Mysterious carving found in northern Ontario wilderness

Seven years ago, a tree fell over in the northern Ontario bush and exposed an archeological mystery that researchers are still trying to understand.

Found carved into the bedrock, not far from the town of Wawa, were 255 symbols arranged in a square about 1.2 metres by 1.5 metres and next to it, there is carved picture of a boat with 16 people on it, as well as 14 Xs.

Photos of the discovery made their way to Ryan Primrose, an archeologist based in New Liskeard and the director of the Ontario Centre for Archeological Education. 

"Well it's certainly among the least expected finds that I think I've encountered during my career. It's absolutely fascinating," he said.

Primrose has been working on the carvings since 2018 and is now talking about it publicly for the first time. 

"We didn't want to release information publicly until we had done as much as we could at the time to understand exactly what it was," he said.

Primrose quickly realized that the 255 characters were Nordic runes, part of a language known as Futhark that was used in Scandinavia in centuries past and he was worried that some would jump to conclusions that these were carved by Vikings more than a millennium ago.

That's why he sought the help of Henrik Williams, an emeritus professor at Uppsala University in Sweden and a leading expert in runology. 

He came to analyze the well-worn carvings on a drizzly cold October day several years ago. 

"I was under a tarpaulin for three hours with a flash light, looking at the runes and the others were sitting outside freezing," Williams said.

"And I came out with this reading."

He realized that the runic writing spelled out the words of The Lord's Prayer in Swedish and traced it back to a 1611 runic version of the prayer, that was republished in the 19th Century.

"It must have taken days and days of work. They are really deeply carved into the rock. Someone must have spent a couple of weeks carving this thing," Williams said. 

"And this must have been a Swede. Were there any Swedes at all here?"

Primrose says subsequent research has shown that the Hudson's Bay Company did hire Swedes in the 1800s to work at trading posts in the Canadian wilderness, including the Michipicoten post, not too far from where the carving was found. 

He says his going theory, based on how worn the carving is, is that it was likely made in the early to mid-1800s.

Williams admits to being "a little disappointed" that it's only about 200 years old, but says "the mystery around it doesn't decrease just because it's slightly younger than we hoped it was."

"Anybody has to start wondering 'Why on Earth did they carve it here and why did they choose that text?' And there's no answers," he said. 

"But mysteries they do tend to attract people and this one will certainly do that."

Primrose speculates that this carving could have been a spot for religious worship, perhaps a gathering place for Swedes who worked at the trading post, or the solitary work of one person. 

He says the carving was found under several inches of soil and it was likely deliberately buried, but no other artifacts were found in the area which makes it "difficult to tell what's going on."

Working with the property owner, Primrose has applied for a lease hold on the land and is hoping to get funding to develop the site into a historical tourist attraction, including a structure over the carving to protect it from further wear.

He hopes to have those plans formalized by the end of the summer and then give the public a chance to ponder the mysterious carving in person.