Two unusual sites to explore in the Peterborough area
From rocks that tell a story to an old mine’s ongoing transformation
The Teaching Rocks:
Peterborough’s petroglyphs The hollow echo of water gurgling beneath the rocks at their feet made the two young geologists uneasy in May 1954. As they swept away the moss from the white crystalline rocks, something caught their eye. The surface of the rock contained more than 900 strange etchings. Two men had uncovered one of North America’s largest and most mysterious Indigenous petroglyphs, the Teaching Rocks, carved as long ago as AD 900.
The Teaching Rocks tell the story of life. As each young male entered adolescence, the elders of the tribe would lead him to the site, guided by the sound of waterfalls and special guide rocks. One lesson at a time, the elders taught the youngsters the meaning of life, as the Ojibway understood it and as the Teaching Rocks revealed it.
After each lesson finished, the elders would cover the stones with moss to protect the carvings from erosion.
In 1976, the site, sacred to the First Nations, became a provincial park under the co-operative stewardship of the Curve Lake First Nation. A decade later, to protect the surface from the elements, a glass enclosure was added.
The site is located 55 kilometres northeast of Peterborough, near Highway 28. Here you can watch the award-winning 20-minute film, “The Teaching Rocks,” which reveals the mysteries as told and narrated by the Ojibway themselves.
Ontario’s biggest pool: The big hole of Marmora
This huge pit may ultimately become Ontario’s biggest pool. For as each year passes, the gaping cavity left by the Marmoraton Iron Mine fills with a little more water.
Mining days in Marmora date back to 1820. An iron magnate named Charles Hayes hacked a trail through the dark forests of central Hastings, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest city of any size.
Here he began the construction of a mine, mill and smelter for the production of iron. The community of Marmora quickly grew to a population of 200.
For a time, Marmora and its neighbour, Blairton, now a ghost town, were the leading iron producers in the country. Difficulty in transporting the iron out, however, proved their undoing. When canals were completed along the St. Lawrence River, cheaper iron could be imported and Marmora’s iron-mining days were over. Almost.
In 1948 an aeromagnetic survey revealed strange magnetic anomalies east of the town. Drilling quickly followed, revealing an immense body of ore, 700 metres long and 150 metres deep.
The only problem was the 45 metres of limestone that lay on top of it.
In 1951, Bethlehem Steel Company began to haul away the intervening rock, and was soon removing a million tonnes of magnetic ore every year. By the late 1970s the ore supply was exhausted, leaving a massive circular pit a third of a kilometre across and fully 200 metres deep.
During the mine’s operation, a viewing area was provided so that the public could watch the monster trucks grind up out of the gaping hole, loaded with ore.
Although the mine no longer operates, the viewing area reveals the emerging lake. The road to the viewing area leads south of Highway 7, just 1.4 kilometres east of the traffic lights in Marmora.
Marmora’s original iron smelter site is now marked by a plaque in a small park near the downtown area. This adapted excerpt was taken from “Top 160 Unusual Things to See in Ontario” by Ron Brown, with permission from Firefly Books.