Didn’t get a chance to visit Rocktober this Thanksgiving weekend? Here is what people are saying about the annual rock and gem trade show held at Westerner Park.

Trade show co-organizer Chris Robak said the event had many schools visiting this year. This was in part due to a new contest called the Rock My Science Classroom Contest, which awards $2,000 in rocks and gems to deserving students.

When asked how the rocks and minerals like the ones at the show are mined, he said they are a by-product of the mining industry.

“If you have a copper mine, they also mine turquoise, malachite and a lot of other copper-based minerals but yet they don’t necessarily value them because they are after the billions of dollars from the copper,” he said.

Other minerals, said Robak, who also co-owns the Red Deer-based rock and mineral business Silver Cove, are collected from riverbanks and outcrops and are literally backpacked out of the bush.

Visitors to the show were also interested in the healing qualities of the rocks.

Jaya Dharan, who is part of a meditation group called Pranic Healing Alberta, said the rocks can be programmed to harness the power of nature to heal.

“Stones are a big source of energy,” she explained.

“It depends on what stone it is and where it is placed, but we believe that we can harness nature’s energy. Different healing require different stones. We bought some tourmaline for a particular reason and I am looking for rose quartz for peace, calmness and harmony.”

Dharan explained different rocks and minerals take in energy, depending where they are from.

Cleansing them involves, “Certain protocols where we ask it to only absorb certain energy and reflect it back to us.”

She added, “If all these stones at the trade show were programmed right now, we would be in an amazing space.”