It’s early fall, and you’re driving north on a two-lane country road. It’s warm outside, enough for the car window to remain open. Gothic red-brick farmhouses pass by in view, interspersed with fields of goldenrod. Tree farms and old clearcuts share the land with a few old-growth remnants. You’re driving towards Waaseyaagami-wiikwed (Georgian Bay), but made the trip mostly for this land in-between.
Your thoughts drift to the Ice Age, as they often do here. Each crease in the landscape — each valley, river, and peak — was formed by the retreat of glaciers only 12,000 years ago. While the bedrock here is hundreds of millions of years old, the hills that dot its surface are new, geologically speaking. There are human creations older than these hills.
You think of the Neanderthal handprint at Maltravieso cave in Spain, red ochre blown against an outstretched hand, 60,000 years ago. You think of the carefully drawn babirusa pig at Leang Timpuseng in Indonesia, 40,000 years ago. You think of the arrowheads found at Sheguiandah on Manitoulin Island, only a few hours northwest of here, knapped 13,000 years ago. You wonder how the makers of these arrowheads saw this landscape, just as the ground was emerging from a long glacial sleep. Looking at these hills, you think of creation.
