river rock and fieldstone boulders on the prairies
stone masons restoration ski l l
davd murray
stories from an architectural practice It is common to see stone piles along Alberta’s country roads. They are the result of glaciation, deposited in the soil as the last ice age, the Wisconsin Glaciation, retreated from the western prairies approximately 12,000 years ago. For prairie farmers they have always been a nuisance for ploughing and their removal an annual chore because the winter frosts tend to push underground field stones to the surface. Likewise, when drainage rivers were formed by the melting glaciers, some boulders were left on the land and some made their way into the river beds, accumulating irregularly as the the spiritual life of prairie field stones For millennia before European settlement, western prairie boulders were used by Indigenous Peoples to mark the spiritual significance of the landscape with medicine wheels. The Rumsey Cairn, right, or ‘Indian Stone Pile’, near Rumsey in central Alberta was first recorded in 1802 by Hudson’s Bay Company explorer Peter Fidler from one of the drawings by Ki oo cus (or Little Bear), of the places important to the Blackfoot. The age of this medicine wheel is uncertain although it may be protohistoric. 1 An earlier historic Indigenous site, near Bassano Alberta, the Majorville medicine wheel ( Iniskim Umaapi ) provides a record of place where Blackfoot ritual activity links the present with the past, and the past to the future. Iniskim (buffalo calling stones) are a central element of Blackfoot ceremonial activity. They are present in exposed bedrock formations underneath the medicine wheel and have been recovered from archaeological excavations at the central cairn. Offerings of sweetgrass, sage, willow, cloth, tobacco, prayer and song symbolically maintain the link of contemporary Indigenous Peoples with their ancestors, and continue to be left at the cairn. Archaeological studies indicate this site has been continuously used for the last 4,500 years, making this one of the oldest religious monuments in the world. Artefacts were deposited in the cairn in an accretional fashion, like layers in an onion, with the oldest materials on the inside and the more recent materials towards the outside. Excavation demonstrates that this sequence of use mirrors other such sites in the area, an indication that the medicine wheel was an element of in-place Plains spiritual culture for millennia. 1
glaciers advanced and retreated, creating the rapids found in the great prairie rivers. I know this from my own experience having a country cabin near the Pembina River that flows from the mountains west of Edmonton and empties into the Athabasca River. The river rocks, driven from the Rocky Mountains by advancing glaciers, are normally hidden in deep river water and not as easily gathered as the stones that appear in quantity in farmer’s fields. 1 But for builders both fieldstones and river boulders present an opportunity.
from the top: drawing of the Rumsey Cairn : the cairn at the centre
of the Majorville Medicine Wheel : aerial view of the whole Majorville Medicine Wheel. What might be
considered vandalism in the initials and dates seen from the air, is a possible continuation of medicine wheel use.
Heinz Pyszczyk
1 Indigenous Peoples did not use river boulders for sweat lodges because the rocks were saturated and would explode in a fire. 2 Brumley, John H, ‘Medicine Wheels on the Northern Plains: A Summary and Appraisal’. Archaeological Survey of Alberta, Manuscript Series No. 12 , 1988
Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, Historic Resources Management
14 on site review 48 :: building materials
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