Prairie Pilgrimage--St. Victor's Petroglyphs

I've never lived anywhere closer than 1000 kilometres from this spot, but the St. Victor's Petroglyphs in southern Saskatchewan call me. Every time I'm driving #1, to Winnipeg or to Vancouver, my car insists on making a detour. Straight south from Assiniboia, watch for the signs, turn east, to the little town, then south again by the church, winding south and east, to the park. When I reach the tiny white church, I see that the steeple is damaged, some shingles are missing. There must have been some wind! I check the sky. It is already afternoon, and grey clouds have been surging around and in front of me, threatening, for some time now. I love the excitement of a prairie thunderstorm, but not if I am going to be outdoors, exposed, standing atop the highest point of land between the Cypress Hills and Turtle Mountain.

The one car in the parking lot is just leaving. At the entrance, I find new brochures in the information kiosk, with a diagram of the sandstone caprock where the carvings are found. There is also a model of the petroglyphs, made of concrete, at the trailhead, which helps give an idea of what the carvings look like. The brochure stresses the mystery, the unknown history of the site. Who carved the stone? What do the symbols signify? The shapes that are visible--grizzly bear prints; deer, antelope, buffalo hoof prints; turtles; horns and antlers; human footprints, handprints, and diagrams of heads--remind me of markings in the Stein Valley of British Columbia. Annie York from Spuzzum explained to researchers what these paintings meant: They write their dreams on the rocks forever, she said. Although St. Victor's does not say so, in my mind, this high outcrop from which you can see forever, the curve of the Earth in the distance, must have been a place for dream quests, where the initiates challenged their own fears camped in the wilderness alone, fasting for visions, and writing them down as they come--spirit guides, messengers.

The carvings are shallowly incised into the top of the cliff. Some are overtop earlier carvings, suggesting to me that they were carved in the dark or at times when the carver could not see the dreams his predecessors had caught. "The ancient carvers, employed a 'pecking and grinding' technique," the brochure explains. "Using a quartzite chisel and a hammerstone, they pecked the rough outline out of the rock. They then used a slender piece of wood, some water and sand to grind and smooth out the rough edges and bumps."

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