Why Do we Rockhound? A story of what got me interested in the hobby.
By: Michal Adamowicz, rockhound

Have you ever asked yourself why you collect rocks & minerals? If you are a geologist the answer is probably quite clear, but what if you are not. If you aren’t a geologist then this answer is much more difficult to answer. One possibility is for the enjoyment & relaxation you get when looking for rocks. Right? One would think so, except when you think about it can be quite the opposite. I remember a few years ago my mother asked my: “Mike, why the hell do you search for rocks. You aren’t a geologist, but a business man.” Well I can tell you that I was annoyed by this question because the answer seamed so obvious to me. I started to explain to my mother that I get to explore and relax. She didn’t believe me thought and after thinking about it I understood her point. When I go rock hounding, I drive for hours to remote and “backwater” locations risking the car and myself to rock falls, wild animals, and unknown dangers. This is on the way to the destination, when you get there you are climbing around dangerous mines, forgotten mine tunnels & shafts, risking getting lost in the wild northern Canadian Woods & exposure to radiation, for a piece of stone. This is her point of view of course, not mine. Even hearing this generally accurate explanation of what I do when I rockhound, I still don’t feel a shred of doubt that what I do is for enjoyment and exploration. It is very hard to explain the joys of rock hounding to others with no perspective on the hobby. We all have reasons why we rockhound, so why I don’t I tell you a little about why I do what I do & what got me interested in the hobby.

Here is me, Michal Adamowicz, in front of the main chamber in MacDonald Mine.


I was originally born in Poland in the town of Gliwice. I am told by my mother that this town was a mining & smelting town, so I guess my interest in rocks is in the blood. When I was 8 I came to Canada and lived in Toronto. About 7 years ago we moved to Mississauga since we bought our first home.

When I was younger my first instinctual interest in rocks was found in the local river near my home in Toronto. This was Humber River and it had a number of small fossils that could be found in the limestone of the river. So being young, I collected these. Nowadays my interest is purely crystals so fossils do not interest me overmuch. But back then they were truly fascinating.

Here is Humber River, where I found some of my first fossils.


One event in my life that really interested me in crystals was a camping trip to Lyndhurst near Kingston. We camped in Charleston Lake Provincial Park and visited Lyndhurst a few times since it was close. There was a gift shop there that sold small quartz crystals from the Steele Mine. My mother bought me one once she saw that I was fascinated by the crystal. I remember the seller talking about the metaphysical properties of the crystal and how long you should hold it to benefit from its energies, or something like that. This crystal opened the world of possibilities to me and from that point on I always dreamed of finding large crystals. Of all the crystals in my collection this quartz is one that I would always think of first as one that I would save in case of an emergency. And I got to tell you, over the years it almost seams to me that the crystal was becoming less creamy and more see thought. Could be my memory is changing slightly.

Anyway, back to the story. Once I got this crystal I began to look for other locations near us where I could search. On a family trip, we drove west and discovered the Niagara Escarpment. To me this was amazing, I always had a thing for mountains & cliffs and to have this cliff so close to us was truly a great find.

This is the small quarry on the Niagara Escarpment where I found my first micro crystals.


The escarpment became the site where I found my first self-found crystals. The crystals were small pyrite octahedral in limestone exposed at the bottom of a small quarry. After some trips I discovered that there was also flowstone in cracks along the escarpment, and small calcite crystal in vugs in limestone boulders. There were also fossils but at this point my interest has shifted to crystals. After many trips & research I discovered that I had very limited future potential for finding different & large crystals from the escarpment, since it was one of the youngest rock in the region. So I was forced to do research for other locations. As of this point I had my drivers licence & finally could expand my search further. So, can you guess what area I discovered near Toronto that has an incredible variety of minerals & crystals? Well its was Bancroft of course. I stumbled on the Bancroft site after I kept on seeing the name Bancroft in my research. After I read about the region I knew that I found my final hunting grounds.

As it turned out Bancroft was everything I was looking in a region with crystals, minerals, and many abandoned mines & quarries. There was one problem thought, it was bloody far from me! You have to understand that the farthest I have gone at the time was about 40 kilometres to the Niagara Escarpment to fish & look for microcrystal. Going to Bancroft was a distance of about 350 kilometres, on a major highway one way. This does not account for going to sites from Bancroft. I never at the time drove such a long distance on a major highway. Nerveless I practiced and made my plans to get there. I bought maps, done research, send emails, made phone calls, and I was planning to get a geologists hammer, but I couldn’t find a store to sell them near me. I eventually bought it from Lakeside Gems south of Bancroft. At the time, my mother was reluctant to allow me to go such a distance. So naturally since I was determined I simply told her I was going to be fine. She actually didn’t believe or didn’t want o believe I was going to go there, but I did and when I returned with mineral samples, pictures she believed that i actually did.

The actual trip was very long, 3 and a half hour one way to get to Bancroft. From there all I had time to see in one day was 2 main sites, the Beryl Pit & Bear Lake Diggings which were unfortunately in opposite directions. From Bancroft to the Beryl Pit was about 40 minutes one way, & from Bancroft to the Bear Lake diggings is about 25 minutes. So you can imagine that this trip I ranked up quite some mileage. I did not find too much from the Bear Lake diggings except some apatite fragments, calcite, and some mica. From Beryl pit I found much more.

Here is a typical trench from Bear Lake Diggings.


Here are the dumps from the Beryl Pit.


I must admit, you do feel quit unease at some sites when you are there alone. Since I am the only one in my family to rockhound & my friends definitely don’t want to so I usually go by myself. There are sites that are a bit remote and deep in the woods, when you go there the thought on wild animals & bears especially is definitely on you mind. Ime not paranoia, because I know these animals are there, I have seen them. And if you stumble upon a mother bear & her cubs you can be in real trouble. This is a real concern, but I suppose you must be careful and vigilant. I always go to these sites with some hunting knife or two. You never know, if you are prepared you are less likely to have trouble I always say. I tell you, there are some sites that you really get a strong sense of unease & wrongness. I consider myself to be sensitive to such feelings around me. I remember when I was near Dyno mine, I felt extremely unease. There was no reason I should be after all, it was a beautiful sunny day but I felt like that. Once I took out my Geiger counter I knew why. The area was elevated with radiation. So there you have it, you never know why you have a strange feeling but I think there is always a reason, our bodies maybe are trying to tell us something that we don’t perceive at the time. But enough of this, I was talking about my first trip wasn’t I.

This trip was an amazing experience for me & I felt extremely empowered by my success. This success has definitely kept me coming back to Bancroft. If I didn’t take that trip I probably would have never have explored there. So you see, some impulsive and risky actions are needed to grow as a person.

Well so what is rockhounding to me? It is an adventure, it is independence, it is freedom, it is the hunt for something, and most of all it is getting back to nature and the outdoors. I hope this article gave you all some insight into myself, and helped you to get to know me a little.

Thanks for Reading, rockhound safe & with determination.

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