Ancient British Columbia

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We’ve lived in British Columbia well over three decades and have seen many many areas but still not all of this beautiful province. We’re now inspired anew to go exploring those yet unknown corners with the recent arrival into our hands of a beautiful new book: In Search of Ancient British Columbia, by Barbara Huck, with Philip Torrens and Heidi Henderson.

Here’s the blurb on the back:

Once, parts of British Columbia lay on the far side of the Pacific. Once, its ancient seacoasts were inhabited by creatures on the threshold of evolution. Once it was populated by some of Canada’s first peoples.

Today, B.C. is one of the world’s most geographically varied places. But clues to its ancient past are everywhere, in its mountains and arid valleys, along its lakeshores and seacoasts. For the first time, the geological, paleontological and archaeological wonders of southern B.C. are gathered in one place. With hundreds of color photographs, maps and drawings, In Search of Ancient British Columbia presents an accessible, route-oriented approach for today’s time travellers, creating an indispensable guide to the forces that have shaped the spirit of the land.

Heartland Books is a Winnipeg-based publisher of history, heritage, travel and non-fiction. I look forward to Volume II covering the northern regions.

I’m thrilled and proud to have two of my photographs of Hornby Island petroglyphs, shown above, included in this fascinating and well-designed publication on a subject of great interest to me. We’re going to be doing some wonderful armchair travelling for the next while and start planning a few trips around our own backyard this summer!

wombat’s world

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A rock painting at Astuvansalmi, Finland. Photo by Kate Laity (enhanced by me to bring out detail)

As you know, I’m intrigued by Finnish connections. A while back, through the wonders of Technorati, I checked out a link back to my blog from a post called Touching Ancient Finland.

The writer was going to Finland to see the Astuvansalmi rock paintings! I learned Wombat’s World is the “blog for medievalist K. A. Laity, author of the novel Pelzmantel: A Medieval Tale, who is “Currently working on Unikirja, a collection of short stories based on the Kalevala, Kanteletar, and other Finnish myths and legends”.

Well, that piqued my attention, so I delved a little deeper and learned that American Kate Laity has Finnish roots. I began to follow her blog for reports on her trip: Terve from Helsinki and Finland recap. Many of the sights she visited were familiar to me, but not the rock paintings in real life, so these excited me the most.

Impatient to see some of her photos, though I knew Kate Laity was busy with a new teaching post this fall, I emailed her to ask if she would be posting any of them. Kate and I have enjoyed some nice “conversations”, both being keen about our Finnish connections. Her photos of the boat trip to see the Asuvansalmi rock paintings are now up and I’ve enjoyed browsing through them several times, reaffirming my desire to make that journey myself! She kindly sent me an essay ‘on traveling in search of ancient Finland’ that is being published in New World Finn. Here are a couple of excerpts:

For the past couple years, I have been at work on a collection of stories influenced by The Kalevala, the ancient mythology of Finland. At the back of my mind, however, was a big worry. How could I write about ancient Finland, when I had never been there? […] How then to get a sense of this lost past? Naturally enough, a visit to modern Finland would be a good place to start. I was fortunate that the generous folks at the Finlandia Foundation found my journey a worthwhile exploration to fund. Their gift allowed me to go in search of the world of Finnish mythology this past August.

While I would very much enjoy my visit to the National Museum’s exhibit on ancient life in Finland, and I was thrilled to find Kivikäs’ book at the Academic Bookstore in Helsinki, the memory of the visit to the rock paintings has stayed vividly in my mind. It has sent me back to my stories with a new zeal for authenticity, and it has helped me to reshape some of the narratives to better reflect that glimpse of the ancient past. It may be a world lost to us now, but I hope my stories–buoyed by my taste of ancient Finland–can give readers a window on that distant time.

I’m so happy to have met Kate and I’m looking forward to the completion and publication of her Unikirja (a Finnish word meaning dreambook) and must find her novel Pelzmantel: A Medieval Tale.

By the way, Kate refers to Kivikäs’ book, which I also own and wrote about a while ago.

P.S. Off the subject a bit, something else I learned at Wombat’s World is about a Finnish/Chinese movie Jade Warrior. According to the gorgeous website, Jade Warrior combines kung fu with the Kalevala, ancient China and modern Finland. It was shown at the recent Toronto Film Festival (it did not get a good review) but does not appear to be at the currently running Vancouver International Film Festival, so the chance that I would ever get to see it seems small.

rock paintings & blogs

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©Bradshaw Foundation

I’m thrilled whenever I come across images of ancient rock art unexpectedly and this has just happened twice over two days. Regular readers will know that it’s a subject of great interest and inspiration for me even in my own art making.

Wood s lot is on my daily blog read and yesterday offered a special reward of a lovely image and many links to the Bradshaw paintings of Australia. I’ve seen these before on the fabulous Bradshaw Foundation site, which I’ve mentioned several times here, but warrants a fresh new look that is always inspiring, and the site is updated with new finds periodically.

One of the links is to Australian Gary Sauer-Thompson’s blog junk for code. Lots of images of the Bradshaw paintings here, and a very interesting new-to-me blog about arts, culture and philosophy to explore.

The second find caught my eye today, over at Via Negativa, in the side bar under Smorgasblog where Dave selects excerpts from his daily blog reads. Under Find Me a Bluebird the first lines are:

rock paintings made from oxides, blood and fat, still there after several hundred years…

Do you think I could resist that? It’s as if it was selected especially for me! I’ve occasionally visited Find Me a Bluebird, and this visit was very special, about a river rafting journey on the Salmon River in Idaho, USA. I’ve been to parts of this area but never rafting on the river, and finding a rock painting! Go have a look at all the gorgeous photos with a lovely poem.

UPDATE Sept.22.06: MB of Find me a Bluebird has posted a moving poem Old River Bed accompanied with a photo of another gorgeous pictograph. What an inspirational river journey that was!

the human journey

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I’ve been happily lost in my travels through the pages of the Atlas of the Human Journey. I’m always fascinated to learn more about the amazing migration of humans from Africa to all the far corners of the earth. Clicking on “Journey Highlights” on the lower right hand corner brings up a long list of different cultures, languages, anthropology and archaeological sites with some history or other interesting bits of information. The mention of some yet unproven theories on how some peoples arrived where they did reveals how much is still unknown. The Saami culture and other more obscure ones are even on the list, something you don’t often see in these kind of broad studies.

As most readers know, a great deal of new information has been recently discovered through the modern science of genetics. So, this site happens to be a part of the Genographic Project. Read the fascinating information here about DNA and genetic markers. I’m rather tempted to order the kit and send in some of my DNA and find out where the Finns came from! I’m also intrigued by some claims (elsewhere) that the Finnish language and genes may be as authentic, ancient and unique as that of the Basques.

The image above is of a Gravettian period (22,000 to 28,000 years ago) cave painting in the Czech Republic, photo by Kenneth Garrett, captured from this site.

watch this!

Interested in Cave Art and Art History? Make a date with your TV tonight! I’d read about this earlier and put a sticky note here on my screen. Now comes a great reminder from CultureGrll that the PBS series How Art Made the World is beginning tonight on your local PBS channel. In Vancouver, that’s KCTS 9 from Seattle at 10 pm. The program website itself is quite interesting, and according to that I think I will enjoy the first two episodes the most!

LATER: Just finished watching the first episode. It’s very well done, an interesting thesis that I totally agree with – and it’s actually a BBC production! Beats all the hours of watching slides in art history lectures!

Alberta Trip Day 3

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This was the big day, the main reason for this trip. We finally made it to Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in southern Alberta, a major site of hoodoos, petroglyphs and pictographs.

Some readers may remember that I wrote about Writing-on-Stone Park and how we had planned to visit it a year ago, but unusual heavy rains and flooding had forced a postponement. New readers may want to read that post, as well as one I wrote about hoodoos.

With cameras, lots of water, lunch, snacks plus hats and sunscreen, we set off from our hotel in Lethbridge. Heading southeast towards Milk River, the drive was pleasant and took about an hour and a half. Coming in, we had a fantastic first impression of the huge site overlooking the river. We knew that the Archaeological Preserve with the majority of the petroglyphs is protected from vandals and access was limited to guided tours daily in the afternoon. We found the park manager who informed us that the tour guide was away for several days on her days off and no one else could do it! There is only one guide now, compared to the two who were there last year. Blame the cutbacks in government funding (this is in Alberta where the economy is booming because of oil!) The park website has not been updated in years, phone service is a taped message, and tours cannot be booked in advance. It seems almost like they do not want visitors there! What’s a traveller from far away to do? You can imagine my disappointment.

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Anyway, we were told about the self-guided walking tour of the sandstone rocks and the locations of just a few petroglyphs on that route. After a quick lunch we set off, heeding warnings about staying on paths to avoid rattlesnakes – a first time for us! It was getting hot but we were quite mesmerized by the amazing rock formations, spending a lot of time taking photos. It really was an amazing, almost mystical experience, indeed a sacred place. And we did come to an area with about four discernible petroglyphs.

We ran out of time to go to the very end of the more than two hour walk, one way (without stopping to take photos I bet!) where we would have seen more. (Again, more information beforehand would have allowed us to plan better. We had to be back in Lethbridge to meet an old friend for dinner). Back near the parking lot we found some descriptive panels about the petroglyphs and the Blackfoot people who lived here and created them.

There were disappointments but nevertheless we loved the immense area of hoodoos here. We got about a hundred excellent digital photos (thanks to my husband) and some film ones that I took of close-up details and still haven’t developed because the roll hasn’t been fully exposed. I”m having a difficult time choosing photos to post here, that will look good in a small format! I’m really excited to have the rock photos to use in my continuing Silent Messenger series. But I hope to go back again to see the rock art and the rest of the park sometime!

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Related links:
Writing on Stone Provincial Park brochure (pdf)
some nice photos of WOSPP
Alberta Trip Day 1, Day 2, Day 4 and Days 5 & 6

Addendum July 16 and July 31, 2006: See more of our photos here, here and here.

more Lascaux

I’ve been getting acquainted with an interesting and fairly new arts blog CultureGrrl, written by Lee Rosenbaum, a longtime cultural journalist who writes for Wall Street Journal and Art in America. Yesterday she wrote some interesting observations about the prehistoric art scene in the Dordogne region of southwest France where many of the great caves including Lascaux are located.

As you know, I’m passionate about prehistoric art and this report is an interesting follow up to my recent articles on the fungus in Lascaux and the group working to save it. Last year I also posted about a cave replica being prepared for a travelling exhibition. Getting a nice group of articles here, aren’t I? To cap it all, I need to visit the area, but as Rosenbaum writes, it may be difficult to see them. Go read!

Later: Leslee wrote in the comments that there’s an article about this in Time magazine. This is similar to the earlier one published in the European edition, mentioned by Rosenbaum and which I also linked to in the earlier post.

Save Lascaux

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Recently I wrote about the fungus in Lascaux Caves. Since then I’ve had some interesting correspondence from Melody Di Piazza. She has given me permission to share it with my readers (hyperlinks mine):

“I am the vice-chair of the International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux. If you would like to read more about the crisis threatening the survival of Lascaux you will find a text link to our document, Lascaux: Masterpiece in Peril, at Save Lascaux.Org. Contrary to recent statements by French authorities Lascaux remains in grave danger of failing. As recently as last month we are aware that visitors to the cave saw mold still growing on the paintings.”
“The International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux is dedicated to preserving the original, prehistoric paintings in the cave of Lascaux. The ICPL works to raise public awareness of the rapid deterioration of the cave and its irreplaceable art; to initiate public action in efforts to safeguard Lascaux for future generations and to actively engage professionals from all fields of conservation in the preservation of the cave and its paintings.”
 
“It is our belief that the art of Lascaux is a legacy belonging to all mankind. The cave’s discovery in 1940 redefined what was previously known about our creative development as human beings and our ability to construct image from abstract thought. This critical leap, and its resulting tangible evidence, is invaluable to understanding our global human heritage.”
 
“Our website is under construction and will probably not be fully functional for several weeks but please check back with us as we will continually update the situation in Lascaux. Our document, Lascaux: Masterpiece in Peril, gives a very good history of what has happened in the cave. There is also a link to the 15 May, 2006 TIME magazine cover story on Lascaux. Since that article, the French authorities have publicly announced that all is well in the cave. We have first hand reports from witnesses who saw the cave in April that mold is still growing on the paintings.”
 
“Our first goal as a committee was to break the silence which has surrounded the crisis in Lascaux since 2000. We did this with the TIME magazine piece. We continue to work to keep this story out in the public. Our main goal is to affect change in the way the French government handles the care of the cave by creating oversight with transparency and accountability. We are calling for truly independent (i.e., not part of the French government or bureaucratic system) commission of scientists, prehistorians and specialists in cave conservation to monitor the cave, its health and report back to the world about the state of Lascaux. The artists of Lascaux were not French. They were our human ancestors and their heritage belongs to all of us.”

(Image above is from the Painted Gallery, Lascaux)

fungus in Lascaux Caves

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Image from The Painted Gallery

This is disturbing news. After reading it, I had to go and revisit the online Lascaux Caves site to marvel over the great art, such as the image above.

A pernicious white fungus has spread “like snow” in the caves of Lascaux in France where the fabulous rock art has been described as the “Sistine Chapel of prehistory”.

The fungus is believed to have been introduced after contractors began to install a new air conditioning system that was meant to preserve the precious 17,000-year-old cave paintings from the heat and humidity generated by their many visitors.
The historical importance of Lascaux is immeasurable and any damage to its art would have serious repercussions given the cave’s status as an evolutionary icon for the development of human art and consciousness.

The figures are so modernist in design that when Picasso emerged from the cave soon after it was first discovered in 1940 he exclaimed: “We have invented nothing.”

Read more in The Independent.

Related links: Time magazine and Lascaux Caves replica, an earlier post.

prunings, rockpiles & pennies

Some recommended reading today:

1. PRUNED is a blog about “landscape architecture and related fields”, which includes earth art. I’ve been browsing through the archives finding treasures like panographies. PRUNINGS I to XX on the sidebar offers many eclectic and fascinating links.

2. Indian rock piles in New England as well as some other archaeological rock art like petroforms are featured at Rockpiles. There are some great links including other related blogs such as in the UK.

3. Anne Marchand is an artist-blogger in Washington, DC. In today’s post in her Painterly Visions “Pennies Per Peek”, Canadian Concept of Artist Remuneration , she writes about CARFAC (Canadian Artists Representation) via the words of Canadian artist Robert Genn.

It is interesting to read another artist’s view. I’ve mentioned here before how I believe in this organization (I’m a member). Artists receive the exhibition fee from many public galleries thanks to CARFAC, and they don’t have to be members. Unfortunately some public galleries ask to waive that fee, so it’s still an issue for CARFAC. Now I’m curious, are exhibition fees not paid in the USA?