Rick Hudson - travel writer and author

This entry appeared in the British Columbia Rockhounder, V2, n2.

Kamloops Rendezvous - 1999
Rick Hudson

The Thompson Valley Rock Club, under the aegis of President Rob Davis and VP Ken Davies, combined the celebration of their club's 40th anniversary with the hard work of hosting this year's Rendezvous. The site was the Kamloops Exhibition Centre where, among the quarter horses, big hats and calf ropers, the GMFC held their Canadian National Gem Show in parallel, in the KXA Building.

There was a good turnout from all directions, with folks from Burns Lake in the north, Calgary in the east, Vancouver Island in the west, and several US states to the south. There was good support from the dealers, who are the backbone of any show, and they had some great 'stuff' to show. Frank Tierney's booth looked spectacular as usual, with everything from giant fossil wood bookends, to micro-mounts. Canada-Russia Gems featured some amazing specimens that are coming out of the Russian Republic these days, many of which are new to us here in the west. Fire Storm Opal was the new kid on the block -- Lois & Dennis Schaefer from Burns Lake showed some of the opal material they have discovered and are in the process of developing. They also had a showcase featuring specimens still in the rough, which attracted a lot of attention.

Another showcase that this writer found particularly interesting was the one from GeoGem Lapidary of Slocan, BC. Like Fire Storm, they profiled local BC stones, and what stones there are, coming out of that valley! Shiny black tourmaline crystals, blue corundum (sapphire), amethyst crystals and some green-blue beryl crystals (worthy of Pakistan) were there to be seen. Dave Barclay, one of the GeoGem partners, also showed faceted garnets and some of the new iolites from the Anglo-Swiss deposit. With material such as this, and other reports of a new peridot discovery near Vernon, an emerald find on the BC-Yukon border, and another opal discovery west of Williams Lake, it may just turn out that BC is a gem province after all.

The rare zeolite called ferrierite.

As always, there were plenty of private member showcases, many with material of a very high standard. It's never easy to write about some, without writing about them all. Displays that caught this person's attention were one of flowerstone (feldspar porphyry) slabs and cabs by Max Baaske of the Courtenay Club on Vancouver Island.

Jan Kohar of the High Country Rock Club, Logan Lake showed some beautiful green hyalite (common opal) from Savona Mountain, plus some great quartz crystals from the Eileen Lake (McGillivray mine) site, and a 3.1ct faceted fluorite stone from the famous Rock Candy Mine in BC. The Shuswap Club displayed some wonderful Mt Ida chabazite from Salmon Arm, and copper ores found at the Craigmont Mine near Lower Nicola (west of Merritt).

The host Kamloops club members represented their territory well, with a good selection of specimens that showed why the Thompson River is such a Mecca for rockhounding. Don Jepson had some impressive agates, quartz and geodes, all of formidable size; Carl Solland also displayed some great 'stuff', including a spectacular 0.5m (18") single quartz crystal from the McGillivray site, which must have made someone very happy the day they dug it up, and for a week thereafter! Ken Davies showed how good some of the local material could look after being cabbed -- the Savona opals were particularly admired.

Across at the LRMS-BC Bookshop, run by volunteers Sharon & Arn Hamlin, author Rick Hudson made several appearances over the two day show, signing copies of his latest book "A field guide to gold, gemstone & mineral sites of BC - Volume 2 - within a day's drive of Vancouver". Like Volume 1 (which covered Vancouver Island), this book is designed for those who love field trips, but have run out of places to find new material. The publication describes an area from the City of Vancouver to Princeton, Merritt, Cache Creek, Lillooet and Whistler. With over 80 maps and 300 locales, it provides fresh ideas for the most jaded SW Mainlander. Unfortunately, it does not quite reach Kamloops, so local rockhounds will be obliged to wait "another few years" for Volume 3, and will then have to buy both 2 and 3 to get complete coverage!

Talking of field trips, the Kamloops Club had planned a number of places to visit on the Saturday and Sunday -- attendees were invited to sign up early. Spurred on by the impressive quartz crystals on display in the showcases, this rockhound opted for the McGillivray trip, and was not disappointed. Both days turned out perfectly - cobalt blue skies and warm spring weather that would lure anyone into the hills. McGillivray is NE of Kamloops up good gravel roads, and the site itself is host to massive quartz dykes that were quarried for building stucco in the 1950s. Today, a stream cuts through a shallow draw, where visitors can search for crystals. The best method is to screen the large quantities of broken rock, washing away the rubble to reveal the clear quartz. But in reality, it was such a pleasant day that many, I suspect, found the rockhounding almost incidental to just enjoying a day out on the mountain.

Later, this writer chose to drive down to Chase and to take a long swing back through the roads to the south of Highway #1. Driving down to Falkland, a pause at China Creek for fossils, and then the rodeo in Falkland. Later, a 10km drive up the Salmon River to hunt under the tertiary volcanic bluffs on the Douglas Lake road resulted in a number of agates and geodes coming to light, although by and large the pickings were slim.

Marine fossils.

Then to Monte Lake where the basalt road cuttings shed wonderful agate right onto the pavement verge, before taking the Barnhartvale Road to view the spectacular basalt columns, lined up like sardines, across Hills 1 and 2 at Robbins Creek. The area is now a designated park, so collecting is prohibited. However, members of the Thompson Valley Rock Club are actively presenting their case to the local BC Lands & Parks authorities regarding the rockhounding history of the area.

Although Kamloops is noted for many mineral occurrences, the most famous must be the ferrierite showing on the north side of Kamloops Lake. Ferrierite is an extremely rare form of zeolite. It was first identified at Kamloops in 1918 and named in honour of its discoverer, Walter Ferrier (1865-1950). Today there are about 30 known sites around the world, but the Kamloops site is still the most prolific. The only other known BC locales are at Monte Lake and Francois Lake, where very small specimens have been identified. It seemed logical, therefore, to try to visit the site, and in this endeavour the writer was lucky enough to team up with current Interior Zone President Ken Dewerson and two others. Ken had two things going for him: (a) a nearly new 4X4, and (b) he had visited the very same site earlier in the week, so knew how to find the place.

When Howard Pearsons wrote his definitive field guide in 1964, getting to the site involved either using a boat, or driving along the north side of Kamloops Lake to just beyond Tranquille, and then walking some 4km along the CNR tracks. Times have happily changed. Today, a rough and winding road leads almost to the site, with a mere 200m walk at the end. On the way there, the view from the track, overlooking the lake to the south, is worth the trip by itself.

Located on a railway cutting, ferrierite crystals are found occasionally on some of the abundant agate material that is strewn everywhere. On the beach, on the railway embankments, in the cutting itself, and on the talus slopes above, agate abounds, but not so the ferrierite. Usually no more than 5-8mm across, the mineral appears as radiating blades from a central point, like an umbrella. Crystal clusters appear as tiny orange or red dots on the white agate rind. Examination under a loupe reveals the detail of the ferrierite habit itself.

At the show's close on Sunday afternoon, the LRMS-BC's annual general meeting saw the presentation of a jade carving to Alice Clarke, in recognition of the years she has served as an officer with the Society, mostly recently as the Executive Secretary. She will be replaced in that capacity by Claire Belzer. The reports from the various sections went swiftly; Win Robertson described the perils and problems of editing the BC Rockhounder (an important initiative), plus she expanded on the Summer Camp venue, this year at Burns Lake. On behalf of all present, President Don Rotherham thanked the host Thompson Valley Rock Club for all their hard work in organizing the Rendezvous, and brought the meeting to a timely close. Everyone then tucked into an excellent meal. And so to bed -- another great Rendezvous.