Twelve hundred carvings, and water under the rock heard as spirits speaking
Northeast of Peterborough, in Petroglyphs Provincial Park, gently sloping soft rock carries the largest collection of ancient First Nations carvings in Ontario: about 1,200 figures of shamans, animals, reptiles, possibly the Great Spirit itself, and a dominant figure whose head seems to be the sun, pecked in with gneiss hammers most likely by Algonquian or Iroquoian speaking people between 900 and 1100, if not earlier. The First Nations people of Ontario call them Kinomagewapkong, the rocks that teach. Their location was kept from outsiders until 1954, when a prospector came across them by accident. The carvings are not the main reason the place is sacred; the rock itself is. Deep cracks in it are believed to lead to the spirit world, and beneath it runs an underground trickle of water whose sounds are heard as the spirits speaking. It is still a place of pilgrimage for the local Anishinaabe. A protective building covers the rock, the visitor centre is run by Curve Lake First Nation, and photographing or filming the carvings is not permitted, for spiritual reasons.
Petroglyphs Provincial Park, Woodview, Ontario
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Other places on the map within a couple of hours of here.
