Varied Treasure

When you head to any one of Lake Erie’s many beaches, you’ll invariably encounter someone scouring the shoreline for treasure. Whether it’s done to fulfill an innate hunting-and-gathering urge or used as a soul-satisfying kind of pleasure, beachcombing is an activity that goes hand-in-hand with living in the Lake Erie region.

“I call it beach therapy,” says Loretta Hido. “It’s the only time I have an hour to myself, where I can think straight, plan my day, and appreciate Mother Nature. I feel like I have a clearer head when I go back home.”

Since moving into what she calls her “Hido-Way” in Lake City, Pennsylvania, Loretta has been gathering things that have washed up on the private beach in her neighborhood. But what started out as an effort to clean up her stretch of sand has developed into somewhat of an obsession—with Loretta collecting everything from beach glass to buoys to bones.

“When I first moved here three years ago,” says Loretta, holding up a small plastic storage container, “I bought this to hold beach glass. It didn’t last but a couple of weeks.”

Now her kitchen cabinets are laden with nearly a hundred heavy jars filled with beach glass—not including the pieces she has given away or sold to a local jeweler. And she’s always on the lookout for storage trunks at yard sales to hold everything else she’s found.

“I have it all separated by fishing stuff, toys, rocks, pottery, plastic, buoys, fossil rocks, animal teeth, et cetera,” says Loretta. “I have three messages in a bottle. I have plane parts, boat parts, marbles, toy guns, and cell phones,” she continues.

And the list goes on and on . . . plate pieces, driftwood, seashells, rocks that are heart-shaped, rocks that are shaped like other things, sunglasses, buttons, combs, a toothbrush, golf balls, tennis balls, a basketball, and a bowling ball. She’s found a duck decoy, a gun clip, a life vest, hats, visors, gloves, a losing lottery ticket, and an unpaid parking ticket from Ohio. What hasn’t she found?

“Money,” says Loretta, “or a dead body—thank goodness.”

Daily Discoveries
Nearly every day, and in any kind of weather, Loretta gingerly makes her way to the beach at the bottom of a cliff down 168 old, rickety “funhouse-style” steps—so called because the staircase is falling apart and tilted at a 45-degree angle in places.

With her, she carries a white gallon sized bucket for her treasures; a can of pepper spray should she need it for self-defense (“It’s pretty secluded down there,” she says.); and a cap gun to scare any bears away that might wander onto the beach looking for a snack (though she hasn’t seen one yet). A photography enthusiast, Loretta also brings her camera to capture more intangible things, like the spectacular sunsets, occasional waterspouts, and the abundant wildlife.

“One time, I saw 18 turkey buzzards,” she says. “It was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”

In the span of an hour’s walk on the beach, Loretta can easily collect 200 curiosities that have washed up on shore, without having to dig for any of it. After three years, you would think she’s seen it all, but each day brings new surprises.

“This is the first time on the same beach that I’ve found a matching pair of shoes,” she says of a recent excursion. “These will go on the shoe tree I made down on the beach. I call it beach art.”

In addition to the little trinkets she can fit in the bucket, there are plenty of other items that are too difficult or too big to carry back to the house. Many of them, like plane and boat parts, get washed back into the lake.

Fossil Find
Also absent from Loretta’s personal collection of beach finds is a 360-millionyear-old starfish she discovered last fall in a large boulder at the water’s edge. Loretta had walked that stretch of beach many times, but she had never seen that particular fossil before. Knowing she had discovered something special, she took a few pictures of it and rushed home to contact Scott McKenzie, an instructor of paleontology at Mercyhurst College in Erie.

The image prompted McKenzie to follow Loretta to the rock on a cold, blustery day in November. It took three hours to cut the fossil out of the rock with a battery-operated saw, and after studying the starfish more closely in his lab, McKenzie found the fossil to be nearly intact, with the exception of a few fine, threadlike projections on its five arms.

“It is a very uncommon find,” validates McKenzie, who is familiar with the fossils found in the area. He says people bring unusual examples to him all the time. Loretta’s find, however, stuck out.

“Sometimes the specimen is very interesting—like this starfish,” says McKenzie. “In fact, this might be a brand new species,” he says, going on to describe how it may have ended up in Lake Erie.

In layman’s terms, during the Devonian Period, which spanned from 416 to 359 million years ago, an inland saltwater sea covered what is now Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. The ebb and flow of the sea stranded prehistoric creatures, which became buried and preserved very rapidly, making the area a fossil-rich zone.

“The skyline of Cleveland was once populated by sharks and fish,” says McKenzie excitedly. “It’s pretty incredible.”

In recent months, McKenzie has started doing his own high-tech beachcombing to look for more fossils at the bottom of Lake Erie, using a boat and an underwater camera.

“There’s a lot out there, but few and far between,” he says. “We need more people like Loretta finding things like this. The types of things she’s finding would be lost if her eyes didn’t pick them out.”

And while the fossil is probably Loretta’s most unique find, she did not categorize it under “Items that are more than 300 million years old.” Instead, she gave the rare piece to McKenzie, who hopes to place the fossil in a museum.

Beachcombing Tips
There’s more to exploring the shore than meets the eye. Here is some handy advice to get you started.
• Wear sunscreen and footwear that can get wet. Rubber boots and gloves are a good idea.
• Bring a bucket or a plastic bag to carry your finds. Use a stick for turning things over or bring a net for picking things up and rinsing off sand.
• Head to a section of beach that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. The ideal time to explore is after a storm or even in the winter.
• Walk the beach slowly, examining everything very closely.