Everyone had their cameras and iPhones poised and ready for the moment the solar alignment took place at Amherst Island yesterday around 630 pm.
By his calculations John Bland anticipated the sun would shine a beam of light through the massive drystone aperture structure the festival wallers had worked on for weeks and completed less than 15 minutes before, to illuminate the target circle (a special commemorative stone carved by Tracey Mahaffey ) on another structure built on site sixty feet away.
After a dramatic delay of 3 minutes the the clouds parted, and the setting sun's light came streaming through the Celtic Cross aperture onto the wall.
At the moment the beam of light appeared (as predicted, and only off the target spot slightly because of the three minute delay) the huge crowd cheered and the whole thing was captured from many angles digitally through many high tech imaging devices.
Here Ken Curran's happy face was captured on Ben's Smartphone lit up by that beam, as he and Jordan and another waller posed in front of the target
Others watched and took photos from behind the aperture structure.
The aperture opening proved in fact to be perfectly aligned with the target.
This carefully built dry stone installation on Amherst Island has introduced a wonderful new relationship of motion time and celestial synchronization into the art of dry stone walling in Canada in the 21st century.
Here are some of the key wallers who happily gave of their energy, skill and time to create the aperture - an 'opening' for everyone to begin to enjoy a new phase of walling in Canada. Let's hope it will be as exciting and as happy as this day was at the Irish Canadian dry stone festival Sunday September 27 2015 ! Thank you guys !
And thank you Amherst Islanders .
