2008-08-12
star garnets
by kenny
Star Garnets are only found in two places. India and northern Idaho. When the stones are cut they reveal a 4 or 6 pointed star. 4 pointed stars can be found in both locations, but 6 pointed stars can only be found in northern Idaho, and are more valuable.
There is a commercial mine at the Emerald Creek Garnet area (the garnets are used commerically in jewelry, sandpaper, and other things). The area is called Emerald Creek, apparently because the prospectors that discovered the gemstones in the 1800's were blind. There are no emeralds there, only garnets.
The Forest Service has set up a digging site for the public. You pay $10 per permit (each person can take 5 pounds of garnets per permit) and you can dig all day long. It used to be that you would go in the creek bed and dig 6 to 8 feet down till you reached the rock bed, but that has been declared an environmental hazard. As a solution, the Forest Service decided to do controlled digging themselves. They dig down to the rock bed and bring the rock bed layer up and dump at the "digging" site. For your $10 you are supplied with shovels, buckets, and everything you need to get the garnets. Here's how it works. You get 2 buckets. You fill one up with dirt from the huge pile (from the rock bed layer). Next you go to the sifting area. You sift your entire of bucket of dirt through a sifting box, losing the dirt and keeping the rock, which you put in your second (empty) bucket. Lastly you take both buckets to the sluice area. You dump small batches of rock into sluice boxes. The water washes away the dirt, and you sort through all the rocks to find the garnets. They are smooth and shiny, and almost black. The garnets you keep, the rocks you put in your now empty first bucket, and add to the tailings pile which, will then be put back in the rock bed by the Forest Service.
I did most of the digging and sifting and kept Laura supplied with rocks as she did most of the sluicing. The site is open for 8 hours a day and although we had a really good time, we left after 5 hours (we should have brought up a lunch). At the end of your time there, you have to get your garnets weighed. You can take as much sugar garnet you want. They don't even weigh it (it's not valuable, but still pretty). We left with 12 ounces of star garnets--a couple hundred dollars in value once we get the stones cut. We plan to tumble the small pieces and get the good size ones professionally cut. We stayed nearby at the Emerald Creek campground. It was a great campground, and only $6 a night.
We decided to leave a day early so we could check out more of northern Idaho as I had never been in the area. We took our time driving lakeside by Lake Coeur D'Alene and then started moving up farther north. We were looking for a cheap place to stay, as we were driving a friend's car, and we just had no luck and were not willing to pay so much for just a place to rest our heads. So we ended up pulling over somewhere and sleeping in the car. I really appreciated the moho every time I woke up due to being uncomfortable.
When we woke up we realized we were now close to friends we had been missing, so we decided to stop by Joseph, Oregon. Joseph is a bit of an artist town and we couldn't spend all the time we wanted there. Think Sedona before it sold out and ditched the local artists for high priced galleries with no soul. We got to see our friend Adrian, but not Rhonda, McKenzie, or Owhyee (sorry Rhonda), at his place of employment. He works in a bank covered with dead animal heads, full bodied stuffed animals (a zebra!), and even a real mammoth tusk!
After visiting with Adrian we saw some more of the town. Laura really liked beecrowbee, a spa, and soap shop started by a young guy who grew up in the area. His stuff was top quality, and some of the best handmade soaps Laura's seen. I don't really know about that stuff, so I'll take her word for it. He seems to have carved out a great little niche for himself though, epscially in a small town in eastern Oregon.We came across another shop, To Zion, that Laura liked because of the jewelry. I liked it because of one particular book, "Moonlight Chronicles" by Dan Price. I have been a fan of his for a few years now and I was taken aback when I discovered he lives in Joseph. In an effort to live more simply he lives in a 8 foot round hole in the ground and travels by bike, tryke, or foot and journals everyday. The journals contain his thoughts, pictures he has taken, and his unique drawings. He published those journals and turned them into a business. Somewhere along the line Simple shoes discovered the journals and decided to sponsor his travels. We saw some more of the town, and Wallowa Lake, but headed home with no signs of Dan. Maybe next time.
After leaving Joseph, we came across an Airstream motor home for sale in Elgin. This is the only other Airstream motorhome we've seen and it was huge compared to our little 28 footer.
I have been watching and have become a fan of a Travel Channel show called "Cash and Treasures" hosted by Kirsten Gum. One of the shows was about Star Garnets and she was digging for them only a few hours away from where we are in John Day. At the end of the show, when she had the stones cut and sold, she had made $700 for a day's worth of digging. So we decided to plan a weekend of traveling, tent camping, and digging for star garnets. Garnets are the Idaho state gem as well as January's birthstone.
Star Garnets are only found in two places. India and northern Idaho. When the stones are cut they reveal a 4 or 6 pointed star. 4 pointed stars can be found in both locations, but 6 pointed stars can only be found in northern Idaho, and are more valuable.
There is a commercial mine at the Emerald Creek Garnet area (the garnets are used commerically in jewelry, sandpaper, and other things). The area is called Emerald Creek, apparently because the prospectors that discovered the gemstones in the 1800's were blind. There are no emeralds there, only garnets.
The Forest Service has set up a digging site for the public. You pay $10 per permit (each person can take 5 pounds of garnets per permit) and you can dig all day long. It used to be that you would go in the creek bed and dig 6 to 8 feet down till you reached the rock bed, but that has been declared an environmental hazard. As a solution, the Forest Service decided to do controlled digging themselves. They dig down to the rock bed and bring the rock bed layer up and dump at the "digging" site. For your $10 you are supplied with shovels, buckets, and everything you need to get the garnets. Here's how it works. You get 2 buckets. You fill one up with dirt from the huge pile (from the rock bed layer). Next you go to the sifting area. You sift your entire of bucket of dirt through a sifting box, losing the dirt and keeping the rock, which you put in your second (empty) bucket. Lastly you take both buckets to the sluice area. You dump small batches of rock into sluice boxes. The water washes away the dirt, and you sort through all the rocks to find the garnets. They are smooth and shiny, and almost black. The garnets you keep, the rocks you put in your now empty first bucket, and add to the tailings pile which, will then be put back in the rock bed by the Forest Service.
I did most of the digging and sifting and kept Laura supplied with rocks as she did most of the sluicing. The site is open for 8 hours a day and although we had a really good time, we left after 5 hours (we should have brought up a lunch). At the end of your time there, you have to get your garnets weighed. You can take as much sugar garnet you want. They don't even weigh it (it's not valuable, but still pretty). We left with 12 ounces of star garnets--a couple hundred dollars in value once we get the stones cut. We plan to tumble the small pieces and get the good size ones professionally cut. We stayed nearby at the Emerald Creek campground. It was a great campground, and only $6 a night.
About Star Garnets and the cutting process(1:00)
We decided to leave a day early so we could check out more of northern Idaho as I had never been in the area. We took our time driving lakeside by Lake Coeur D'Alene and then started moving up farther north. We were looking for a cheap place to stay, as we were driving a friend's car, and we just had no luck and were not willing to pay so much for just a place to rest our heads. So we ended up pulling over somewhere and sleeping in the car. I really appreciated the moho every time I woke up due to being uncomfortable.
When we woke up we realized we were now close to friends we had been missing, so we decided to stop by Joseph, Oregon. Joseph is a bit of an artist town and we couldn't spend all the time we wanted there. Think Sedona before it sold out and ditched the local artists for high priced galleries with no soul. We got to see our friend Adrian, but not Rhonda, McKenzie, or Owhyee (sorry Rhonda), at his place of employment. He works in a bank covered with dead animal heads, full bodied stuffed animals (a zebra!), and even a real mammoth tusk!
After visiting with Adrian we saw some more of the town. Laura really liked beecrowbee, a spa, and soap shop started by a young guy who grew up in the area. His stuff was top quality, and some of the best handmade soaps Laura's seen. I don't really know about that stuff, so I'll take her word for it. He seems to have carved out a great little niche for himself though, epscially in a small town in eastern Oregon.We came across another shop, To Zion, that Laura liked because of the jewelry. I liked it because of one particular book, "Moonlight Chronicles" by Dan Price. I have been a fan of his for a few years now and I was taken aback when I discovered he lives in Joseph. In an effort to live more simply he lives in a 8 foot round hole in the ground and travels by bike, tryke, or foot and journals everyday. The journals contain his thoughts, pictures he has taken, and his unique drawings. He published those journals and turned them into a business. Somewhere along the line Simple shoes discovered the journals and decided to sponsor his travels. We saw some more of the town, and Wallowa Lake, but headed home with no signs of Dan. Maybe next time.
About Dan Price (9:28)
After leaving Joseph, we came across an Airstream motor home for sale in Elgin. This is the only other Airstream motorhome we've seen and it was huge compared to our little 28 footer.
