Keji’s Petroglyphs
Canada’s national parks offer so many of the best free or insanely inexpensive world class activities and experiences, it’s hard to know where to start. Here’s one of my favourite from Kejimkujik National Park where I was guided to Canada’s second largest collection of petroglyphs. Once in the park, all you have to do is register for it. Here’s a bit from my story about this remarkable experience…
“I particularly love these two,” says Nick Whynot, pointing out tiny but detailed images of tall ships under sail. “They actually took the time to put in the cannons. It’s like a Spanish galleon.” The Parks Canada tour guide is a resident of the nearby Wildcat Reserve—a member community of the Acadia First Nations band—so he feels in his bones the importance of these images.
“That would have been something to behold when you’re paddling to PEI or Newfoundland in a birchbark craft, and you see a big ship like that.” As he speaks, I think of stories we tell ourselves today of UFOs and visiting aliens. Pondering the impact of strange, unidentified sailing objects by his ancestors, Whynot continues. “Those are stories you’re going to bring back and draw for people, seeing these massive ships with people on them.”
Nick Whynot stands barefoot and proud on rocks covered in messages from the past. All around him are dozens of images scratched into the exposed bedrock here on the shores of Kejimkujik National Park. This is the second largest collection of petroglyphs in Canada and a direct link between the man standing before me and his Mi’kmaw ancestors who left their marks here over the past hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
My story continues in the latest issue of Food & Travel (Saltscapes magazine’s annual guide to the coolest things to do in Atlantic Canada, and often the least expensive and most rewarding.) Read the rest of my story about Nick Whynot and Canada’s second largest collection of petroglyphs here…
