Field Trip Ideas in Ontario to Learn About Rocks and Minerals

Amethyst Mine - Thunder Bay

A "dig-your-own" amethyst adventure. Have lots of family fun mining your own amethysts from the spacious digging area.

With pails, digging tools and running water provided to you, and amethyst readily available, digging is safe and easy.

Mine: 25 miles east of Thunder Bay off Hwy 11-17 on East Loon Road Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

For more information, contact:

Amethyst Gift Centre: 400 Victoria Ave. E., Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada P7C 1A5

Phone: (807) 622-6908

Fax: (807) 622-6933

Cost: $3 admission

Hollinger Mine - Underground Gold Mine Site - Timmins

Site Location: Hollinger Mine

Collection: Mining equipment from early 1900s to 1970.

Activities: Underground tour, panning for gold, gold pour, head frame exhibits, prospector's trail and cabin, and miners home from the 1920s.

Phone: 705-267-6222

Fax: 705-267-6222 and 705-360-1392

Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree

As Canada's largest gem & mineral show, it brings together over 110 dealers of fine mineral specimens, gemstone jewellery, and lapidary supplies.

Check the website to see when the annual show will be. Highlights include gold panning booth, rock and mineral talks with geologists from Natural Resources Canada, a swapping area, a mineral display and expert mineral identification services, and geologist-led mineral collecting field trips.

Besides the field trips conducted during the Gemboree, check with the Chamber of Commerce office for additional field trips offered every Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday during the summer. These trips are conducted by Chamber staff who are available to identify the minerals found and provide information on the geology of the area.

You can collect on your own with the Bancroft & District Mineral Collecting Guidebook which may be purchased in the Mineral Capital Gift Shop in the "Old Station "in Bancroft or ordered and delivered through the mail. The Guidebook is $10.70 at the Chamber, $14.00 by mail (Canadian funds for Canadian orders US funds for orders to US). It lists 30 collecting sites and includes maps.

Send cheque or money order to: Bancroft & District, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, Box 539, Bancroft, ON KOL 1CO

Bancroft is nestled in the York River Valley on the southern edge of the Canadian Shield. The region is known around the world for its variety and quality of mineral specimens.

A list of commodities that have been mined in the Bancroft area include: apatite, beryl, betafite, corundum, feldspar, fluorite, gold, granite, graphite, graphite spheres, iron, lead, marble, mica, molybdenite, nepheline syenite, sodalite, talc, sphene, tremolite, uranium, zircon.

Bancroft Mineral Museum located in "The Old Station".

Specimens are on display from locations such as:

Faraday/Madawaska Mine: calcite, quartz, selenite, ilmenite, magnetite and uranophane

Tory Hill area: apatite, titanite, hornblende, feldspar, mica

Quadville area: rose quartz, beryl, hornblende, amazonite, corundum, betafite, garnet, diopside, sodalite.

For more information, contact:

Phone: 613-332-1513

Cost: Admission is by donation

Bruce Mines Museum

For more information, contact:

75 Taylor Street, Bruce Mines, ON P0R 1C0

Phone: 705-785-3426

Cobalt's Northern Ontario Mining Museum

The Museum's collection of artifacts, relating not only to mining but to the cultural and social life of the Cobalt camp bring those early days vividly to life. Visitors can stop at the gift shop and purchase one of a kind hand crafted silver jewelery, fashioned from .999 pure silver from the local mines.

In an effort to stop the decay of the many Cobalt landmarks, the Heritage Silver Trail was established along the far side of Cobalt Lake.

This unique self-guided tour of many of Cobalt's famous mine sites draws the tourist back into Cobalt's past, allowing them to explore the very sites where the Cobalt fortune was made.

Interested individuals can be taken on a underground tour of the Colonial Adit by Museum staff. This adit echoes the days when men carved out tunnels with hand steel, searching for the vein that would make their fortunes.

For more information, contact:

24 Silver Street, Cobalt, ON, Canada

Phone: 705-679-8301

Nuclear and Mining Museum - Elliot Lake

Discovery of uranium; mining and milling of uranium; uses of uranium; history of community including pre-Elliot Lake period are the subjects of the displays. This was the interim home of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.

Tours of the museum are provided by request. Museum exhibits are designed to be self-guided.

For more information, contact:

Highway 108, Elliot Lake ON P5A 2T2

Phone: 705-848-2084

Miller Museum of Geology and Mineralogy - Kingston

For more information, contact:

36 Union Street Miller Hall, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7N 3N6

Phone: 613-533-6767

Cost: For self-guided tours there is no admission charge, while guided group-tours are available for a small fee.

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