Panorama Amethyst Mine

Friday - 18 June 2004 - Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada: Stop the presses! We saw a bear today! Can you believe it? It was so wonderful - and such a surprise. Our day started a little later than usual, as we only had a 150 mile drive today from Terrace Bay to Thunder Bay. For some unknown reason, we did not have a storm last night, nor did it rain. We DID fight mosquitoes all night though! I now have an additional bite on my hand and one on my HEEL. How a mosquito could bite through the toughest skin on a human, I have no idea. I tell you, these Canadian Mosquitoes are Professionals! Anyway, you can now call us Itchy and Scratchy... because we are!

We weren't on the Trans-Canadian Highway thirty minutes, when there it was - a bear - simply sitting on the side of the road! "Hey, DT!" "Hey, Terry!" S/he wasn't too large, probably around 200 lbs. S/he was coal black and had a light colored nose. Wow - it really made our day. We did not stop to bother the bear, just continued on our way. Hubby and I both agree (even without the Moose and Bear) the past two days of driving have been some of the prettiest scenery either of us has ever seen.

Our guide book told us about an open-pit Amethyst Mine, so we decided to stop. We found the turn-off and headed the 7 kilometers to the Panorama Amethyst Mine. The road looked good, but as we continued it became narrow and then became gravel. No problems. We then came to a turn in the road, with a large parking area. My Driver thought maybe we should leave Our Intrigue here and drive the Honda up the road to the mine... but there was a large sign reading "Plenty of RV Parking at the Mine". This translates to us as "this road is okay for RVs". M-I-S-T-A-K-E! The gravel road climbed straight up! There was no where to turn around. (People: we are driving a 40-foot, 45,000 lb. bus, towing a car!) We could either continue on, or unhitch the Honda and back down the hill. Since the person driving the RV has a Y-chromosome, we continued on! After reaching the mine - and seeing all the RV parking - our only concern was "how the hell are we going to get DOWN that hill"? We didn't notice a pile of stranded RVs that had plummeted off the cliff, so we thought all would be well, if we took it slowly, prayed, and counted the bear as a "this is going to be a good day" charm.

The Panorama Amethyst Mine

A cute young girl, Avril, gave us a personal tour of the Panorama Amethyst Mine and told us how the amethysts are taken from the earth. Amethysts were accidentally discovered here when the Canadian government was building a fire watch-tower in the area. In dragging the equipment over the earth, they kept finding gems in the dirt! Panorama is the largest amethyst mine in North America. The Panorama Mine has been operating for about 50 years and if they continue mining at the current rate, the semi-precious stones will be completely harvested in 70 to 100 years. You can dig your own stones, or buy huge crystals for your garden. We did neither, but did spend quite a bit of time digging around just to see what we could find. The amethysts grow in the granite. If they are attached to the granite, they are left alone - only the loose stones are mined. They have a shop in Thunder Bay with finished jewelry, carvings and all-things purple.

 
A huge granite stone - covered with amethyst crystals and mica - and a close-up of the pretty amethyst

We did enjoy the mine, simply because we had never been to an open-pit gem mine before. Plus, we learned a lot. But... we had to return down to the Trans-Canadian Highway. Straight down.

It doesn't look so steep in the photo

So we arrived early in Thunder Bay, Ontario and have checked into the KOA. (We wonder why it isn't the KOC?) There seemed to be a lot to see and do in Thunder Bay, so we paid for two nights. After spending the afternoon checking out the town, we knew we had made a mistake. In the "fabulous downtown shopping and dining area", most of the buildings were boarded-up or closed. It was most depressing. There was a yucky-looking casino downtown. The sign below, is from the parking area at the casino. (We didn't go in to the casino.)

"May" be banned????

We stopped for petrol (in the Honda of course) and were helped by a cute young girl in a "Hooters" tee-shirt. She washed all the windows in the car and then, after taking our money, asked us if we had seen the cap to our gas tank. No. Hmmm. Well, seems she couldn't find it. She looked all over - under the car, in the trash, in her pockets, in the office, in the water bucket where she keeps the squeegee. Nothing. It was really windy. Actually, it was so windy that another attendant found our gas cap 100 yards away in the parking lot of a supermarket! Whew. That's windy! We stopped at Safeway, used my Club Card, and bought a few things for a nice meal at home. We are watching the Mariners. Shabbat Shalom from Thunder Bay, where hopefully tomorrow we will find something fabulous!

RV Park: Thunder Bay KOA