Holding Hands With The Past.

I think the most satisfying aspect of building dry stone walls and and bridges is that even though they are newly completed structures they often give the impression that they are very old.

The bridge in this picture, which was the main dry stone project I headed up for our annual Rocktoberfest event last weekend, was taken yesterday when Gavin, Patrick and Angus and I were there to fit the last stones along the footbridge surface. A dozen or so wallers from Canada and the United States had helped to bring this marvelous bridge into being during the Canadian Thanksgiving walling festival. On Tuesday, the day after the festival, several of us came back and 'pitched' in to finish the stone pathway and then helped to clear up the site.

As we were cleaning up Aaron Wallis a landscaper from the Eastern townships of Quebec and an eager volunteer on this bridge project, came back with his family to take pictures. I took several shots of the new bridge in the dappled afternoon light. I think the sepia filter I applied to the photos of Aaron's wife and children on the bridge adds to this impression of it appearing to be a much older structure than it actually is.

Hands-on dry stone projects like this one provide a visual tie with the past which is as strong as the other historic connections associated with building structures in this traditional method of dry stone construction.

Old Reminders of Older Hands

Not far from South Monaghan Ontario along Line 3 Road east of Smithson Road there are the remnants of old dry stone walls either side of the road. The stone is predominantly glacially deposited granite which has been painstaking cleared from the fields many years ago. I was told about these walls last week and wanted to see them for myself, and so, as I was driving back yesterday from a quarry where I picked up 4 tons of rubble limestone to be used (in Toronto) in the Nuit Blanche 'bell sculpture' we will be building this Saturday (an all night 'ringing in' of next Sunday) I took a detour to go see them.

They are in sad disrepair and have obviously had many of their stones removed, probably by people who don't consider these historic features of the Ontario countryside to be of any worth. I think of them however, as valuable architectural landmarks on a historically dissolving landscape. They are as important as any other valuable Canadian antiques. You can't buy them at an auction or purchase them in an antique store to bring home and hang on your wall, but you can appreciate them where they lay, and respect them for the history they hold and the story they tell.

As I look at the old walls I think about the hands that built them. Judging by the moss and lichen on the stones, the last time these stones were moved must have been over a hundred years ago. The placement of each rock was accomplished by hands that are no longer with us. There is only the stoney memorial to them in the clever placement of the silent stones along the wall. The antique furniture tools and dishes we own have value often because we can imagine the people who made them and once used them . So too with old stone walls. As we 'hold' these stoney antiques in view, we join an unspoken line of admiration and respect for the people who held them before and left their timeless mark throughout the country side(roads)