Federation Field Trips : My Recollections

  FEDERATION FIELD TRIPS : MY RECOLLECTIONS

I have been collecting minerals for over 40 years, and I have witnessed the ebb and flow of collecting from a participation stand point. The one thing I miss now is the big Summer Federation Field trip.

I was fortunate to join a mineral club, (Oshawa) in 1968. It had members that were exuberant and dedicated collectors.  Basil Breen, Bill Platt, Bob Kenny and a young fellow Darryl MacFarlane. I took many trips, mostly in the Bancroft area, collecting with the older members, I learned from their experience. I meet up with members of the Kawartha club and participated on trips with them.

I joined the Scarborough club around 1980 . They had excellent field trips, led by Ed Montgomery, Bill Huddy, Dick Sherrin, Duke Burton. Their trips to places like Cobalt, Herkimer, Gouvernor NY were always well thought out and attendance was high.

Around the same time the Federation under Norm Frost started running longer summer trips to more distant collecting locations, Quebec, Michigan, Atikokan, Thunder Bay, Virginia, Missouri, Manitoba, Northern Ontario. Field Trip Guru, Court Saunders, with help from Percy Hornblow, Bill Plavic and other collectors like the Patterson’s and the Farmery’s helped run excellent trips where up to 60 rockhounds would attend. Back then the majority of the collectors were campers so BBQ’s and get-togethers brought a fellowship among the participants that is missing from most of todays trips. I missed quite a few of these trips; work commitments are a bummer.

When Court stopped leading the summer trips, there was no one groomed to take over the daunting task. The last really long trip went to Newfoundland led by Bill Plavic in 1999. Unfortunately both Court and Bill have health problems that have curtailed their leadership and participation, so summer trips have, slowly withered and died.

I led one Federation summer trip to Quebec 2005 and while the trip turned out fine, I was a nervous wreck and it led to problems for me in my personal life. When I took the job I assumed I would be part of a group, and they would all be participating in the planning. I ended up doing the planning myself. I do not speak French so making contacts was an exercise in futility. I now realize it takes a special type of personality to run a big organized trip. This was the last big summer trip sponsored by the Federation, no one has stepped up the plate and taken over this exacting job.

My wife and I have travelled on our own to go collecting to Arkansas, Graves Mountain, Georgia, Michigan Copper Country : all these places have scheduled collecting events. An organized extended trip could be planned for a large group like the Federation to attend these events, and most of them have other collecting locations in the local area. The only drawback is distance; Michigan can be reached in one long days drive, the other two places take 2 days to get there, so any trip would require more than a week. This is just a suggestion, at these sites the collecting is planned for you, so all you have to worry about is planning and paying for transportation, accommodations, meals, and collecting fees and I can tell you Americans are only all to glad to except Canadians and their money. One bonus, the weather is lovely and warm in Georgia around the 1st of October.