Shameful’ vandalism of sacred Indigenous site at Bon Echo Provincial Park – CBC

Sep 19, 2023

Mazinaw Rock is ‘our Mona Lisa. There are things that you can’t duplicate,’ says professor

Hundreds of Indigenous pictographs have covered the soaring cliffs of Mazinaw Rock for centuries, but in recent weeks they’ve been joined by names hastily scratched into the stone.

Located at Bon Echo Provincial Park, roughly 115 kilometres northwest of Kingston, Ont., the rock is a national historic site and considered sacred.

Ontario Parks said officials were notified about the damage on Sept. 2 and believe a stone was used to etch names near the pictographs.

It described the vandalism as “shameful” and said staff are investigating.

Mazinaw Rock holds deep cultural and spiritual meaning, according to Veldon Coburn, an associate professor at McGill University and a member of Algonquins of Pikwakanagan.

“There’s very few [sites] on Algonquin territory left and through the Anishinabek Nations that haven’t been destroyed by colonialism,” he explained.