Showing posts with label Yukon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yukon. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

5/15/19 Report - River Boat Parts Exposed by Low Water. My Favorite Beaches From My Days In South Florida.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Riverboat Parts Exposed During Low Water.
Source: See link below.


Take a walk along the Yukon River in Whitehorse these days, and you might spot things you rarely see — historical objects and structures that are typically well hidden under water or ice.
"Like, there's a log cradle here, or a crib, that was used to support sternwheelers when they were hauled out of the river in the winter," said Yukon government archeologist Ty Heffner, as he walked along the riverbank.
Water in the Yukon River system is very low this spring. Vast gravel bars flank the stream in many areas, and Heffner says lots of artifacts can now be seen in the mud and rocks.
That might include anything from old rusty nails and wooden logs and planks, to iron fixtures...
The article also states that some of the items you can now see along the river could be of historical significance.  I guess that might be true, but I wonder what kind of significance or how significant they might be.  It seems that archaeologists like to make everything over a few years old into something significant.  That makes it easy to make "significant" discoveries.
But how much can those items really add to the body of knowledge?  They already know there were steamers on the river, and they probably know a lot about those steamers and the stories of those steamers.  So what information can those parts add?  There might be some earth-shaking new information in them, but I really doubt it.


For me, there is a difference between interesting and significant.  Sure, you can study the  items and perhaps learn something from them, just like we do here all the time, but will it really add anything to the body of archaeological knowledge?  That is just a question.
I also wonder if whatever might be learned from those items will ever benefit the public.  Will the items be seen by the public, and will the results be published for the public.  In the mean time, the items rust and deteriorate.

Lowered water levels can always reveal interesting things, just like erosion.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-river-historic-artifacts-1.513459
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I woke up thinking this morning about my earlier days of metal detecting.  I was living in Hollywood when I really got started, and hunted coins at first.

My first serious detector was a White's that I got from a Sears catalog.  I sent it back for some reason and got a Fisher Aquanaut.  In one year with the fisher I found enough value coins to pay for the Fisher, just counting the face value of the coins.  As I recall, that was about $640.

Like a lot of things, I was pretty intense with my new hobby, and tried to see what I could accomplish.

I was living in Hollywood, so that was the beach I went to most at first.  It later became a beach that I would visit when I didn't have much time to go somewhere else.  There were a lot of targets there, and a lot of jewelry, but the targets weren't high value targets.  The gold rings were mostly bands without gem stones, and mostly 10K instead of something better.

Anyhow I was thinking about the locations I hunted.  Hollywood was the most frequent because it was closest to my home, but I spent a lot of time on beaches ranging from Key Biscayne to Fort Lauderdale.

A lot of the beaches down there were crammed with people, and I suppose they still are.

My favorites were Key Bicayne, North Miami Beach, Bal Harbour, Hallandale, and Fort Lauderdale.

There were a lot of good areas to choose from, and I'd hit one heavy for a while when it was producing and then focus more on another when things changed.  To rank my all-time favorite from back then, it would be Bal Harbour.

I occasionally went down the Keys, and of course up to the Treasure Coast.

I enjoyed Jupiter when the banks were eroding.  Virginia Key was also real good at times.

I had enough places to choose from that I would pick the one that was producing at the time.

There were specific spots that produced frequently.  At Fort Lauderdale, there were three spots that I liked to work.

I had jobs that allowed me time to get out and I detected almost everyday back then.  Both university teaching and consulting allowed time to get out.  Even when I traveled on business I took my detector and always like detecting in the Pensacola area and the lakes in the Minneapolis area.  There was a good bit of silver in the lakes, but not a lot of gold.

There was some good hunting at John Lloyd park for a short while.  I hit fifteen rings there in a four hour period one day.  I think that was the  number.  Maybe it was thirteen, but it was a lot.  I think I have a photo of that day's finds somewhere.  I understand that you can't detect there anymore.

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Concerning the little vase referred to as a medicine bottle in the article I referred to yesterday, Bruce B. said he,  ... happened to see the first photo of a so-called medicine bottle. I say that because I happen to own some bottles just like it, but what they are are dollhouse vases, which the Spanish made for the female children of noble families throughout Europe as furnishings for their dollhouses. At least that's what it appears to be.  

Thanks Bruce.

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

Thursday, September 20, 2018

9/20/19 Report - HMS Endeavour Found. College Class Rings Returned. Gold Toned Silver Coin.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

1927 Gold Toned Quarter.
This 1927 quarter was found many years ago.  It is the only silver coin that I've found that has developed such a bright gold toning, which seems to be increasing.  I don't know how or why that happened.

Reverse of Same 1927 Gold Toned Quarter.
The coloring in the photo is accurate - no digital editing or anything.

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The possible discovery of HMS Endeavour off the east coast of the US has been hailed as a “hugely significant moment” in Australian history, but researchers have warned they are yet to “definitively” confirm whether the wreck has been located.

On Wednesday Fairfax Media reported archaeologists from the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, or Rimap, had pinpointed the final resting place of the famous vessel in which Captain James Cook reached Australia in 1770. 

The ship was later used by the British royal navy in the American war of Independencee and was eventually scuttled with a dozen other vessels off Newport, Rhode Island in 1778....


Here is the link for the rest of the article.


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The alumni magazine from one of the schools I got a degree from had an article about two returned class rings.

One took a long journey.  It was first lost while the owner was fishing back in the 1970s.  He took off the ring and put it into a vest pocket while he tied a lure.   It was found years later, given to the daughter of the lady who found it.  She couldn't find the owner.  The ring was eventually given to an official of the university.  The owner was eventually found, decades after it was lost.

Another ring went missing.  Evidently it was stolen by a college room mate who gave it to a girl.  Eventually the girl gave it to the president of the school alumni association, who couldn't find the owner for some time.  After some time other university contacts were able to identify the owner, which lead to the ring's return.  That was before facebook etc.

My mother lost her college class ring when planting flowers at a grave site.  She thinks she laid it on the stone while working the dirt.  When she returned it was gone.

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The Dawson City Museum in Yukon is about to get an overhaul that will allow new exhibits, displaying artifacts only ever held in storage.

It will be the museum's first major renovation in about three decades.

"Because our displays change very little, a lot of the acquisitions over the last 30 years have never been on display," said Alex Somerville, the museum's executive director...

Here is that link.


When people donate items to a museum I think they expect the item to be displayed, but that doesn't always happen.  I've heard from people who have donated items, and the items disappeared somehow.

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You've probably seen about New Bern, North Carolina on the news.  I did a little (very little) metal detecting there back in the 1980s when I was on a business trip to the Naval Air Rework Facility.  I buried a knife that I used as a digging tool by a hotel light post in case I returned.  I never did.

Nothing much happening in the Atlantic, and not much happening on the beaches either.  Expect a peak surf of around 4 - 5 feet on Sunday.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

Sunday, September 9, 2018

9/9/18 Report - Safe Uncovered. Now Three Named Storms That Could Become Hurricanes Moving East.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Source: See CBC link below.


An old iron safe discovered by construction workers digging up part of downtown Dawson City, Yukon, is generating a lot of curiosity.

"Everybody wants to know what's inside, but we checked with YG [Yukon Government] heritage resources and the local museum and neither of those people seem to be interested in it," said Mark Dauphinee, superintendent of public works in Dawson City....

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-dawson-city-safe-discovered-1.4777964

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For us the Treasure Coast the big story is that we have three named storms now.  You can see that it looks like a parade of storms coming off of Africa now.

Three Named Storms.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov.
Besides Florence, there is now Isaac and Helene.  I said a couple days ago that North Carolina could get hit by Florence.  Now that is what the TV news is saying.  Worse yet, if the Ventusky.com projections are correct, Florence will slow down and hang near the Coast of North and South Carolina for quite a while.  Of course there could be changes to any of that.

Florence.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov
According to the above cone, there is a good chance North Carolina will get the strong north side of the storm.

But the one I'm thinking could hit near us is Isaac.  We got the I storm last year - Irma.  That one caused a lot of problems.

Isaac.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov
It is too early to say with any kind of certainty where Isaac might go, but the NHC has it going across the windward islands as a hurricane.  The storms normally turn north at some point.  If it turns early, it could hit the East Coast of the U.S., or if it turns later, it could go into the Gulf.  Still too early to tell.

Helene.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov
It looks like Helene will go out into the Atlantic and not be much problem to the U. S.

So what does all that mean to us this week?

Surf Predictions.
Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.
It still looks like we'll get a day or two of big surf.  Those other days of three foot and more surf could help too, depending upon how they hit.

Bottom line is that you need to be ready for the possibility of improved beach detecting conditions some time in the next week or two.  Get your batteries charged and your equipment in good order.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

Friday, September 7, 2018

9/7/18 Report - Cache of 19th Century Coins Found. Florence Coming Closer Followed by Others.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Source: See CBC link below.
... The latest historical find was unearthed last week, as crews were building a new recreational trail. The workers stumbled upon a stack of 23 old Canadian and American coins, buried about 30 centimetres below ground.
They're all from the 19th century, and the oldest is dated 1864.

"These are coins that would have been in common circulation during the [Klondike] Gold Rush," said Christian Thomas, special projects archeologist from the Yukon government...
Here is the link for the rest of that article.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/dawson-city-old-coins-1.4811814

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov
It looks like there will be a lot of storms headed this way.  Maybe they'll veer off or maybe one or two will hit us.

Florence.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov
It looks like Florence might come closer than was originally expected.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov
There are two other systems right behind Florence.

Predicted Wind Speed Map for Sept. 12.
Source: ventusky.com.

The wind predicted wind speed map for Sept. 12 looks like a Van Gogh painting.  It is looking like Florence might be headed towards North Carolina.

Source: Pinterest
The MagicSeaWeed surf prediction is for waves of seven to eleven feet on Wednesday.  Until then it will be around three to five feet from Sunday until then.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.
It looks like the tides will be pretty good then too.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net