MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Summer 2018

36 ML BLUE SUMMER 2018 13 14 Rock Art Lesson: Petroglyphs Provincial Park To see Canada’s largest single collection of Aboriginal rock carvings, look no further than 55km northeast of Peterborough. Petroglyphs Provincial Park houses the carvings inside an interpretive centre to protect them from weathering and vandals. The 900 images, spanning a rectangular area about 60 by 35 metres on a smoothly sloping white limestone slab, are mysterious to say the least. Not much is known about the people who carved them. Archeologists generally date the carvings anywhere from 900 to 1400 CE and guess the carvers were Anishinaabe (Algonquian- speaking) peoples who lived in the region. Many of the carvings are similar in style to animal-themed pictographs painted throughout Canadian Shield country by the Anishinaabe, but many are not. The carvings have inspired several theories over the years, including that the series is an astronomical map; and that a nomadic or seafaring culture—not the Anishinaabe—carved some of the figures. In any case, today the site is considered sacred by the Anishinaabe, who call it Kinoomaagewaapkong , meaning "the rocks that teach.” DIY: The 1643-hectare park is for day-use only; if you’re interested in camping nearby, try Lake St. Peter or Silent Lake Provincial Parks . ontarioparks.com/ park/petroglyphs We first heard about the Boyd Crevice Caves from a Facebook post: photos of kids in hallways of limestone, carpeted in thick shaggy moss, with trails throughout. The place looked amazing. A quick message to the person who posted the photos and we knew where it was. I dragged my entire family, uncles, cousins, grandparents, nieces and nephews, eight of us altogether. No pressure on me, but I said it was going to be amazing. Even though I wasn’t sure it would be. While places like Scenic Caves (south of Blue Mountain) may take the lion’s share of visitors during the summer months, there are a few little- known smatterings of crevice caves along the Escarpment. Singhampton Caves near Clearview is always a favourite family hike, so the prospect of exploring more was definitely intriguing. We soon found the trailhead on Concession Road 10, just south of Highway 26. Without really knowing where we were going, we headed west on the Sydenham section of the Bruce Trail. And within minutes of getting into the woods, it was obvious we had found the caves: tall corridors of limestone towered upwards, revealing pathways and maze-like hallways reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. The passageways are the result of cambering, a process where small cracks in the rock get deeper and deeper during the freeze-thaw cycle until the large blocks break away from the cliff face. We clambered through the tight fissures, amazed at the size and the precision of these natural formations. For the next two hours, we explored the caves, happy to be together and in the woods. And it’s a place we return to whenever we can. —Colin Field DIY: sydenhambrucetrail.ca . For more Escarpment caves along the Bruce Trail, visit Scenic Caves Nature Adventures: sceniccaves.ca Hallways of Limestone: Boyd Crevice Caves COLIN FIELD MICROTRIPS