Article submitted by coldrum:
Gary Manson raises his voice against the roar of traffic as he walks towards the entrance of Petroglyph Provincial Park, a two-hectare chunk of land along Hwy. 19A dotted with rock carvings more than 1,000-years-old.
"It's a place for dreams," says Manson, a spiritualist with the Snuneymuxw First Nations, as he makes his way up the fog-shrouded path that leads to the ancient aboriginal relics.
This sacred site is where legends were made. Where long ago the powerful shaman Thauxwaam was turned to stone by the creator Xaals as punishment for his selfishness and arrogance, explained the elder gesturing toward a petroglyph replica in the centre of the park.
It's one of several stories that stem from this site. Years ago this park was a spiritual refuge for the Snuneymuxw and a source for inspiration for their own personal journeys, said Manson. But as traffic volumes increased along the highway and more people began visiting the park it gradually lost its sense of solitude.
"This is a sacred place. Every petroglyph contains our ancestors' spirit. Due to the traffic around us, it has been weakened by that," said the elder, furrowing his white eyebrows slightly but always maintaining the soft tone in his voice. "It's hard for people to use it now. When we do our vision quests, we want our alone time. The traffic is a distraction."
Although there are replicas of the petroglyphs in the park, visitors seeking out the original carvings hidden among the trees and bushes have worn away the artifacts. Vandalism has also been a problem over the years.
While this petroglyph site is relatively well-known in Nanaimo, there are many other First Nations relics in and around the community that people might walk past without even knowing it. Exactly how to deal with these ancient sites presents a dilemma, says Doug Glaum, a manager with the archeology branch of the B.C. Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts.
If you draw too much attention to them, it will attract more people eager for a peek at the relics and increase the chance that the carvings being worn away or vandalized. Keep them hidden, and they could be destroyed inadvertently. For example, hikers and all-terrain vehicles have ground away unmarked petroglyphs near Harewood Mines Road, possibly without the culprits even knowing what they were doing.
"That's the double-edged sword we have to deal with," said Glaum. "Unfortunately, the best thing for the petroglyph is for people to not know where they are."
But keeping them off the public's radar altogether could decrease the interest in and appreciation for B.C.'s ancient history. Taxpayers already have little appetite for spending cash to record and preserve such prehistoic sites, archeologists say.
Petroglyph Provincial Park, established in 1948 to protect the relics, still exposes them to vandalism, she said.
As part of now-stalled treaty negotiations with the provincial government, the park was to be set aside as part of a land package for the Snuneymuxw.
Manson said he would like to see more protection for petroglyphs in Nanaimo, but there is limited funding available for such projects.
Nick Doe wants to record as much information as he can about the remaining petrogylphs on Gabriola Island.
"We've already lost some," said the amateur archeologist, the only person now actively researching the ancient sites. "In 10 years they will be quite depleted and by 20 there will be very few left."
A proper survey of the roughly 120 petroglyphs on the island needs to be completed, he said, but little work has been done by professional archeologists on this Island in the last 20 years. And these artifacts won't wait around forever. In the 1980s, people peeled away thick cushions of moss shielding the relics from the elements, and they have been steadily eroding every since.
He doesn't think that the general public's interest in archeology is strong enough to ensure the artifacts are properly recorded before they disappear.
"I've been talking about this for a while, but I haven't been able to arouse any particular reaction to it," he said. "Personally, I think it's a tragedy because they haven't been very well documented. We're talking about the history of the province."
His more recent work examines a link between the petrogylphs and their relation to the stars, such as consolations like Orion and the Big Dipper. He will be giving a presentation of his work on Sunday at the Roxy on Gabriola Island.
Manson takes comfort that much information, such as replica castings, has been recorded about the relics in Petroglyph Park. Many archeologists say that even if the original site can't be preserved, at least some lessons can be taken from it.
For the Snuneymuxw spiritualist, whatever happens to the petroglyphs won't diminish the important tales that went with them.
For more, see the Times Colonist.
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