Prior to taking up the hobby, Liz Cabral said she “never thought anything” of metal detecting.
She was a Halton police officer for years, until her vertigo forced her to retire. While looking for a new pastime in 2012, she came across a YouTube video about metal detecting which sparked her interest.
Now, Cabral runs her own YouTube channel called Digging Canuck where she shares her metal-detecting adventures online. Some of her videos have been viewed thousand of times.
Her first find was toy car, she remembers. Since, she’s found rings, coins and military badges.
One of her favourite finds is a badge from the XIX Light Dragoons cavalry troop, which she found while metal detecting in Ancaster. After doing some research, she learned that the regiment served in British India as well as in North America during the War of 1812.
“I cleaned off the mud, there was an elephant on it. And when I saw the elephant, we don’t have elephants in Canada, and I just knew it was something special,” she said.
As for the exact location of her find, Cabral said she and fellow metal detector enthusiasts keep their best spots to themselves to help sure they don’t get overrun. Sometimes, she also may be on private property where she’s negotiated access.
This past Sunday, Cabral set up a table at Victoria Park in Hamilton, putting some of her findings on display, including the light dragoon badge, as well as lead musket balls.
Cabral said the best thing about the hobby isn’t necessarily what she finds, but the history of the objects she uncovers regardless of value.
“When you start researching the history that goes behind the item, you find out who may have discarded it or lost it and what were the circumstances, I don’t think you can beat that,” she said.
“I get excited if I dig a like a musket ball, whereas some people just put that in their trash bin.”
A growing hobby in Hamilton
Cabral said metal detecting is a growing pastime in Hamilton. She also said the field was largely dominated by older men when she started a decade ago. But now, Cabral said she’s also seen more women and children get into the hobby.
Mike Guarascia is a Hamilton resident who has been metal detecting for 11 years. He said that there is a healthy contingent of hobbyists in the city and continues to grow. One reason why he thinks its the case is because of detectorists showing what they’ve found on social media.
“People start to see that it is possible to find 300-year-old coins. People start to see, hey, so this is how I do it and they take an interest in it.”
Another reason, Guarascia said, is because it’s easy to get into the hobby since it’s relatively easy to get a metal-detecting device.
Earlier this year, Guarascia organized a pop-up metal detecting museum on Jan. 28, where other detectorists in the city came together to show off their finds over the years. Guarascia organized a second event in April and said he’s aiming to hold another one next year.
While Cabral has been with the hobby for over a decade, she said she wished she’d picked it up sooner and wants to help others get into it.
“If anybody wants to go with detecting I’ll go with them,” she said. “I love finding something and then putting it in your hand and you’re thinking you’re the first person that had that in your hand in like maybe a 100 years.”