Soil Searching
- Inka
- Jul 1, 2023
- 3 min read
When the sun beats down on Northern Norway, heating up the deep valleys and activating tons of insects, it is truly more tempting to stay home around the house, chilling in the hammock and relaxing with some gardening,,or wine, than it is to sweat and fight with roots and rocks in the woods while getting eaten alive by the bugs. That is how it is been here for a few weeks now. The best start of a summer for years. One has to enjoy such weather while it lasts, coz the rain and cold will soon be upon us again.
The few days we`ve had with a bit of a cloud cover and milder temperatures has been good for some metal detecting though, and I spent those out in the old Wehrmacht camps. Walking around with the detector, or doing any activity one enjoys, is good for the mind and soul.
For me, strolling around like this, makes my mind wander. Thinking through things, solving problems that might have occured in life, planning trips or projects and getting ideas for things to create prehaps. Then, all of the sudden the chain of thoughts is broken by the signals given from the detector, and one has to put the shovel into the ground.
I strolled around like this in the SS camp the other day, hoping to score some nice items for the collection.
One of the first signals that woke me up from my daydreaming was a very good one. It could be a medal, or coin by the sound of it. I dug it up and it was a luggage tag. But an unfinished one. It had been cut to shape, had a hole drilled, and the person working on it had engraved "Schar" on it before it had been dropped. I wonder what it would read if he had completed it..
The site was quite wet because of the snow melting higher up in the mountains, and the insects love that combination of sun and moisture so the more hours I spent there the more I looked like I had chicken pox. Before I evacuated the scene I dug up a bunch of cream tubes, some buttons, parts of a radio, and a Finnish coin. A food can acted as a tiny time capsule as a soldier had stuck a toothbrush, a perfume bottle and a small oiler inside it, preserving the items very nicely.
Another day with similar weather I took a stroll around one of the many Gebirgsjäger camps. This camp has been visited by many detectorists through the years so it has been picked reather clean, but I managed to find a handful of relics worth bringing home before they become soil again.
Near a large rock was a big signal. As always when I get those large iron signals Im hoping for weapons, as I never find those. But this time again it was something else. A cache of vehicle tools. Irons for changing rubber on tyres, wrenches and screwdrivers, and an unopened box with the Bosch logo contained a few brushes for a dynamo, all in great condition. I also found a M24 head, but this time it was a live one which I discarded in the nearby lake that is very deep, and probably full of interesting stuff.
I need to bring my magnet there another time.
After a small coffee break, I swung the detector again, and a few meters from where I had been sitting I had a good signal. Food tin, I thought, but man, was I about to be surprised.
From under the moss came a aluminum Heer belt buckle!! Definately a rare find for me. You can throw steel buckles at me all day long, but this is hens teeth.
The last two finds that day was a part for a candle adaptor for the Einheitslanterne (karbid lamp) and something I have wished to have in the collection for ages, a fieldmade cigarette mouthpiece made from different colored plastic bits, mostly toothbrushes I think. A great little find that Im now figuring out a little display around.
Now it is time to bring a book outside and spend some time in the hammock, and unless Jimmy is drifting down the salmon river on his air matress, there will be a trip to a Gebirgsjäger camp again tomorrow :)
Thanks for reading, enjoy your day :)
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