Bill Patterson was born and raised in the country. His parents Julie and Robert Patterson raised him well and taught him good values and let him think for himself and become a well-rounded person. Bill also had a brother named Stan. Stan was two years younger than Bill and was also a good kid who didn’t get into any trouble and got good marks in school. Behind the lovey-dovey appearance of the family there was always conflict and problems in the household. The worst years were when Bill was 12 to 16.
He coped by going outdoors and looking for treasures. Ever since he was a small boy he had always loved going outside with a metal detector and a shovel and uncovering all sorts of goodies. Around his 10th birthday he had been spending a lot of time down by the river that ran behind his house. He spent so much time down there because he would find the occasional old pop or milk bottle. This sparked a new interest of going after old bottles. This new interest would last for the rest of his life.
Bill Quickly learned that the best place to find old bottles were old dumps from the 50s and later. He and his grandfather were very much alike as they both liked to wander off the beaten path and both liked antiques. Bill knew of some old dumps but asked his grandfather where he could find some more. He was told that near the family cottage on Pringle Lake there we some really good ones that only his grandfather knew about.
In the summer of 2011 Bill was 14. His parents were fighting a lot like always so he spent most of the summer outside rummaging through old dumps, metal detecting and walking miles and miles along Lake Ontario’s shore in search of sea glass. That was another one of Bill’s hobbies that he enjoyed.
One weekend near the end of summer Bill’s father asked him if he would like to go to the family cottage for a few days and Bill readily agreed. He asked if he could bring his friend Steven along and his father said that would be fine. Steven was much like Bill in the sense that they both enjoyed the same things. They liked metal detecting, dump digging, sea glass searching and fishing.
Two days later Bill’s family and Steven were loading the 1999 Honda CR-V up two the brim. With a full size dog, five people, two laundry baskets full of food, all of the clothing people had packed and miscellaneous items it was nothing short of a real life game of Tetris. Once that was done, the group settled down and got ready for a two-hour drive north to the cottage.
They arrived at dusk and met up with Bill’s grandfather there and he helped them unpack and get everything sorted out. His grandmother never came with his grandfather because she was afraid of mice. They had a steak dinner like they always did the first night at the cottage. After dinner they turned on the TV and watched Canadian Pickers which was Bill and Steven’s favorite show. At around 11:30 they went to sleep.
Julie was the first one to wake up the next morning because she always went for a run first thing then swam in the lake to cool off. Bill’s dad was next up so he could take the bass boat out to fish for walleye. At about noon Bill and Steven got up along with Bill’s grandfather and Stan. They all had their breakfasts or lunches or whatever you would call it and thought about what their plans for the day were going to be.
The two friends had asked Bill’s grandfather where some dumps were and he told them about one nearby and one that was in the middle of the woods, about five kilometers in to be exact. It was the dump of a small logging camp from the 1800s that had long since disintegrated. The dump remained though and would have very collectible, very old, very rare bottles. To get there you had to take an old overgrown logging road through the woods and end you would end up by two creeks that met at a V shape.
