One last adventure

[sabotabby]

Tomorrow I have to go back to work, but today was one last beautiful day. We drove out to Petroglyphs Provincial Park near Peterborough. The petroglyphs themselves are a complicated and problematic thing; they were stripped of their moss and surrounding environment, blackened, and surrounded by a fairly brutalist structure by settlers from the 50s-80s, and that's obviously not how they're meant to be seen, but now that they're like that, the parks service and Curve Lake First Nation does its best to keep the place both sacred and educational.

It's really stunning, looking at the carving and knowing that the people who made them lived and died and made their mark at least 6000 years ago, and here we are still looking at them and learning their stories and appreciating them.

There are two trails in the park, so we walked one of them.





This doe was completely unafraid of people to the point of posing for photos.





Minnow Lake.







You can still see a lot of the cool formations that glacial retreat left in the rocks.



A grasshopper friend.



Nearby McGinnis Lake. It's a meromictic lake with layers of different colours.



Feeling, I think, a little desperate to extend the Last Day, we stopped for dinner in Peterborough at a cute Mexican place. Our waiter, whose hand was swollen from a wasp sting the day before, was very friendly when we said we were from Toronto, and suggested we visit the Wutai Shan Buddhist Garden. Alas, it was about to close, but we did get a glimpse.









Finally, we stopped at an abandoned gas station for moody, atmospheric pictures of slow rural decay.







I might do a little more editing with that last one; I really like it.

And now it's off to sleep if I can; tomorrow looms.

Comments

Re that gas station

[symbioid]

sorry not sorry

Re: Re that gas station

[sabotabby]

I have never seen that but yes.

Re: Re that gas station

[symbioid]

Oh lucky you!

ETA: Also - those are nice pics! I agree the last one is super sweet, moody.

Re: Re that gas station

[sabotabby]

Thank you!

[sovay]

I might do a little more editing with that last one; I really like it.

It's really good.

I am glad the petroglyphs endure beyond the attempt to preserve them. I was reasonably obsessed with rock art as a child and adolescent. When we visited the Four Corners the summer before I started high school, it was a big deal for me that we made it to Petroglyph National Monument.

[sabotabby]

I went to see these as a tiny child and was suitably obsessed, but as an adult who has studied art history? So much more impressive.

[greylock]

If Canada were a serious country (or 51st state of the hottest nation on Earth) you'd build a great big petrochemical complex next to your petroglyphs.

But you can't even do that right!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/pilbara-murujuga-rock-monitoring-report/107075210

(Not sure how much international attention that has got)

[sabotabby]

Well, we poured cement and built a building over a bunch that people totally fucking knew were there.

[greylock]

That seems wild. There's a place in NZ (Wellington) that's filled with Maori stuff.
I can't remember the specifics. but I think they were excavating to a building and they found the remains (or whatever... it could have been a preserved house).

Rather than bulldozing it, or stopping building, they built around the things, and preserved the site as a memorial.

You'd like to thing that would be more the usual. But I guess not.

[sabotabby]

Well, yeah, they built a building around it to preserve the site—which is quite contrary to the teachings, and the site didn't conform to the building they wanted so they poured concrete over part of it, and they blackened the petroglyphs (symbolically changing them from life to death) so they'd be easier to see.

[greylock]

You're right. Blowing them up IS better!

(I can do modern discourse now!)

[yarrowkat]

the city of Albuquerque has tried seven or eight times to find a way to move a bunch of those petroglyphs and bulldoze a giant road (Paseo del Norte) through the area, and every time the tribes & concerned citizens have been able to stop it. when we were living in Placitas, i found a stone with two petroglyphs on it out in the woods (rocky pinon scrubland) one day. i wrote to Sandia Pueblo about them but never heard back.

[sabotabby]

Horrific.

[sovay]

the city of Albuquerque has tried seven or eight times to find a way to move a bunch of those petroglyphs and bulldoze a giant road (Paseo del Norte) through the area, and every time the tribes & concerned citizens have been able to stop it.

I am glad the city of Albuquerque has not succeeded. May it never.

[altamira16]

I like the picture where the plant with the red leaves is growing over the rock. The contrast is really lovely.

[sabotabby]

Thanks! I am quite pleased with that one too.

[smhwpf]

Awesome photos!

[sabotabby]

Thank you!

[springheel_jack]

meromictic!

[sabotabby]

I learned a new word!