Rock Sculptures

Does anyone know the true meaning behind the stacks of rocks you see? I find it interesting because while turkey hunting this spring in West Central WI I saw several rock sculptures like you see up in Canada. Does it just mean 'I was here'? It is kind of cool when you pull up to a bald face rock to have a shore lunch and sure enough, somewhere on that desolate piece of rock someone has left behind a rock sculpture. Guess I wasn't the first one there.

PJL, we were in that back up. It it was two semi's that jackknifed south of Dryden. It was a long wait.

They're called inukshuks. One year there was a traffic backup due to a bad accident on the highway that leads to Ear Falls. Completely stopped traffic for over an hour. We built one of those while waiting. Here is the wiki entry on them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inukshuk

This is the coolest story I have every heard about finding something on a shore lunch stop. The Tale of the Jesuit Ring Amy & I were shocked when we saw the ring that Ron Easton found several summers ago while eating his lunch on a deserted island. The water was low that season, and had exposed the ring which normally would have been submerged. It was obviously old, but we didn't know exactly what we were dealing with until Ron got Michigan State University involved. Ron took the ring home with him, not knowing that what he had found would be classified as a Canadian Heritage Artifact in the eyes of the Canadian Government. Removal of such an artifact is against the law in Canada, but who was to know that? He had the ring analyzed by Michigan State University's Archeology department and they determined that it was a Jesuit ring, last manufactured in 1760. That means that it was at least 240 years old, possibly older! How did such a ring come to rest on the shores of Wabatongushi Lake? Well, the lake was, long ago, part of the historic Voyageur canoe route from James Bay to Lake Superior. No one knows for sure whether the ring was actually left by a Jesuit priest, a trapper, or an indian who might have acquired it in a trade. What we do know is that 240 years ago, our lake was about 10 feet lower than it is now, making many of today's bays high and dry. The Canadian Government demanded the ring back from Ron, and it is now in a government archive somewhere in Ontario. Ron has yet to reveal to them exactly where the site was, but we do know that it was on the south end of Wabatongushi. In the 1960s, there was such an excavation done on the lake, again on the south end, by a major university in Southern Ontario. They found ancient nomadic artifacts dating back far before any white men settled the area. The lake certainly is full of history! As more information becomes available, we will share it with you on our web site. Stay tuned! Thanks to Ron Easton of Baroda, MI for the picture and great find! See you next year, Ron!