Mding in Canadian parks is a CRIMINAL OFFENCE???

[marshal]

Hello all , today after my soccer game my brother and i decided to go to this really old park near toronto in a city called mississauuga . We get there i get my metal detector out and a shovel and were on our way .After about 45min of hunting near the parking lot i get a good signal and start to dig the frozen ground but at the same time a police cruiser drives in to the parking lot and comes over to us and this is how he starts it off...."how you guys doing? you do know that digging holes in the ground is a criminal offence and you can be arrested for it ...its called mischief and vandalism of city property !!!.So right about now i am pretty mad of because not only was i not finding anything good but last week at a diffrent park the same thing happened and the cop was cool with us digging the ground as long as we covered our holes and now i am being told that my brother and i are criminals and are going to be arrested? what the hey?!! I tell the cop that we have been hunting all over this city and that he is the first person to have a problem with this and then i told him about the cop at the other park letting us dig and he says::whats his name" and i respond umm i dont know i didnt ask him and he responded with this frown and said"well i guess he didnt know the law and what you are doing is a criminal offence.". Then he asked us for our ids but we told him we didnt have any (although we did in the car :P ) .I didnt see the point of arguing even though he was acusing us of making holes in the ground so little kids will twist their ankles so i just agreed with him and told him we were sorry (even though we werent) and told him how my brother and i are university students on a scholarship who play soccer in the states so he would see we werent some #@!$%#@!s digging holes in the park and not arrest us .After he got all of our info he went to the car .About a min later another cop drives in like a mad man jumps out of the car and confronts the other cop. 5 MIN later he comes over and tells us that i will not arrest you because you guys are good guys who happened to be doing the wrong thing.We talked for about 3 min about how were sorry and didnt know and he let us go.The thing that pissed me off the most is that we were just metal detecting and they had to make a big scene in the park , call us criminals, and try and arrest us.So we got in our car and got the hell out of there.....i will probably call the city and talk to them about mding in their city but for now im sticking to beaches.

 

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[Sandman]

Re: Mding in Canadian parks is a CRIMINAL OFFENSE

The shovel is what got you on their radar I'd bet. People in authority get jumpy when they see shoves on city or state property. Too many hunters don't treat the grass like it was their own front yard and you can tell someone has been messing up the place. Most police could care less about someone having fun on park property and then there are the ones that are bored or just want to push someone around. If they wanted you could be fined for the restoration of the lawn in the park. Cha-Ching for them.

My advice is to go down to city hall and check with someone about the rules for metal detecting on city property. Make sure you tell them you are only looking for lost coins and not relics of antiquities. It is a hobby that is gaining in popularity.

On a lighter side, since your in Canada you could just drag a magnet through the grass to pick up coins. LOL, I couldn't help myself as half my relatives are Canadians and they make fun of the way I talk.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

sandman is right. The shovel is the eyesore that drew their attention. Get a bayonnete or leshe type digger, and be a little more discreet next time 8)

 

[Newfiehunter]

I aggree with Sandman and Tim in Ca. The shovel was what did you in. It looks bad. Better to have a trowel or knife for digging. The only time I would take a shovel for a hunt would be for detecting old homesteads that are not on public or private property.