Monday, April 16, 2012

401 Arch?


View from the 401

I have driven by this tantalizing pile of rocks many times. It was gathered by farmers who like many early settlers spent years clearing similar expanses of rolling property like this all over southern Ontario, at least a hundred and fifty years ago. Anyone who drives east a short distance on the 401 from Toronto can see it if they look north, just before they get to Bowmanville. 

I would like to build a permanent dry stone arch up there some day just like the Mount Pleasant Arch we built back in 2005. Judging from a distance I'd say there are enough good stones to do it. We would just need to get permission from the owner, like we did with the other one. 

It would be a kind of 'modern ruins', a fleeting 'folly' perhaps. A stone gesture on the horizon that would make your heart soar as you whizzed by at 118 km/hr. 

Hopefully it would be a pleasant reminder that not everything we look at along highways near built up areas has to be an eye sore.

Who wants to help build it?

(2018 revision to this post
This arch has now been built 

Article in Stonexus Magazine about the arch DSWAC members built back in 2005