Two steps forward, one step back is the idiom that best describes our third season of metal detecting. Actually, two steps back is probably more accurate. Maybe even three steps. Point is our activity regressed in 2024.
I’m honestly not sure why this happened. Life, I guess? Changing priorities. Changing interests. Whatever the reason, we spent a lot less time metal detecting both on our own and with our club. The results speak for themselves.
Our clad accumulation was the smallest we’ve ever had, across the board. If you don’t hunt as much, you don’t make as much. Simple as that. And yet, within this modest haul is our greatest coin discovery to date.
The story of this special find is worth sharing. As unexpected as its discovery was, its location was even more surprising.
It was late August and we were at the tail end of a weeklong camping vacation at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park in Saskatchewan. We’d gone to this lesser populated part of southwest Saskatchewan in hopes of enjoying some prime night skies for stargazing with our telescope.
Much to our dismay, forest fires in northern Alberta and British Columbia were sending smoke circulating across the prairies. It wasn’t the worst such smoke we’ve endured, but it was enough to impact our views of the cosmos each night.
The worst of it occurred during Thursday morning and afternoon the day before our departure. This was the first time the smoke was strong enough to be noticeably unpleasant to smell.
In hopes of escaping, I suggested we take our metal detector and do some hunting at an isolated day use area on a reservoir about half an hour south of the provincial park. One never knows what will be found at a place like Cypress Lake, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to find anything special.
I simply hoped its relative isolation meant it wouldn’t be hunted regularly, so at the very least, maybe we would find some decent clad. I really didn’t expect anything old or unique. Hell, finding nothing was just as likely. I mean, how many people had ever been to this place?
Well, it didn’t take long for my son to find a necklace with cross. Next, I found a gold ring, sadly missing its stone. It’s unlikely it was a big stone, or a valuable one, but it’s always nice to find jewelry intact. Still, a gold ring is a gold ring. We were pretty jazzed.
Then, my wife found something amazing.
The Cypress Lake Recreation Area includes a boat launch, dock, and picnic area. There is a strip of gravel “beach” by the dock, but nothing gives the impression this is a prime swimming area. The remainder of the recreation area is used for rustic camping and probably wild summer parties.
We had drained our interest in detecting the gravel beach and picnic areas and were contemplating leaving. Our jewelry finds were nice, but there wasn’t much else coming out of the ground. I suggested we try one more spot; the overgrown lake edge on the other side of the dock/boat launch.
We wandered though the bullrushes and weeds a bit then began working our way back towards the dock swinging the detector over any open patches of ground we encountered. My idea was proving rather fruitless when my wife finally got a signal right at the water’s edge.
She began digging around in the mud eventually revealing a glimpse of something small and metallic. My son immediately pounced sensing something was unique about this tiny flake of metal. I, as usual, remained oblivious thinking it was nothing more than a modern dime perhaps. My son, of course, was oh so very right.
As he rubbed the mud off the tarnished silvery slab, a coin was revealed. But not just any coin. It was a 1909 Canadian silver five cent piece, known as a fish scale to metal detectorists and coin collectors.
We were stunned! I can’t imagine how long that coin has been lying out there. It could have been a century or more for all we know. I can only wonder how it even got there in the first place. What an unexpected, wonderful find. Certainly, the highlight of our trip.
This find alone would have made the 2024 metal detecting season a success no matter how little else we found. Or even tried to find. But Lady Luck was not done with us yet.
Once again, we attended the seeded hunt hosted by our city’s metal detecting retailer. Once again, my son found one of the few grand prize tokens. The kid truly is charmed. I never find squat at these things and two years in a row he gets a big prize.
The previous year he won a quarter ounce gold coin. This year’s reward wasn’t as lucrative but was still pretty cool; a Go Find 22 metal detector. It’s a modest, entry level detector. Slightly better than our original detector but not as fancy as our second. It is collapsible, however, which will make it very convenient to take traveling or camping.
Beyond those two moments of excitement, though, the year was rather mundane and predictable. Mostly pennies and lots of junk. I guess all hobbyists have off years. We shall see if 2025 gets our detecting game back to its peak.
