During the restoration of Camosun Bog, we often find unusual items buried beneath the surface of the peat. Often these are garbage from another era but often they tell us a lot about conditions in the bog in years gone by
This shows an old hockey puck. We have found many of these over the years. The pond used to be a lot larger than it is now and winters were colder. Every year, local kids played ice hockey in the bog and inevitably lost their pucks through the ice
We have found large numbers of glass marbles in all areas of the bog. Some of these are quite beautiful. We believe these were used as ammunition for sling shots as kids tried to hit ducks and other creatures in the bog. Conservation ethics were quite different in those days - hopefully they were not successful in hitting anything.
This shows a “button hat” - a craze in the 50’s that dates back to the old Archie comic strips where Jughead was depicted wearing a hat of this type. In those days kids would swap buttons with their friends – the one with the most interesting buttons had the highest prestige. It looks like this hat was not particularly good as it had only one type of button.
We have found many coins in the bog. The oldest is an 1870 silver coin from Spain. Silver coins are not much tarnished. However copper coins are badly etched in the acid conditions of the bog (pH around 4.5). It is often very hard to see the original inscription on them.
Few people today write with a nib and ink. This was the standard way years ago,and this picture shows an ink bottle containing a reservoir that can be filled with ink
