Fencerows: A Lake Superior Agate Hunt
By John Luthens
A ragged mist rolled in with the waves from Lake Superior. The summer sun had been in full control an hour earlier, and an hour’s drive away from the lake into Bayfield County. Now, there was a biting wind coming in from the north and the sand dunes were wearing across the scattered driftwood like sand paper.
It didn’t feel like August. It felt like hunting season. And, in a way, it was a hunt that I was embarking upon. Washed along the shore was an endless target of rocks. But the particular species I had my eye on was the fabled Lake Superior agate.
Formed over a billion years ago and brought up from the bedrock by glaciers as they slid south, the Lake Superior agate is rare and highly-prized in rock-collecting circles. Agates can be banded and dotted in many colors, with red and white predominating in the Lake Superior Country. There are at least twelve types of Lake Superior agates, and it can take years of experience and expertise to tell the different species.
The author, agate hunting in Bayfield County along Lake Superior’s south shore.
Fortunately for me, expertise and experience aren’t a prerequisite for agate hunting. In fact, while it is generally agreed upon by experts that agates were molded in pockets of cooling lava as the continental plates were shifting, the exact process of how they formed is still shrouded in the mystery of the world’s creation. All that is truly needed for an agate hunt is a thirst for a little adventure and the general acceptance that you are going to get a little sandy and wet.
I waded into the water to cross a river. Fishing boats trolled the mouth for brown trout that were stacking up and preparing for their upriver spawning run. The fishermen gave me blank stares and a wide berth, sort of like crossing the street to avoid a suspicious looking character. I spotted a gravel bed rising from the mist in the distance. The river water mixed in a swirling undercurrent with the cold water of the lake. Getting off the beaten path can often mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to hunting. Agates are no different in that respect
A Lake Superior agate.
Rocks bit sharp beneath my feet and I scooped a handful to look for sign of my quarry. Small bits of quartz and sea glass mixed in a fantastic array along with colored calcite and iron, but there was no trace of rainbow-banded treasure. As is also the case in hunting, luck can play an important part. Mine quickly deteriorated as the rocks gave way to shifting sand and a sudden drop off. I heard laughter from a passing boat. Soon, I was swimming.
Across the river, I took shelter in a natural blind of driftwood. The sand was blacker here, and held the warmth of the day better. I sat and dried out. The sun made several appearances through the clouds and mist. I was surprisingly dry and warm when I climbed out of the blind and continued my hunt.
It is a beachcomber’s dream; endless miles of Superior shoreline, searching the sand shelves for whatever the lake has washed in to offer. Agates are an ultimate prize, but they are far from all. Fantastic twists of driftwood and rocks are eroded into an endless variety of shapes. There are perfect spheres and eggs. I’ve found heart-shaped rocks that began shaping in a glacier, long before St. Valentine was even born.
Lake Superior, after a calm spell of weather, settles down clear enough to count the smallest pebbles on the bottom in 2 feet of water. But, when the wind roils the lake, you may as well be looking into a rusted bucket of oil. Then the hunt for agates becomes more labor intensive. That was fine, because the wind and storms rewash the beach line and uncover hidden gems. I couldn’t have asked for a better wind to stalk in.
I fell into a rhythm, wading to my knees and feeling with my feet to find the zone where the larger rocks met the gravel bank. I scooped big handfuls and spread them out on the beach to dry, moving back into the shallows and doing it all again. Many rocks look promising and colorful when they are wet, but their true colors and patterns really pop out when they began to dry. In the span of a few hours and a few hundred feet, the sign of my passing was marked by drifted lines of pebbles tossed onto the shore.
When I’d had enough wading, I simply back tracked, lying down in the sand on my belly by each strewn pile and sifting through it with a watchful eye. Any rock that caught my fancy went into a plastic bag that I’d folded in my pocket. I looked like an island savage. A passing airplane may have thought I was trying to spell out the longest rock-font message in history.
At the end of the hunt I had several pounds of rock. There was only 1 agate among them, the size of a marble, red and brown, with white banded lines running below the surface and the sheen of the rock glowing opaque in the sand. The other rocks held some potential and would be split with a rock hammer when I got back home. The old adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover applies quite nicely to Lake Superior rocks.
Back across the river I went. I’d left my lunch on the far shore, which was probably a good thing, because the combination of stuffing my face and carrying several pounds of booty in my pocket would have caused me to – well, sink into Lake Superior like a rock.
One agate, one bad pun, and another successful hunt in the record books - Life doesn’t get any better than that.
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com