Searching two Old Army Camps

 A few days ago my friend from somewhere in mid Norway contacted me. He and his family had arrived to their summer paradise in the North and he was hungry for rust. I wasn`t hard to bid of course, so soon I had packed the car ready for a few days of digging and was heading some miles southwards. Early Sunday morning I met up with Baard and his son, Skule, and we took aim towards a forest road where there could be German dumping sites. Soon the detectors rang out and sure enough the info Baard had gotten was solid as gold. In the marshy ground to one of the sides of the road one could see rust poking out. Piles of barbed wire and 200 liter Kraftstoff barrels laid everywhere. In between those some smaller items were dug up, like a crushed triangular 20 liter fuel can, a few empty k98 casings and some helmet liners, two of which were worth saving. As the ground here was very wet and the mosquitoes began massing around us we strolled towards drier ground between the pines. Here should be a huge ammo storage, used both by the Germans and for a while the post-war Norwegian Army. When the army signed back the land to the private owners they did a great job cleaning up, coz it was far between the signals. Here and there we dug up modern training ammo and some trip wire signal flares. We did find a small patch in the forest with some German relics, some signal flares, rifle casings, horseshoes and a few karbid lamp blinders. Further in we found the emptied ammo storage bunkers, large dug outs in the forest floor, once covered with timber roofs. The ones we checked were mostly empty, but on the side of one of them we had great luck, we found two 105mm M4 casings, stamped 1945, and an American "dog-tag" probably from the 1970- 80`s, plus a German pioneer axe.
We looped back towards the starting point and spent a couple of hours searching a big German garbage pit, but except a few intact bottles and cream jars it was all burnt and crushed rubbish. Now we had been active for about 10 hours and evening approached, so we decided to call it quits and do the rest of the pit another time.
Back at the cars Baard couldn`t find his car keys. They were nowhere to be found! That`s a digger`s nightmare! Luckily we had stopped by the cars before starting the garbage pit so we knew they had to be there or on the way to it. So the search began. Me and Baard started sifting through what we had dug out while Skule checked the grounds around us. Suddenly he yelled out: "Found them!!" and became the hero of the day.
We agreed to meet up early next morning so I installed myself in the mini camper and had a relaxing, but somewhat cold night before the morning sun and the sounds from a squirrell or a large tree tarantula running around on the roof of the car woke me up.

Crushed 20 liter fuel can.

German helmet liner.

15 liter triangular fuel can.

Modern signal-/warning flares.

Karbid lamp blinder.

German signal flares.

Part for a grenade transport case.

Different numbered tags and another karbid lamp blinder.

105mm M4 casings.

Pioneer axe.

The U.S tag we found. We might have come in contact with the owners son now :)

Lid for grenade transport case.

The old and original German camp fence is still there.

Expedition-home :)

Early next morning I went to the gas station in the village some 10 minutes drive away for fresh coffee, and an hour or so later Baard arrived. Skule was tired after yesterdays 10 hours and had more important things to do. We started off soft by checking a small stretch of forest next to the road and Baard found there a small dumping pit with some nice relics. Sadly the two bakelite items in the pit were destroyed, a butter container and a small red Rosodont box, but he also dug out a nice harmonica, five hammerheads, a small coin, a few pocket knives, a small red ink bottle, a soldiers shaving mirror and a scissors. When the roadside had been cleaned up we crossed the road and went into the forest there. Here had been a German storage area and later the place was used for Nato- and Norwegian army training until the landowners got it back.
The first section we metal detected us through had clearly seen some modern mock wars. It were signals all over the place, lots of plastic training ammo, some rests of camo cream tubes, food tins etc. One massive signal turned out to be a modern dumping pit filled with large caliber shell transport plugs and bands, used wooden training mines, and a hoard of fuze tins. Further along we finally found the German storage area and began searching around one of the spots where barracks had been. After a while it became clear that this particular barrack must have held skis and ski poles. All over the place we picked up ski bindings and pole spikes. One of the last signals dug this afternoon was Baard finding an old pocketwatch, so definately a place we ll visit again at some point.
By now we had been searching more or less non stop for 6 hours and we were both getting tired, eaten by insects and wanted to get home to our respective Dears and warm dinners. Back at the cars we met a local guy which Baard knew, and like that we suddenly had invitation and permission to search a very promising area in the near future, looking forward to that!! :)

Small German dumping pit.

Rosodont toothpowder. Luckily we found all parts for it so Baard has a fun 3D puzzle for the rainy days.

The Harmonica.

Very nicely preserved pocket knife.

Scissors and mirror.

German shovel.

Finding the dumping pit Nato left behind.

A few ski bindings.

The moment Baard had the pocketwatch signal.