After departing Glacier and escaping the fire and haze, we head towards Yellowstone with a pit stop on the way at Philipsburg which is known for its sapphires.
We drive through mostly plains and sparsely populated landscape with ranches and circular fields irrigated and green in amongst the dry brown brush. They look a little alien being so green and lush. We also notice lots of Lutheran churches and religious signs with the 10 commandments and bible quotes posted regularly along the roads.
We pass by the huge flathead lake which is surrounded by cherry orchards producing the famous flathead cherries which we sample and are delicious.
We make it to the Montana gem sapphire mine just outside Philipsburg and are just in time to work and wash 1 bay of sapphire gravel as they are close to closing.
The sapphires are found in the alluvial gravel deposits a mile or so from where we are and you buy bags of gravel you then wash and “Shake” to get the sapphires to the top. After a short lesson by the lovely staff and setup with our sieves and little test tubes and tweezers to store our treasure we're off hunting!
It’s a lot of fun and really addictive, we find a few 1 carat weight stones as well as lots of tiny ones (so Miss Ann tells us who helps check what you find) and are excited to come back tomorrow.
We head to our camping spot next to the mine and meet our lovely camping neighbours from Douglas, Wyoming.
Alex bonds with Kari over finding and identifying wildflowers around our camp area and we spend a happy evening chatting by the fire with Anna, Craig, sally and Kari who are ranchers. They tell us about their family ranch and how they raise beef cattle. They kindly invite us to visit them on their ranch and we hope we really hope we can! We also meet the mine owner who pops up on her quad bike bringing water to put out fire and is so kind she promises Alex a special treasure bag of his own the next day when we go back to the mine.
Next day excited to see Alex’s treasure and hunt sapphires we get some buckets and a “mega jug” which are more likely to contain bigger rocks qand Alex gets his treasure gift. He happily washes all kinds of coloured semi precious gems in his little tray with little squeaks of excitement each time home finds a new gem. The owners are so lovely to Alex and even give him a little pirate treasure box and some amethyst as they find out it’s his favourite as they took such a shine to him. We have such fun hunting sapphires and find some decent sized ones we need to get appraised and decide if we will get them cut into gems. After appraisal we have a few good ones and a couple that are 3 carats (will be 1 carat cut) to send off and it will be a year before we get them back - something to look forward to at the end of the trip.
We stay another night and enjoy the peace and quiet but miss our new found friends and camping neighbours who have headed back to Wyoming. Sat around the fire we decide to try some one line each storytelling, initially Alex is reluctant but we take a line each and sooon he’s running off with the story and so good at it it’s joy!
Heading off the next morning and we stop at the little town of Phillipsburg which is beautifully preserved with lovely old shops and a few sapphire selling shops.
I buy a little silver ring as a treat and memory of the lovely place. After bison burgers and amazing milkshakes in a traditional old diner we continue on to Yellowstone.
Emma
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