Interesting Things You Find On An Adventure!

We all encounter very interesting things while on adventures, the type of items or situations that really make you wonder and want to remember. It is terrific that in today's internet age we can share these experiences with other like-minded people on a forum such as ETS (Thanks Doug) and with most people carrying a camera we can even see the pictures.

So I thought this could be a fun post to "Share Your Adventure" so all of us can enjoy and learn from it.

Here goes,

In late September I traveled to an "end-of-the-road" location in Northeastern Ontario for an Archery/Muzzleloader Moose Hunt. The site was on the edge of the Hudson Bay Lowlands where the Boreal Forest thins out to stunted conifer and muskeg to the north. The area was a patchwork of recent small clearcuts that had been replanted, and it was within these openings that I was hunting. While sitting on a slashpile I noticed a faint trail that ran along a thin ridge, through the harvested area and into the standing forest. I went exploring along this old trail and found that it was a Trappers trail which linked 2 small lakes about 2km apart. About 50m from the shore of one of these lakes I noticed an odd shaped lump, back in the thick bush off the trail.

On investigation I found it to be an old wooden canoe that had been onsite for a very long time. The canoe was made of wooden strips which I suspect are cedar, with wooden ribs, gunwales and seats. I found no evidence of canvas at all and the 100's of tacks used to assemble the canoe were both copper (1.5cm long) and brass (1cm long). The short brass tacks were very interesting as each one was curled over in a small loop at the point, I suspect to have them lock into the thin wood.

I am sure the person who cached that canoe in the bush would have some great stories to tell.

The old canoe in the bush.


Close-up of the canoe stern with my hi-tech muzzleloader for scale.


Thanks for reading along,

Mike

That is VERY cool! Nice find.

I love finds like that because it leaves me wondering about the story. Did the canoe break while on a portage? Did the person hauling the canoe suffer a fatal injury? It's fun to let my imagination run wild with speculation.

I'm always picking up trinkets from my trips. I've got pretty rocks, turtle shells, feathers, glass bottles -- all serve as reminders of great trips.

Pictures work the same way. With today's compact waterproof digital cameras so affordable, it's a snap to documents out travels. Ten pounds of camera and lenses is replaced by a single piece of gear that weighs ounces.

Condor head over trail map petroglyph? (my superimposed lines, I'd just come up the upper fork of the trail)

When I was hiking in Oregon about 25 yrs ago, my dog ran off the trail a bit and had her head down with her tail wagging. I never found what SHE found, but nearby was quite a nice little two-person-sized shelter made from fir branches. I almost missed it.

From the smaller branches all over the top, I would guess that he/she had covered it with needle-covered branches (gone, fallen off). More of the same formed a thick mat on the ground.

And I found a funny, curved little knife, once. The cutting blade was on the inside of the curve.

Sue

Perfectly virgin wilderness isn't very much fun to me. I like finding sparse, old stuff.

Found a very old .30-30 casing up on the tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park once.

I've been hiking a turn-of-the (last) century cattle ranch that's now a wildlife area. There's a book written about those who settled it and there is lots of their decaying work on the land left to see.

One of my hobbies is finding old (preferably military) airplane crash sites out in the woods. Lots to learn and think about with those.....

Sue..your knife find is a crooked knife.they were the main carving and woodworking tool for natives and trappers in the 17-1800's.with one you could make snowshoes,a paddle..a canoe.
and speaking of canoes!!!Swamp's find was like finding a crashed UFO to us canoe trippers.the copper tacks were all placed by hand.the tack was driven in and a metal "shoe" was held inside so the tack bend over and clinched in place.i would guess this is a Chestnut canoe.from the size and where it was found i say a Prospector model.the Hudson Bay Company bought the entire production of those canoes from Chestnut in around 1910 for the Bays use.

I've found the remains of several stills out in the Florida woods. Usually near a stream or spring. These seemed older but stills were pretty common in the Florida woods well into the 50s.

I've also come across several pot fields. One was still in production. I would be leery about exploring near pot fields now but back in the day wilderness cultivators were a peace-loving breed. As long as I didn't mess with their crop everything was cool. Getting too close now might get you shot.

Once I found some aircraft parts that had a story about an airplane that went down in the 30s associated with them. They went down in the sticks and it took weeks for them to find the two survivors. Story was a local swamp rat/ trapper/ gator hunter type, found them and led them out.

One trip we came across a section of tiny light-gauge railroad track that led to a small lumber mill. It was set up in the 20s and was abandoned in the early 30s according to the ranger we asked.

Hard to find anywhere where people haven't been and left marks. Recently, in the last couple of decades, GPS mapping of the amazon rain forest showed that the regular spacing of groves of fruit trees was a man-made and a remnant of earlier tribes. They lived nomadic lives traveling in large circuits hunting, gathering, and living off small clusters of select fruit trees.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to walk beaches on the Channel Islands, and I have found:

1) fully working flashlights, plus numerous other items of scuba gear (nearly everything except a tank and regulator)

2) Discarded Navy nautical charts, in good condition

3) Unopened cans of beer (in the interests of science, they didn't stay that way very long!)

4) innumerable Japanese glass net floats

A friend has everything I have found beat all hollow. We were walking along, and he spied a boat paddle in a pile of debris. Pointing out that he had lost one from his skiff a few weeks earlier, he walked over to retrieve it - turns out it was the very same one he had lost about three miles away.

Question about the relict canoe that started this thread - Any idea of its age?

Hikemor - I have no idea on the age of the old canoe I found, I do know that the area was accessed by road only 3 years ago. CANOEDOGS may be close on the age and make of the canoe as the area was used by trappers who marketed fur to the Hudson Bay Company. I will be in the area of the canoe again next fall and can check it out closer.

I mentioned the copper and brass tacks in my first post and CANOEDOGS gave a discription of how they were installed in his reply. I removed 2 of the tacks from a piece of the rotton wood of the canoe and the tacks can be seen in the image below, with a couple of period knives.



This fall while deer hunting in Central Ontario I found another neat thing.
I was in a remote location and saw what I thought was a piece of out-of-place aluminum garbage so I walked over to pick it up and pack it out of the bush. It turned out to be a mylar bag and beside it was some stryofoam and electronic parts? The return address on the bag solved the mystery, " National Weather Service Radiosonde Reconditioning Group, Kansas City Missouri", I had found a Weather Balloon "crash site". The radiosonde instrument, the soft battery pack and even the mylar bag were badly chewed by bears. I thought it was neat so I carried it out to show my hunting partners. At home I accessed the Weather Service site and found out that if the radiosonde is damaged then they do not want it returned for refurbishing (I returned a good one in the mid 80's); so my daughter is going to take it into her Grade 10 Science Class as a discussion item when they study weather.

Here is an image of what I found and the Weather Service discription.


Mike

*sigh* You all find cool stuff. All I find are friendly, young topless women.

-Blast

Blast - If this is a contest then I have been defeated; Topless, Friendly, Young, Women beat broken canoes and weather balloons every time!

I need to have adventures in warmer places.

Mike

If their Chapperones weren't There,I'll bet they'd of said"Canoe come out n'Play?",Followed by a Grand Breakfast of Chorizo & Muffins!:)

Mike, my sincere thanks for the photos. I absolutely love this stuff. Reminds me of bushwhacking outside of Dawson City YT in '98 to find the riverboat graveyard. BTW, I picked up that exact same knife (lower pic in your last photo) for $5 at a swap meet. Carbon steel, takes a great edge, and I know nothing else; any info greatly welcomed.

Blast, I'm obviously paddling the wrong rivers. Ah, the wonders of nature!

Mike..some of the local history buffs might want to know about this,there could be story's about "Old Jim" who went trapping and never came came back,or something like that.maybe a connection could be made to some local folklore.but on the other hand the bush is probably filled with ditched canoes.when you head back have a look around,without damaging the canoe,for anything else that might have been cached by the owner.

Doug - The knife came from a founding member of my father's hunt camp, the member has long since passed away. I suspect he carried the knife in the 40's maybe earlier, I have no idea on the actual age of the knife and there is no makers name on it. It is carbon steel, full tang, has a brass handgaurd, antler grips and a nice leather sheath.

I have been tempted to carry it hunting just for old times sake.

Mike

CANOEDOGS - The old canoe is not far off the trappers trail which is still actively used by the current trapper. I have never met the trapper but saw plywood "cubby boxes" along the trail which are used to hold a 120 Conibear trap for trapping marten. It the winter the old canoe would be quite visible from the trail. The site is 2 lakes north of what used to be the main cross Canada railway, I suspect the canoe came in by rail and was used by the trapper on the remote chain of lakes before it was cached and forgotten. The neareast small town to this site is a rough 60km away.

Where I find a lot of stuff is around old logging camps, the best place to search is in the overgrown camp dump because the discarded glass is often in perfect condition.

Later, Mike

Mike, what do you know about the curved knife (top of picture) I ask as I have one very similar that was found in my Grandfather's barn after he died in 1959. The tacks are different than the one in your picture, but brass with much larger heads.

Thanks,

Hi Rebwa - I know little about the curved knife. I was given it by my mother when I was a teenager as part of a butchering kit that she bought from an old hunter at a garage sale. I store it in a split piece of fire hose and use it for skinning big game. It is carbon steel and sharpens easly to a very sharp edge. I see them for sale on the back cover of "Backwoodsman" Magazine.

Got to go!

Mike

A gentleman, not that I've ever been accused of being one, does not kiss and tell.

Bummer, how those pixels on your camera failed. And why is the guy in the middle so overdressed.

One day, when you're old enough, I'll tell you about a trip to the Dry Tortugas and a week spent on Loggerhead Key.

One day I shall hire a proofreader, lol.

Regarding the "curved knife" -- I have always seen that referred to as a "Green River Knife," the primary tool of the skinner/hunter/trapper of the day. The design stuck because, simply, it worked. They were manufactured in their untold thousands/millions and used across the continent. Each one has tales to tell, and is worth keeping.

There are many other made-for-purpose antique knives. I have a couple that were hand-made by my grandfather, from old circular saw blades (the kind that were six feet across). One is a genuine pig-sticker, used to slaughter hogs. The other is a turkey knife, which was used to slaughter turkeys; the method of its use is ingenious and likely quite humane, though a bit freaky.

I suspect Blast is already in enough trouble with the distaff half; this is just full public disclose, all tell and no kiss, throwing oneself on the mercy of the court.

I was at least expecting pasties and tassels, though. Burlesque is back, and so it should be; a thoughtful counterpoint to the increasingly vicious stuff on the Web.

Blast, all, after careful examination I conclude the young women at issue were in fact NOT TOPLESS! The closer I looked the more conviced I became that these women were fully equipped with the tops that nature intended for the fairer sex. It was somewhat annoying to find my computer somehow glitched some black bars over areas of interest, however.

Every now and then when visiting my old tramping grounds in the midwest, I have occasion to explore the old dump near my bro's farmhouse. We have found old glass and crockery there going back 130 years.

Doug is correct on the above. These knives are not all that rare up here and can found here time to time in old homes, garages, antique stores, yard sales, estate sales etc. The knives on their own are just another old knife, but as Doug also alluded to, the tales those knives could tell, make them worthy to keep.

Whenever I find such an old item it never fails to intrigue me. I always wonder who owned it, what made them buy/make it? What/where did the owner(s) go and do with the item and how/why did it come to be here where I am now seeing it...perhaps over a hundred years or more later?

Mike: Thanks for sharing your very unique find and story.

I have found many things over years while tramping around in the outdoors, however my most prized find is a small dinosaur bone (2-1/4" x 2" x 1/2') that according to a paleontologist is thought to be about 145 - 100 million years old (give or take a few million years either way). This era of time is more commonly known as the Cretaceous Period.

Teslinhiker - WOW a dinosaur bone is a terrific find, Nice. I have also always wanted to find a meteorite piece (something from another world).

With my Father about 40 years ago we found numerous First Nation Artifacts (arrowheads, pottery pieces, a tomahawk head, skinning flakes). They are proudly displayed in his living room to this day. Mike

SwampDonkey, finding a meteorite is easier than you think, if you're willing to settle for micrometeorites.

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/edu/micromet.htm

Get a rare-earth magnet (neodymium) and a petri dish or a glass bowl. Put your supermagnet in the bowl and run it through the collection area mentioned in the article above. Reason for the glass or plastic is that neodymium magnets are so strong that once the micrometeorites are picked up by the magnet they are stuck forever: The bowl allows you to pull the metallic meteorites from the debris, then separate them from the magnet.

Not as romantic as finding one out in the woods on your own, but it does have a tad of coolness. But when you show your collected tiny pile of micrometeorites to people, most will yawn, and they won't believe you.

Neodymium magnets are extremely powerful. You can pick things up through your hand. I had one that could affect a computer monitor 6 feet away.

Thanks Newsman! I really would like a meteorite big enough to handle and display buy micrometoerites would be a cool project to do with my kids.

Neodymium magnets may also be useful when doing hand MAGIC, now I just have to think of a fun trick. Mike

Hiking John Muir Trail one summer I pitched a camp earlier than I would as an afternoon storm was coming in. Walking around the area a bit I found several arrowheads. Most were broken but a few were in excellent condition.

Sort of OT, but following up on the "Green River Knife" part of this thread:

They still make them using this pattern. I just came across an Ontario Old Hickory "Skinner," new, on Amazon. Thought some of you might be mildly interested/amused. No affiliation.

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Hickory-71-6-in-Skinner/dp/B000WHRS6K/ref=pd_bxgy_sg_text_c

Probably don't want them near your compass!

I bought one of those recently. Walnut handle and carbon steel blade. Made in USA and pretty good quality considering the price. www.BladeMatrix.com offers the whole line. No affiliation

The curved blade is an excellent skining shape. I was oiling the knife (the one in the posted image) to put it away yesterday and noticed something odd. The full tang carbon steel tapers and is thinner between the handle slabs than the blade itself? I am now thinking that it may have been made from an old circular sawmill blade or maybe hammer forged that way? I have owned this knife for 30 years and never noticed it before.

Mike

aside from the ubiquitous shotshells and drink cans, i've found a few dozen metal disks from 3.5" floppy disks,
i found a BSA hotspark years ago--currently attached to one of my Moras.