Writing on Stone

The Blackfoot Indians dominated this area of the prairies, and at Writing on Stone they created the largest petroglyph site in Canada. The area is yet another part of the Alberta Badlands, that were created at the end of the ice age when a ice dam broke, and sent an enormous lake to the Hudson Bay area. The water is estimated to have travelled at 100km per hour, and reached Hudson Bay (which was then a large sea) in five days, creating the Alberta Badlands in the process. At Writing-On-Stone the sandstone was much harder than at the previous sites we’ve seen, and many petroglyphs were created here over the last 2000 years.

Unfortunately, many people have carved their initials and messages over the original petroglyphs.

This is probably the newest petroglyph, a story of a journey to the site by the writer and some friends in the 1920s.

Later, we went to the battlefield petroglyph, which depicts a successful Blackfoot battle in the 1860s. It’s very large, and the picture is only of a small part of it.

The Badlands here are full of fantastic shapes.