RockhoundingVideos.com - From The-Vug.com

After a brief sojourn in the land of our youth, it was time to start the North Eastern leg of our journey. Justin decided that we would go to Bancroft first, and then make our way down through the other states. Nether of us had been to Canada since we were kids, so we were excited.

Once we got the border the cars were lined up, but everything was moving along fairly quickly.

We arrived in town pretty early, because we wanted to get to the Camber of Commerce before they closed.

Justin had read on their website that you could get all the information that you needed for collecting in the area. We already had a pretty good idea of what’s up, but we like to stop and see what additional info we can find while we are in the area.

Unfortunately they didn’t really carry books anymore. It needed to be revised; however they did give us some pamphlets for a couple of pay sites and rock shops in the area.

We also saw the remains of the Bancroft Mineral Museum.

So we decided to check out the shops since it was too late to collect. The first place we stopped was Lakeside Gems; Nature Shop and Studio.

We talked with the owners Linda Bast & Terry Brenneman a little about what’s up, and checked out the nice selection of Estwing hammers they had in the mineral/rockhounding section of the store.

They didn’t have any actual collecting books, but they did have this kinda meh, DVD/CD guide thing, so we decided to get it, and see what it was like.

After that we headed out to the Princess Sodalite Mine & Rock Shop.

Inside we spoke with the owner, Andy Christie. It turns out that the actual Princess Sodalite Mine itself isn’t open to collecting, but he said that we could go in to film and take pictures for historical reasons.

The Princess Sodalite was named because of the The Princess of Wales (Future Queen Mary) was so enamoured by its color.

This mine has passed through quite a few hands since 1893 when the material was first shown at the Chicago World’s Fair. Besides numerous private individuals, The Princess Sodalite Mine has also been under the control of both the British Crown and the Canadian Department of Mines at one point or another.

After we finished up filming we went back in to talk with Andy some more.

He had some jewelry made from some of the Princess Mine Sodalite.

But my favorite thing was the awesome floor.

Before we left, Andy gave us a really good guide laying out most of the outcrops, roadcuts and quarries in the area. Being as all the mileages were in kilometers, It gave Justin a chance to hone is math skills.

And then it was back Bancroft for diner at the WORST Chinese Resturaunt (Chan’s Chinese Resturaunt) we had ever been to.

No really, it was bad.