In Thorald, Ontario, there is a Grand Trunk Railway tunnel which winds in an "s" shape for one mile beneath the Welland Canal. The tunnel was abandoned prior to World War One and is now flooded due to leaks from the canal. 

In 1971, I ventured through the tunnel during a cold winter season when it was a maze of ice, Another student with me dug through the ice and came up with a beautiful piece of blue glass. He handed it to me and an insulator collector was born.

I showed the piece to my cousin Tom and a second collector was born. During the next 19 years we would not meet another solitary individual who collected these strange pieces of industrial glass!

During the early to mid-1970's we started visiting my grandparents in north-central Ontario. As luck would have it, an abandoned telegraph line ran north beside their property. We were soon out hunting daily and came home with the usual CD145's, but also with an occasional 102, 106, 112 and 202. We even found the odd purple GNW or GTP CD 145 still on the pole waiting for a home.

Many of the poles were ridiculously low and we often reached up for our pieces, or simply boosted each other up!

However, we did occasionally climb the poles in earnest using ropes. We also carried a 15' pole which we used to spin the glass free of the pegs with, or used to bang the rotten pegs out of the cross-arms with. Our parents and grandparents often drove us out and dropped us off in the wilds, with more than passing curiosity, I'm sure, as to what we were up to all day. We convinced my old Polish grandparents that the long pole was to ward off snakes!

John Badowski walking the lines in southern Nova Scotia

Two decades passed and we never found other collectors interested in our hobby. The hikes have taken us from one end of the province to the other and we've been out from +35 to -20 degrees Celsius, in every month of the year. Hiking for insulators in three feet of snow or at 2 am is not everyone's cup-of-tea, but it keeps us off the streets at night, so to speak. We've encountered deer, rabid raccoons, have broken $4,000 cameras (while falling off poles) and fallen in countless swamps. We've been cornered by mad-dogs and have had the police called to investigate us. But in spite of this our interest continues and our hikes have attracted others to join us.

Last year we stumbled onto Crown Jewels and were shocked to find out that there was a network of other collectors. While we have now begun to buy and trade the pieces in our collections, we still believe in the old Chinese saying, that "the nicest insulators are the ones you find in the field yourself!"

Cousin Tom with a CD 162 embossed Hemingray, 1893 which he
 just found on a abandoned stretch of the T.H. & B. railroad.

Our technology and methods have changed (ie, metal detectors), and we now search for the elusive Ontario threadless, but we still get out for the occasional hike and climb. Tom is now a PhD candidate and I work as a police investigator.

However, our age shows in our ability to climb poles, for it seemed easier twenty years ago! Our first climb last year, after quite a sabbatical from insulator-hunting, saw us hanging upside from the pole (still 10' from the glass) in tears of laughter. But we endure and still find the occasional jewel to make the day worth while.