Remnants of sacred rock located in Lake Diefenbaker – StarPhoenix

August 27, 2014

It’s difficult to imagine such a thing happening today.

A 400-tonne sacred aboriginal rock, an ancient gathering place for Cree and Assiniboine people living on the plains, was about to become submerged by a man-made lake.

As pressure mounted to save it, the government chose to blast it into pieces rather than leave it where it sat.

That’s what happened in 1966, when government employees dynamited the giant rock known as Mistaseni (“big rock” in Cree) where it lay in the flood path of what would become Lake Diefenbaker, following the construction of the Gardiner Dam.

Images of the blast stuck with Steven Thair, an avid diver who spends part of every year in the Bahamas. Saskatchewan isn’t exactly a welcoming place for divers, with its frigid waters and often murky lake bottoms, but Thair wanted to dive in his home province, and he wanted to see if he could find Mistaseni.

“I was in Grade 12 when The StarPhoenix, actually, came out and here was this picture of the rock being blown to smithereens,” he said.

Read More: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/Remnants+sacred+rock+located+Lake+Diefenbaker/10152559/story.html