WANTED: One Very Special Boulder
Somewhere in the Pembina Hills is the stone we are looking for. Who has it?
Icelandic sculptor Jón Adólf Steinólfsson has offered to come from Iceland to Mountain, North Dakota, to create an original outdoor sculpture for the Icelandic Rootshús. And he wants to carve it from a boulder found right here.
So now we need to find THE BOULDER.
Here is the fascinating part. The Pembina Hills are largely underlain by Cretaceous shale. These are the remains of mud deposited in an inland sea roughly 80–90 million years ago. Shale doesn't produce those enormous granite and gneiss boulders sitting in our fields and coulees. Those rocks came from somewhere else.
During the Ice Age, glaciers moved south across Canada, scraping up pieces of ancient bedrock and carrying them into what is now North Dakota. Many of our granite and gneiss field stones came from the Canadian Shield, including areas north and east of Winnipeg.
When the ice melted, it left them behind. Geologists call them glacial erratics, or rocks that wandered from where they formed. Around here, generations of farmers have called them other names, and we shall leave it at that. Some of these wanderers are extraordinarily old. Rocks from the Canadian Shield can be billions of years old.
Now compare that with Iceland, a volcanic island whose oldest exposed rocks are only about 14–16 million years old.
An Icelandic sculptor from one of the youngest lands on Earth, carving a stone from one of the oldest. We love that.
And there is another connection. A stone traveled south from Canada and eventually came to rest here. Centuries later, Icelandic immigrants also traveled south from Canada and New Iceland to settle the Pembina Hills. The boulder just got here first.
Help us find it. We are looking for a large glacial boulder somewhere around Mountain, Gardar, Milton, Cavalier, or the Pembina Hills.
It might be:
along the edge of a field
tucked into a coulee or hillside
beside a shelterbelt, or
sitting in a rock pile where it has annoyed several generations of farmers
It does not need to be the biggest boulder in the county. Shape and character matter. Jón will choose the stone that inspires him and works for the sculpture.
If you own a boulder that you are willing to donate to the Rootshús, send us:
a photo with a person standing beside it for scale
its location, and
a few photos from different sides.
Email Rootshus@IcelandicRoots.com with your photos and location.
And please don't move it! Jón wants to see the possibilities and choose the stone himself. Once we find it, we will figure out the rest.
Somewhere out there is a stone carried here by a glacier thousands of years ago, waiting to be chosen by an artist from Iceland and given a new story at the Rootshús.
Who has our boulder?
See Jón Adólf Steinólfsson's work at jonadolf.com.
