WRITING-ON-STONE PROVINCIAL PARK, ALBERTA, CANADA:

Cliffs and hoodoos at Writing-On-Stone

Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada.

Photo. Peter Faris, June 25, 2016.

On June 25, 2016, I had the opportunity to visit a world-class rock art site, Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada. Sitting in the valley of the Milk River, this magical area of cliffs, hoodoos, and petroglyphs, was sacred to the Blackfeet people and still evokes an aura of mystery in the mind of a visitor. There is much more rock art here than a person could expect to see in a number of days so I did not resent the fact that the guided tour skipped a number of sites that we could see as we drove by. I still filled the time available with visiting, photographing, and appreciating some remarkable rock art.

Rock art at Writing-On-Stone

Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada.

Photo. Peter Faris, June 25, 2016.

Although I would not trade this opportunity to visit Writing-On-Stone for the world I must admit to a couple of disappointments with it. First, the sky was an even overcast gray diffusing the daylight and making photography very difficult. Although I do know that I took pictures of rock art I cannot now find the rock art in some of the pictures that I did take. We all know how the lighting affects rock art photography, and this day was one of the more extreme I have had to put up with. I saw the petroglyphs while I was there, but they do not show up in some of the photographs.

Mitigated cliff at Writing-On-Stone

Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada.

Photo. Peter Faris, June 25, 2016.

The second disappointment regards an attempt made to mitigate vandalism to rock art panels. Over the years since the discovery of the site by Anglos people have been adding their names, initials, dates, etc., to the rock art panels. This is the all-too-common vandalism the we see on most known rock art panels. This mitigation was done by removing the inscription, with a hand wielded dental pick in instances where prehistoric rock art might be affected, to grinding the inscriptions off the rock face with a steel-bristled brush, sometimes held in a rotating electric drill. This was done because there was concern that the vandalism would negatively impact on their application to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so they had it removed. Hired workers and volunteer crews between July 26 and August 10, 2012, removed graffiti from 47 panels, and  between September 13 and September 21, 2012, they removed graffiti from a further 47 panels, 94 panels in total were affected.

Mitigated cliff at Writing-On-Stone

Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada.

Photo. Peter Faris, June 25, 2016.

Once the graffiti had been chipped or ground off the work area was camouflaged by painting colorants back onto the surface to mimic the patina of the rock face. Colorants used were natural pigments collected in the area, yellow ochre from a rock shelter in the area, red ochre from nodules found on the ground beneath the cliff faces having weathered out of the rock, and for grayish tones charcoal from local vegetation. These colorants were finely ground and mixed with water from the milk river and then brushed onto the surfaces to emulate the untouched rock surfaces nearby.

These techniques were of limited success as by the time of my visit the camouflaging colorants were obviously washed off by weather and the graffiti removal scars stood out as large light-colored, smooth areas very noticeably different from the natural rock surface. Personally, I dislike this technique greatly, I would rather see good, honest initials and names "defacing" the rock face than these large smooth unnatural-looking scars.

Damaged prehistoric petroglyphs

at Writing-On-Stone Provincial

Park, Alberta, Canada. Photo.

Peter Faris, June 25, 2016.

Even more disturbing to me is the fact that in many cases prehistoric petroglyphs were damaged by the removal of overlying graffiti. I have a number of photographs that illustrate this damage (although as I said above they are very difficult to see because of the lighting). Even sillier to me is the fact that staff had gone to some effort to compile a list of the inscriptions that had historical significance, i.e. early explorers and settlers, that they stipulated should be left alone while other graffiti was to be removed whenever possible. Had they just waited, the passing of time would have given the later inscriptions historical significance as well. Remember, all that history is, is what actually happened, and they had actually happened. A prehistoric petroglyph carved over an earlier prehistoric petroglyph was vandalism when it happened.

Be that as it may, this is now also a part of the history of Writing-On-Stone, a lamentable part to be sure, but a part. No matter what else it is, Writing-On-Stone is still a world class rock art site and should not be missed if the opportunity to visit it comes up. And now it can also be considered an educational site that displays a number of what I consider to be mistaken assumptions about what an authentic rock art site is, and should be. Please world, if anyone out there is listening, please do not replicate these techniques elsewhere.