Introduction

I grew up with a healthy curiosity for what laid beyond the well travelled road. Even at a young age, while my Mother attempted to reinforce the rules of staying on the marked path, my Father believed that there was both something of interest to see on the other side of that gate, or fence….and that in no uncertain terms “no trespassing” signs were for other people.

I have many a memory of dragging my young frame under a lifted barbed wire fence, or past a “no entry” sign as my Father repeated the obvious fact that the sign and or fence where to keep everyone else out. My Dad has always had a way with people, so searching around on what would otherwise seem like private property not only satisfied our sense of curiosity but many time provided my Father with the chance to meet and befriend yet another stranger. Growing up, my Dad worked for a large hotel chain and I spent many an hour wandering beyond the stage that the hotel guests were made to temporarily live and act on. “Employee Only” signs were like the beginning of the adventure for a curious 5 year old, let loose upon the workings, hallways, and empty banquet rooms of a very large hotel.

My need to explore was (and is) not limited to physical places and locations. The rusted and abandoned machinery used to build society also seemed to call to me. To this day, I find it near impossible to pass by any rusted hulk of any former construction equipment, or long since demolished buildings, grown over rail bed, or sole concrete foundations. My wife is testament to this as I pull off the road to view yet another in a line of seemingly nondescript broken down outbuildings or manmade holes in the earth that look like, yes, every other nondescript broken down outbuilding or manmade hole in the earth I have forced her to stop and wait while I explore.

As a child visiting the annual logging and heavy equipment convention with my Father (which coincidentally was always held in the parking lot of the hotel that he worked, and I explored, at) provided me with the chance to, with permission, climb on under around, and explore every piece of hulking, massive logging and construction equipment available. From skidders to trucks to cranes, it was all hands on and socially accepted for a youngster one weekend a year. Occasionally, as youths we would happen upon a logging or construction operation in the “back 40” surrounding our neighborhood. It was a little known fact to the outsider, that even though these metal monsters slept, they were sometimes left with enough “life” in their hydraulics that allowed us to operate their appendages for just a second. We would sneak in to these areas, find a suitable entrance into the operating area of the behemoth’s and move every knob, lever, pedal, and switch until the desired response in the form of any movement was had.

Our first trip back to my Fathers’ homeland, Italy, was one of great excitement. You see, I knew very well that Italy possessed something special, something that we in Canada did not…….castles. And as a youth visiting Italy, any ancient (or not so ancient) stone fortification could be considered a former castle and required exploration. Again, my Father was all too happy to fulfill my need to “see what is in there”. In exploring many of the old ruins around my Fathers’ village I not only satisfied my craving of searching for the unexpected, I learned that I was interested in more than just the physical structures themselves. As my Dad informed me of the local history of the different places we searched I realized that seeking out and learning the history of these long since used places, was almost as satisfying a goal as sneaking past the “non oltrepassare” sign itself.

This need, obviously sewn into my genes, has stayed with me and grown even, into my adult years. I have long believed in the time honored adage that “just because one is grown up, does not mean you must act like one”. I still to this day find myself (again, confirmation with my Wife is readily available if necessary) curiously attracted to searching out and exploring the unexpected places in my world. I now not only have the benefit of being the required age to travel by motor vehicle (the two predominant means of exploration being our Jeep and our motorcycles, both vehicles so obviously designed for the road less travelled) to find the places that attract me, but am fortunate to live in a time where I have this fantastic search tool know as the internet to help facilitate my desire to search these places out.



If searching for the unexpected is my Major, then I have a Minor in the strange curiosity of seeking out abandoned mines and mining camps. I am very fortunate to reside in a Province with an obscenely rich history of men trying to carve a living from extracting mineral from earth. I have always had this strange magnetic connection to the history and workings of old mines. In the past 5 years or so, this fascination has amplified, and I find myself spending easily as much time searching the online virtual world for locations of long since abandoned mines and plotting them into my gps and onto maps, as I (we) do searching them out physically. Technology can be a wonderful tool. It has allowed me to search out others with this odd sickness and trade stories and locations of these wonderful and interesting yet rarely seen places in our own backyard that have forged our history. A gps and a good detailed map are a necessity if one is to succumb to this urge to seek out and explore the unexpected. The vast majority of places I have felt the need to find, especially the abandoned mine sites, have long since been re-carpeted by the forest and would prove near impossible to locate if not for a well placed red dot on my map, or waypoint plotted into my gps.

It is also worth mentioning that aside from the technology, having a willing (or somewhat willing) exploration partner is a must if one is to really give in to this need and desire to seek these places out. I am ever so fortunate to have a partner in the form of my beautiful wifeTracy. Whether it is my frantic waving to pull over because I have yet again noticed another oddity worth exploring as we cruise on our motorcycles down a twisty back road, to her holding frantically on the “holy shit” grab bar in the Jeep as I attempt to traverse another steep mountainside goat path in order to locate that missing mineshaft that is just around the next corner………she has always been there beside me.