Field Trip: Heritage Mica Festival

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We visited a mine.  The Silver Queen Mica Mine was just as in all those wonderful story books, but, fortunately, not so deep.  The walls were oozing wet and it was very cold and dark and exciting and full of puddles.

This mine, at Murphy’s Point Provincial Park, produced a lot of mica.  Because the crystals form in beautiful transparent sheets, like the pages of a book, it is called a book of mica, the costumed interpreter told us.

Pete showed us how mica was mined and explained a lot about the lives of the 1000 miners in the area a hundred years ago.

Buckets of ore were lifted out of the mine through an open ceiling, which allowed mosses and ferns to grow.

We also met story-telling Cookie, who held us spellbound with a tale about his maple baked beans.

He showed us the bunkhouse (which contained a G.A. Henty book) and taught my husband how to play the spoons to accompany these musicians.

What a wonderful time we had as new worlds opened to us!  In one morning, mines, caves, and dungeons took on a new meaning, and our imaginations were filled.  And so ended our summer’s outings.

Murphy’s Point Provincial Park is quite close to Ottawa and has a great beach and quite a few special events.