We are now getting to the end of May 2023, the weather has started getting nicer, & the bugs have started getting worse for the season. That’s right, it’s black fly season, I have witnessed the clubs social media page taking a lull in activity. From the start of spring until about the 15th of May activity within the club was very active However between the 15th of May Until I guess when the bugs die down it will be fairly slow.

There are still some upcoming events happening but our clubs active members, the ones that post almost every other day, have seemed to take a break in the detecting action, myself included. I do have an event to attend in Toronto on the 3rd Of June which I’m really looking forward to tho. And I may even get out once or twice before then.

Turns out I was able to get out once before the 3rd of June. I had asked Club Member Jason Corbett if he wanted to head out to a nearby island on my boat just East of Kingston to detect? Unfortunately Jason was working, so instead I decided to make a video out of Island Detecting for the year so who better to call other than Ryan Pugh, one of the club’s preferred videographers. I asked Ryan if he’d like to join me on the 31st of May for an island adventure to which he replied absolutely.

Perfect, early on the 31st around 7:30 I was dropping off my son to his daycare for the day and off to meet up with Ryan Pugh at the marina where Erin and I keep the family boat. it’s a 21 FT sailboat, with a small 5HP kicker motor, the motor is really just to get us in and out of the harbor but on this day I would use it to get Ryan and I over to a nearby Island to start off my summer adventures of metal detecting along the St Lawrence River In the 1000 islands.

Just as I dropped off Caspian Erin was just getting home from a 12 hour night shift and I called her before she was going to head to sleep for the day. Turns out she wanted to come with Ryan & I so she could spend the day resting on the boat instead of in her own bed at home. Lol

Ok a quick stop back at home to pick her up and the. Off to meet Ryan.

Ryan got to the marina around 08:30AM as we had planned however I was now running about 29 minutes late, regardless we loaded the boat with all our gear, and set off around 09:00. Like I said. This was the first island in my summer adventures and was only about a 20 minute ride over.

I personally have only detected once on any of the islands about 2 weeks ago it was this exact island and it was for only about 20 to 30 minutes of detecting. I had found a few Pennie’s and a 1918 KG5 silver Canadian dime.

Finding this 1 coin has now inspired me to do an entire metal Detecting short documentary series throughout the islands this summer with the people from our local metal Detecting club. Ryan is the first up. No one knows that this is going to be my plan.

I’d did not take long & Ryan, Erin & I were moored up at “Treasure Island” (not the real name of the island) Erin was soon off to sleep while Ryan gathered our gear and started detecting almost immediately. Right from the get go we had both machines lighting up and chirping away. There was going to be no shortage of targets on this island it looked like.

Around the boat docks area although looked heavily travelled with people over the years, ( always a good place to detect) it was also very trashy, also my idea for detecting the island was not to go after modern day items, but to go for the history items instead. So I suggested to Ryan we head off into the island where the road was less travelled? Ryan seemed hesitant at first, he said where the boats were there were loads of signals to be dug! Soon I was able to convince Ryan that these islands hold history from the settlers days , but we would need to search the areas that no one goes in order to find older history. So we were off on an adventure

So we walked along pathways and up and down rocky hills until we came to a decent opening. And then it was all business. Both of us were walking and swinging our coils desperately trying to find anything old.

Ryan wasn’t long before he came over to me and whipped out an old knife. It was a great start to what was going to end up being just an epic day.

Ryan seemed like he was just digging for at least the first hour. Every time I looked up, he was on his knees digging away and finding goodies. I on the other hand, was doing a bit of cherry picking to be honest, I was only digging signals that I know have been good to me in the past. Does that mean I was missing some decent items? I would bet on it, however, it also meant that I wasn’t needing to dig as much trash, or items that wouldn’t interest me. And then I got a strong signal, one I probable would not normally dig, however with me cherry picking so much I wasn’t digging to much. So I decided to give this one a try. I quickly found out that I was glad I dug it up. It was a small pocket knife date yet to be determined. It had been in the ground so long that the blade of the knife had rotted and rusted, & was no longer there. However the rest of it was surprisingly in decent shape. Especially for an early to mid 1900’s wooden handle pocket knife.

So before I ruin this story I have this adventure series coming to YouTube on January 1st 2024.

Ok if your not into watching the series then you can read about it here instead.

It wasn’t long and Ryan and I were both running back and forth to see each others finds. Lots of relics and I did manage a couple coins, one of which was a bucket lister for me.

And Ryan ended up with one of his own bucket listers as well. He has been wanting a skeleton key for a long time, and he’s finally done it.

Me? I’ve wanted to dig a Buffalo nickel for a while now. And today was the day for me.

So after about 5.5 hours of detecting the island, it was time for us to get back to the boat so I wouldn’t be late picking up our little man from daycare. Once back at the boat, we loaded our gear and decided to take a few minutes getting some shots with the drone that Ryan brought with him.

Then we headed back to land and the day was over. For more details and the full series please keep in touch and check out my YouTube channel for more. https://www.youtube.com/@Treasurehuntinglegend1977

I hope you have enjoyed the first of many island adventures to come this summer 2023.

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