On September 14, RDA’s Artistic Co-Director Anna Camilleri facilitated Art Helps: Connecting with Stone, a free arts workshop hosted by Ottawa Valley Community Arts (OVCAOS) at Bonnechere Provincial Park. Community members connected with stone through stone wrapping and weaving and the creation of collaborative stone installations on the shore of Round Lake.
Anna gave a short opening talk on stone and the geological story of Bonnechere Provincial Park. Here’s a short excerpt:
"Let’s consider how the stone that is all around us and underneath our feet here in Bonnechere Provincial Park came to be here. 600 million years ago, Ontario was part of a great and ancient landmass called Rodinia. In the last 2 million years, all of Ontario, and almost all of Canada, was covered several times by massive sheets of ice during the last great ice age to affect North America. How massive? At its peak, the glacier was about 1 km thick in the area we now call Bonnechere Provincial Park.
Great volumes of water were released by the melting glacier and over time, geological forces pulled the land apart to form a rift valley that extends for about 700 km from Montreal to Sudbury area.
These geological processes created three marvels that characterize Bonnechere Provincial Park: the meandering Bonnechere River, oxbows (u-shaped bends) along the Bonnechere River floodplain, and the golden sand beach along the shore of Round Lake.”
To learn more about the geological origins of Bonnechere Provincial Park check out this article from Ontario Beneath Our Feet: https://www.ontariobeneathourfeet.com/bonnechere-provincial-park-river-oxbow-and-beach
To learn more about Ottawa Valley Community Arts and their upcoming programming, visit: https://ottawavalleycommunityarts.ca.
Photo by Andy Trull.
Photo by Andy Trull.