Helping to keep "Metal Detecting" in good standing!

[M_d_in_guy]

Last summer I detected most of the Conservation areas that I could. Lots of travel involved. While on site often there would be an employee coming to see what was being done on their property. I'd always have lots of junk from the water and sand. The collection of the junk got a lot of them talking. So much that I contacted the manager during the winter (who I'd also talked to a few times while out). We chatted on email for a short while, I proposed to them for me to get free admittance to the areas as I do take the trash away, as you all know sometimes a lot of sharp objects. They did agree to give me a "Special Events Permit" for the season, in doing so, they ask that I let them know what I took from each area, not so much itemized but a short form taly mostly of the junk. That way they can continue to give me the permit on-going from here. This is provincial that I was able to make the arrangement. Perhaps some of you in different localities can and have put such an agreement in place with different levels of government, municipal, provincial, now federal may be a tough one lol.

Just wanted to share with you all a way to maybe save areas that we can still detect.

Cheers and HH

Jon

 

[Roscue2]

Thank you for helping put the hobby in a good light.

 

[ajaj]

I think this is great! Good for the safety of users, good for the environment, good for the hobby.

aj

 

[MetalMiner]

I know I was MDing my local park & one of the Town Commisioners came by & she hassled me for a good 5 mins & I finally said "Listen I'm not doing any harm, if anything I'm doing good" & I pulled a handful of trash out of my pouch & said this is only half of it, I already emptied my trash once. She said "yes you are doing good have a nice day" & she left.

 

[M_d_in_guy]

In many peoples mind they think of only what can be had bounty wise, most of these people being non dectorist's. So a certain element of envy can arise from it. What I've found is most people also do not understand the dig ratio involved until they see it first hand, just as metal miner mentioned above. The other thing that was mentioned to me during the conversation emailing was how this will and can reduce liability on their behalf by removing certain items, so win win all around.

HH ev 1

 

[BigCatDaddy]

Good job of getting involved with the uneducated and showing them the benefits of our hobby. Glad you found them to be agreeable!!

 

[Elton]

I wish more of us ( Me Included) would explore avenues that placed us in a better light with the general public and Parks people.

 

[mudpuppy]

That's some good thinking and good doing too! A creative way to make things a win-win-win for everybody! Nice work!
Mud

 

[M_d_in_guy]

Thanks to all of your support here. Up here in Canada we are not able to hunt federal park land, especially UNESCO sites, I really want to see if in my time here that could be overturned gently with a proven track record to be able to meet special requirements to obtain permission of sorts. I feel collectively if we all do a part in this it may happen, perhaps not on our watch but possibly for our future m d ers. There's a lot out there to dig up and maybe we can slowly get the means in place lol. Always good to have a goal!

Cheers and ty all again for your support.

Jon

 

[Night Crawler]

Hi M_d_in_guy

It's hard to get and some areas aren't MD friendly, but my friend and I do have permission to MD in some provincial parks here in B.C.

We do have limits though (no shovels at all and away from picnic tables and the grass around them, no moving soil from one spot to another) but everything else is fine as long as it's put back in the same way we found it, they do watch us sometimes (closely) to make sure.

My friend and I strictly adhere to those rules and we are in good standing with them (provincial parks). We do take "A Lot" of junk out of the ground for them and we get rewarded occasionally from finding some old and/or obscure relic/artifact which we can keep as long as it's not Native in which we must notify them.

 

[John-Edmonton]

What a great post!

 

[M_d_in_guy]

Thanks John for your message and yes it really is win win all round.

Hi nightcrawler interesting how you are able to get the permission for your time in the parks, sounds similar to what I was able to get in place with the conservation areas. It's a federal offence to remove anything from federal parks, as well as provincial parks, although it's not let's say policed strongly.

A good example would be the Rideau Canal Lock system, a now slated UNESCO site. The construction started in 1827, sappers and miners came in from abroad, British Royal Engineers designed the system based upon Lieutenant-Colonel John By and his plotting of the route to be taken. For 5 years the work force was paid in U.S. silver half dollars. The funds were imported by Canada from the states at Britain's request, they arrived in small whiskey barrels and then delivered by the paymasters to the designated lock stations. Now we all know that the whiskey flowed and the pockets emptied out quite often. Now imagine the unclaimed 1/2's that are still out there. Plenty to go round. Problem is a very controlled hands off with metal detecting on any UNESCO site. Lol, it sure sounds worth trying to get a permission of sorts to be able to detect the areas. However the red tape and hoops to jump through would be huge. Just a thought and a nice thing to dream about all that silver staying safe lol.

 

[Night Crawler]

Hi M_d_in_guy

It would be nice to hit a Mother Load of US Half Dollars for any of us metal detecting. In reality, we haul away more junk for them than good finds (about a 90:10 ratio). This helps keep the parks clean and safe we feel.

My friend and I are more Relic hunters than anything else. We like collecting the past where this great country started from and the people who worked it back then. We can work the shorelines and the wooded areas and that's where most of our metal detecting is done.

Thanks so much for sharing that great bit of history with us MDG.

 

[M_d_in_guy]

N C thanks for your post, I always figured the same ratio on the digs. I got a solid tone last summer at the waters edge on a beach here, dug down about 5 inches and pulled out a 75 calibre musket ball, thought that was pretty cool.

HH ev1

Jon