The origins of this trip go all the way back to April of last year. I was planning to attend the Enumclaw (Washington) show and was looking for a place to send my insulators and books so I wouldn't have to carry them on the plane. I looked in the directory and picked out Wayne Wanechek's name because I thought he lived near the show site. It turns out he doesn't, but he generously offered to take the boxes anyway. In fact, he offered to put me up for the weekend. He said Aidan Morgan would be staying there as well, and we'd have a good time swapping insulator stories.

Well, it turns out that Wayne, his brother Larrin and Aidan have made a number of trips to the Collins Line, and that became a significant topic of conversation during the weekend. By Sunday, the three of them asked if I would like to come up later in the year to see the Collins Line for myself. The offer was too good to refuse. 

The following pages are a chronology of the events that I recorded as they were happening. While I have been intentionally vague about specific locations in deference to my hosts, I hope that I have been able to capture several things in these words: the wonderful hospitality of my new friends from the West, the joys of actually being out there soaking up the fresh air and history, and the dedication required to be a successful digger.

Sept. 3 - The good news is that I left myself plenty of time to get from the office to the airport. The bad news is that my 7:00 p.m. plane is 45 minutes late leaving Chicago. Nevertheless, we eventually take off. The flight to Seattle is uneventful, my favorite kind. I arrive in Seattle at 10:30 p.m., Pacific time. I think that's 12:30 p.m. Chicago time, so it's time to move to September 4th.

Sept. 4 - Wayne Wanechek said he'd meet me at the airport. He said he'd have something in the bed of his pick-up truck so he wouldn't be hard to spot. I didn't quite catch the significance of his remark until I picked up my two bags and headed for the door to the pick up point. Without difficulty, I spotted a gray pick-up with a full sized all-terrain vehicle (ATV) sort of lurching out of the bed. After hello's, I pile my bags behind the seats of the pick-up and we're off.

Two of our other traveling companions, Larrin Wanechek and Dennis Moeller, have left about five hours ahead of us in Dennis' motor home, our home away from home for the next ten days. We are headed for Cache Creek, B.C., to meet our fifth traveler, Aidan Morgan. Under normal driving conditions, it's about five hours from Seattle to Cache Creek (two hours to the boarder and three hours in Canada). It's raining hard. We don't make good time coming out of Seattle. 

We hit the border at Sumas about 1:00 a.m. (I think that's 3:00 a.m. my time. No more whining from now on it's Pacific time). We top off the gas tank before going in to Canada as the price differential is significant. By 2:30 a.m., we are both tiring a bit, me more than Wayne, which was good since he was driving. We stop just outside Boston Bar for coffee (Wayne) and tea (me). (Future references to coffee mean coffee for everyone else and tea for me.) There is an Indian family in there acting like it's the middle of the day (kids playing with toys, etc.). Two truckers come in while were are there. I was surprised at the level of activity at that hour of the morning. We leave a little more alert. It must have been about this time that I was introduced to the first of a number of new terms that I learned on this trip. I think I asked Wayne about how far it was to Cache Creek. I'm sure he said about 160 klickomometers. And here all of these years, I thought they were kilometers. 

We pull into Aidans driveway at 4:30 a.m. Dennis' motor home is in the parking lot that backs up to the house. No signs of life anywhere, so we crash for 90 minutes. By 6:00 a. m., the tea has worked its way through, so Wayne and I get up and head for the motor home to wake Larrin and Dennis. It turns out they're already up. We head up the street for coffee. About 7:30 a.m., we go to roust Aidan and Carol. They are already up getting Aidan ready to go.

Carol and Aidan

Our first challenge -- there's no electrical hook-up on the pick-up which we need to pull Aidan's trailer containing the second ATV. No big deal. Over to the local ESSO for help. They go for parts while we have breakfast. After the meal and $100 in wiring (Canadian, of course) we're off. Unfortunately, Carol can't go as she is on the mend from recent surgery. We wave good-bye as the motor home and the pick-up truck pull out.

First Stop -- 100 Mile House to see Bert and Dot Kirkland. It's nearly noon. Bert has spent literally thousands of hours working many of the lines in South Central B.C. While his collection was sold a number of years ago, he still has many of his heartbreakers, including gorgeous CD 735 Tillotsons and CD 123 E.C.& M. Co. specimens. Dot serves muffins and coffee. We ask Bert to join us, but he declines, although we all can tell he'd like to go.

We bid our farewells, and we're off to the North. After a stop at an old museum (one neat green Tillotson on display), an attempt to contact some B.C. Tel employees for some previously arranged potential trades or buys (which didn't materialize), and a last stop at a grocery and supply store for the last few necessities, we head into uncharted territory.

After leaving the main road, we travel on gravel and then mud (formerly dirt) for a number of miles. We stop at a tentative campsite and wait in the motor home for Larrin and Wayne, who have heard about a possible antique sale in a nearby town. Half an hour later, they arrive with the news that the sale had been cancelled. Shortly after, we flag down a passing pick-up and inquire about the road ahead. Only about 1 km of useable road, so we decide to stay where we are. 

(Top Row) Bert Kirkland
(Left to Right) Wayne Wanachek, Aidan Morgan,
 Dennis Moeller and Larrin Wanachek

Our first campsite

After a quick dinner, we take the A TV's further down the road and see the problem -- steep, wet, muddy roads. We also meet the foreman of a group who have staked a claim for placer mining (another new term to me meaning mining ore deposits by any of a number of hydraulic methods') gold in the area. Wayne, Larrin and Aidan have spoken with him on previous visits. He doesn't understand why anyone would do what we're doing, but he doesn't object, and we feel better, having gotten his OK. 

On the way back, we check the side of the road for signs of insulators. Believe it or not, Wayne comes up with a piece of a threadless, possibly a Mulford and Biddle. He hands it to me. It's only about 10% of an insulator, but it's my first threadless find. Thanks, Wayne. It's been a long day for all of us. We hit the sack at 9:30 p.m.

Sept. 5 - We really were tired. No one wakes until 6:30 a.m., but then we roll. By the way, there's just a trace of snow on top of the pick-up. Estimated temperature, 30 degrees Fahrenheit or -1 degree Celsius. Wayne's little trailer, which we had brought up in the back of the pick-up, is loaded with metal detectors, diggers, etc., and hooked to the back of one of the ATV's. Lunch is packed and we're off by 8:00 a.m. with the pick-up and the two ATV's.

I should take a minute here to describe breakfast and lunch in case anyone was worried about how well we ate. Dennis did some shopping at one of the food discount stores before leaving. He bought a lot of food in bulk, in containers the size of which I'd never seen before. Cheerios and Kix were our mainstay for breakfast, usually three bowls. We also had some muffins that could have doubled as door stops. A box of 32 weighed a mere 18 pounds. Lunch consisted of a couple of meat sandwiches, another muffin (optional) and a Milky Way or a Snickers, which became known as "chocky bars." There was plenty to eat.

In twenty minutes, we reach the trail head where we leave the pickup. What a caravan! Three of us on one ATV, the other with two riders and a trailer. It's nearly an hour up the trail to where we start digging. As we gain altitude, the snow begins. It comes down pretty steadily all morning. We work for several hours without much success -- tie wires, line wire, horse and mule shoes, nails, but no glass.

In spite of the fact that we all knew it could be cold, we weren't quite ready for the weather we encountered. The constant snow, solid enough to cover the ground, but soft enough to melt and soak your clothes whenever you brushed a bush or tree limb, made it very uncomfortable. By noon, we decided to start back to see if we could drop below the snow line. We came about one third of the way back and built a fire in the middle of the path. Not much other traffic to worry about. After warming up a bit and eating lunch. we all felt much better. We started working our way back towards camp, detecting and digging all the way. Two great finds!

Aidan with CD 133 Brookfield on its original 
side pin with the tie wire still intact.

Piece of a CD 735 Mulford & Biddle

My "take" for the day... pieces of line wire, and 
a couple of square nails and a Western Union wire splice.

Both Aidan and Larrin found old CD 133 Brookfields. still on the pins and completely buried. Their digging prowess was evident as others have worked this area many times without finding these gems. It was a real thrill to see them come out of the ground. Dennis also found two pieces of a Mulford and Biddle. 

Lots more line wire, tie wires, splices, shoes and shell casings, but no more glass. Larrin did turn up a beautiful threadless side block. My take for the day: two horse shoes, a couple of pieces of line wire, a couple of nails and a Western Union splice. We returned to camp, tired but satisfied. 

The humor of the day was provided by Wayne who, while on the way back down the trail riding on the ATV trailer, took a bump leaning the wrong way and did a back flip into the ditch. Fortunately, no damage done to Wayne or the equipment. "The things you see when the camera's put away!" Back at the camp, we built a fire and tried to dry everything out. Dinner consisted of elkburgers and corn on the cob. We started the trip with 50 pounds of ground elk and 100 ears of corn. None came back into the U.S. Bedtime came early again -- 9:30 p.m., with anticipation of a warmer, drier day.

Sept. 6 - It's 6:00 a.m. and we're ready to go. The weather looks a lot like yesterday, 30 degrees and cloudy. There's a medium frost covering everything. A quick breakfast, and we're off again. One change -- no trailer for the ATV. We decided that we can carry all of the equipment by hand and treat it a little more delicately than it was being treated in the trailer. Again, the pick-up got us up to the trail head, and we head in on the ATV's. 

We split up and covered a lot of territory in the morning, but no new "exciting" finds. Digging proceeds with enthusiasm, but metal detectors can take you up a lot of stray paths. By 11:30a.m., we're all ready for lunch. The weather has improved a bit, and we aren't uncomfortably cold. We don't even prepare a fire at lunch. The sun came out for 30 minutes, and I snapped some pictures to prove that the sun shines in B.C., too. 

Back to digging after lunch. Without a doubt, the neatest find of the day was a previously undiscovered pole hole, by Dennis. Many of the poles set during this era had rocks piled around the base for stabilization. Sure enough, after pulling back the moss, a nice pile of rocks appeared surrounding a hole that went straight down about two feet. In the process of locating tie wires near the pole hole, Dennis uncovered what he thought was the original pole, fallen and buried under, among other things, a huge fallen tree. We cleared the brush in and around the direction the pole had fallen, and Dennis began checking for metal.

Sure enough, about 22 feet down from the hole, he got a signal, right under the fallen tree. More trimming and digging resulted in his uncovering both nails from an old threadless side block -- an incredible find for about an hour's work. We plan to clear and dig the area tomorrow to find the glass. For the day -- lots of metal, but no glass, although we do have a few hot leads for tomorrow. Back to camp. A campfire, dinner and we're shut down for the evening at 10:00 p.m.

(To Be Continued....next issue)

Pole hole with rocks surrounding its entrance.