Pictograph
Aug. 22nd, 2013 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThere are pictographs on the Quetico, nine thousand years old or so. There were some marked on the map close to a campsite, so Dad and I paddled over to find them - and found nothing but a bare expanse of cliff.
But a few days later, far from anything marked on the map, I caught sight of markings on the cliff. "Dad, Dad, slow down!" I yelled.
"Do you have a fish?" he asked.
"No! I've caught pictographs!"
We landed the canoe so I could take a better photograph. A turtle - that's the big circle with the faint little head - and handprints marching up the rock beside it.
It's bad for the pictographs to be touched, and therefore it's fortunate they were too high to touch, because I wanted so much to press my hand against the handprints: as if in touching them I would reach back nine thousand years, and we could press our palms together across the gap in time.
But a few days later, far from anything marked on the map, I caught sight of markings on the cliff. "Dad, Dad, slow down!" I yelled.
"Do you have a fish?" he asked.
"No! I've caught pictographs!"
We landed the canoe so I could take a better photograph. A turtle - that's the big circle with the faint little head - and handprints marching up the rock beside it.
It's bad for the pictographs to be touched, and therefore it's fortunate they were too high to touch, because I wanted so much to press my hand against the handprints: as if in touching them I would reach back nine thousand years, and we could press our palms together across the gap in time.
