Small update this time around - a bout of stir craziness led to me finally making my way out to the Barber Paper Mill. While I've known about it for years, I never really had it on my radar as it's known to be a shell of itself. Much of the industrial machinery has been ripped out of it, leaving just the shell of the building.

That said, on a cold winter morning, when there is a lack of abandonments to explore in the city proper... and new construction is covered beyond belief with remote monitoring cameras... you start looking at things that are lower on the list to scratch that itch. And while this was almost certainly a one-and-done location for me, I'm glad I got to at least do something.

I've been a little slow on adding this update to the front page... once I got the new locations and galleries updated, I completely forgot that I needed to announce them!

This years trip with Brind proved to be one of the most productive trips we've had, taking two weeks to bounce Ontario and finding numerous opportunities to go underground, as well as find some places on the surface to poke around in. Aside for the mines, we managed to find ourselves at the ghost town of Jackfish, an old fishing village; at the remains of the ore docks at Michipicoten Harbour; and at a small village hospital. But for the most part, the trip was about finding the remains of mining sites, of which we found a ton.

The galleries have been up for a while already; so for the few who hadn't taken a look, go take a look!

For the most part, when I go on vacations, I generally don't go for exploring reasons. Doubly so when I'm on vacation with my family. A recent trip I took to Florida & the Keys is no exception... this was not an exploring trip.

However, when we visited Everglades National Park, I saw a sign regarding tours at the Nike Missile Site HM-69 within the park. So we checked it out, and I'm glad we did. While it may bother some of the purists in this hobby that it was on a public tour, as opposed to sneaking into the grounds, I've added it to the site. Simply, because it's a Cold War relic (which I can't get enough of), and because it's nice to see the National Park Service making this part of history accessible to people.

It was laid out similar to a Doors Open event, so it counts as one as far as I'm concerned.

Only slightly delayed in getting this update posted to the site! Between a bunch of code rewrites (which stopped me from uploading new images), and some factors beyond my control, I had to sit on a few spots that I wanted to put up for viewing.

That's all resolved now, so I can finally share two of the spots that I checked out this past summer.

First up is the old Hayes Dana Plant in Niagara Region. Standard industrial, stripped down and mostly empty. This one does have security that does patrols. Other explorers have also run into other people there who weren't thrilled to have company; I suspect squatters based on what I saw when I was there.

The next spot (and final for this update) is the Swoop Bat Mine, a small underground mine I checked out while out doing a smaller solo trip. I also discovered once I was at the far end of the adit that the mine was home to some bats... bats who were unimpressed with my presence. Seems to be an ongoing pattern...

Like the majority of the world, I spent the last year and a bit living under lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the annual mine trip was cancelled last year, and I never did get an opportunity to descend into the underground depths. This year, though, plans were carefully laid out to ensure that there would not be a repeat of the cancellation.

Those plans fully paid off this year. This was our most successful trip by far, with a number of new sites found, and some old favourites re-visited. For the new sites found this year, the Cart & Trolley Mine and the Flooded Graffiti Mine have been added, while a new gallery has been added to CFS Ramore, one of my favourite non-underground locations in the north.

For the first time as well, we crossed over the border into Quebec to look at some sites over there. While we did not get into any major workings on the Quebec side, we did gather some valuable information that will be put to use in future trips.

As per tradition, another trek was made to Northern Ontario this year. Unlike the past couple of years where we tried our hand in the Cobalt area, this year we made our way back to Algoma and Sault Ste Marie. Once again, the region did not disappoint us.

A return to the Rock Bolt Mine was in order, as we had a decent guess as to where the elusive west adit was. We were not wrong, and access was granted to the largest underground workings I have ever seen. We barely scratched the surface of this one, being only thwarted by flooded areas and heights.

We also found a few new sites, notably Ore Bucket Mine and Wilderness Mine. While not as expansive as the Rock Bolt Mine, they were a good warm-up to the main course that Rock Bolt proved to be. Some other sites were found, making this our most productive trip yet in terms of intel; sadly those sites were not accessible to us this time around for various reasons.

Needless to say, plans are already being made to get the gear required to open up those remaining sites.

At this point, I think it's safe to say that I'm horrendous at adding news posts to the site. I'm not sure why... of the things I do it's one of the easiest tasks, and yet it's also the one I'm the laziest about. Heck, it's been a year since I've posted a news post!

In that year, I have hit up some sites which were since added, but for the most part I've just been busy with the non-exploring parts of my life. It doesn't help when your workplace is perpetually short staffed and handing out overtime like candy, either. But, I made sure to make room in the schedule for yet another mine exploration expedition up north this year, with Brind and sloth.

We had some success again, hitting the smaller-than-expected Line Drive Mine, but the majority of the trip was just scouting out mine sites from the map we had to see what could still be accessed... the vast majority could not, unfortunately.

So, with that... I do promise to be better about actually updating the front page to reflect what else is going on!

This year, the annual mine trip took on a different form. Due to scheduling conflicts among the group, it ended up being that only Brind and myself were able to make it for a shortened version of the trip originally planned. With this in mind, we decided we were going to use this trip more for the scouting of locations that we had on record, and the taking of detailed notes for the locations.

For the most part, the sites we checked were busts (either deliberately via seals, or naturally via collapses), but at least we got them off the list and acquired the data we wanted... and a few souvenir hornet stings from the nest we unfortunately disturbed at one site.

Due to proximity, a sidetrip up to CFS Ramore was in order, and it was well worth it. Might have to go and spend more time poking around the ruins of the radar station going forward...

It's well know that manufacturing in Ontario is in trouble; quite often the closing makes the news cycle, with thought given to the workers who have been cast aside. Niagara Region is no different, although it seems to have taken a disproportionately sized hit in the manufacturing collapse. One doesn't have to look far to see the facilities dotting the peninsula. Many are simply idled, and maintain active security and patrols, while others... not so much.

A good example of the latter would be the John Deere plant in Dain City. When it first closed, it was reported by local explorers to effectively be Fort Knox.

Thankfully, that is no longer the case. The facility now serves as a hangout for the local vandals, who have taken to smashing out pretty much any pane of glass they can find. The facility is stripped, but at least it made for an afternoon.

Most people don't pay attention to the network of drains beneath their feet. As the saying goes, out of sight is out of mind. Which is why I'm making more of a push this year to explore this mostly unseen network. The past two weekends have been fruitful in this endeavor; the Viceroy drain in Etobicoke has been conquered, while a daylight return visit was paid to Gargantua.

Many more remain on the list, but for now work is going to put a delay on those explorations...