around Batchwana Bay area) and did some exploring. It was more of a look around and not any serious rock hunting was happening. Both of us found it FAR too busy with a lot of dirt bikes and fishermen everywhere, so we turned back on the highway to go further on.
We soon arrived at our cabin. This is the mouth of the Montreal River – usually this is underwater, but don’t be fooled if you are going to visit this place and walk around, the water flow is controlled by several upstream dams, so if you are going to walk around, make sure to keep your ears open for the sound of the water flow changing. As the trip was in early spring, it was very quiet and peaceful.
We had a super relaxing night off, sitting by our campfire and eating pasta. We watched the stars comg out on a very clear dark night and dreamed about the next day’s adventures.
The Next Day – Mica Bay
On Saturday, we got up early to head to Mica Bay. This area has what is called the Keweenawan volcanic rock formations in it. Here’s a bit of info: The Keweenawan are principally made up of lava flows and basaltic composition with vesicles (gas cavities) that have been filled with minerals such as agate, amethystine quartz, calcite, chlorite, dataloite, epidote, prehnite, thomsite and zeolites. These are really pretty when you see them up close. When you drive past them on the highway, they look kind of reddish, and you don’t see the inclusions. When you stop to take a closer look, they are very interesting and full of neat treasures and cavities that hold things.
OH LOOK! I’m wearing real shoes this time instead of sandals!! You can see some of the calcite and quartz veins in the rock that I’m standing on in this picture.
Just a bit further down this beach, we stumbled upon a fabulous find. You will see from the next photo how far the water had receded over the winter, so there were a lot of rock treasures just waiting to be found. I was walking towards the shoreline (thinking that I had spotted a REALLY big Lake Superior Agate winking at me near the edge of the rocks). I reached down, only to have the rock I was looking at roll and crush my thumb between it and another rock! OUCH! Thanks, Universe!!
I stood up quickly to nurse a bruised thumb, only to trip and crash onto another pile of rocks right behind me. After I made a few nasty comments, I turned around to look at what had tripped me and found myself smack dab in the middle of a pile of Hematite and Jasper! What a find! People on the highway probably heard me whooping for joy!!
As I sat there in awe, watching the waves roll in near me (knowing that these stones were only recently hid by layers of ice and before that, many feet of water), I got to thinking of Mishi Peshu, the great underwater lynx like creature who lives in the depths of Gitchigumi (Lake Superior). As I turned to look over my shoulder, I could see my other half looking in awe at the great ice bank still resting on the shoreline. You can see it was really quite early to be out rock hunting and very cool outside still.
A bit of history on this: Mishi Peshu is the ultimate metaphor that represents the power, mystery and innate danger that comes from these sacred waters. With razor like spikes on his back, the face of a lynx or panther, and the body of a sea serpent, this creature demanded respect. The Anishinabe offered tobacco and prayer to the creature spirit before they embarked out onto the waters in their canoes. The calm waters of Lake Superior can be quickly transformed into raging squalls and huge waves from the northern, north-eastern, and north-western gales that often suddenly crop up. These gales sweep over the open water, quickly picking up momentum and causing huge waves, some up to 40 feet high. A picture of Mishi Peshu is found at Agawa Bay, Lake Superior National Park, in northern Ontario, north of Sault Ste. Marie. If you are looking for more information on how to visit the park to see this in person? Check out this link that will take you to the Lake Superior Provincial Park site. The Midewiwin Society claimed in 1850 that this pictograph was painted by an Anishinabe shaman, and represents a heroic 4 day crossing of Lake Superior by a war party of five canoes. The author is believed to be a tribal shaman named Myeengun which means “Wolf.” The images are painted using red ochre, a pigment made from the iron ore called hematite, mixed with clay minerals. This is the most famous rock art painting in Canada, according to National Collection Archive sources.
Gargantua Provincial park.
If you are able to visit this part of the North Shore of Superior, it is well worth the time it takes to go here. When you pull into the road, you’ll see a warning sign that lets you know that there are 14km of rough winding single lane roads ahead. Don’t take that lightly as the roads can be a challenge. Gargantua is one of the main access points for the Coastal Trail system. You will need to travel along this gravel road from Highway 17, which leads to the access point (there’s a picture of the road below). If you are hiking this area, it is one of the most challenging and demanding trails in this park’s system. It will take you along high cliffs and rocky beaches of Lake Superior and extends from Agawa Bay, north to Chalfant Cove. A bit of history is that this area is a natural harbour and was a fishing and logging center in the early 1900s. It was its busiest time in the 30s and 40s and the only access was by boat.
Gargantua is AMAZING!! There are miles and miles and miles of the most beautiful and well-hidden scenery on this part of the shore. It is a rough stop to get into, so there were only a few folks there when we arrived (some were set up for camping on the shore).
The beach is beautiful with a mixture of sand and stones. Yes, that’s a picnic table buried under sand up there.
The rocks range from pebbles to large boulders in incredible colours, shapes and sizes. As this is an Ontario Provincial Park area, we did not collect any stones from this area. But we did spend hours and hours poking around here, discovering things and enjoying the beautiful spring afternoon.
By the time we got back to Montreal River, we were both tired and ready for a good meal and a sleep. The very next morning, we packed the truck and took off back to Sudbury. Of course, we stopped along the way and spent time looking for more Pudding Stone near the shores of Bruce Mines and Georgian Bay. We did come home with a pocket full of samples that now live in our gardens.
Did we find any Agates this trip? I’m sorry to say… no, we didn’t. But we did come home with a few incredible pieces of Hematite Jasper, plus some beautiful round stones for painting and our memories filled with beautiful scenery and happy thoughts. It was so worth the trip to get to take a break from our busy hectic lives and just find a little peace and quiet.
And if you love hunting and searching for rocks in the wild? You might also enjoy seeing what they look like transformed into wearable art and jewelry. I handcrafted crystal and gemstone jewelry and some of our pieces are natural stones that are found right here in Northern Ontario. If you are interested, come have a look at Wicked Stones.
Cheers and thanks for reading! Be safe in your rockhound travels!
Beneath the Crow's Perch 