The Gift That Was a Billion Years Old

What is the most memorable gift you’ve ever received? Do you still have it or has it been lost forever? Perhaps it has since been deposited into a charitable donation box, mashed into the back of a garbage truck, or regifted  to an office partner. Is it prominently displayed on a shelf in your home, wrapped carefully in a box in your drawer, or dangling from a chain around your neck?

This is the story of a unique gift we received from two people we had never met before. Last October, we packed the car for a  trip to Ontario, Canada with enough cold weather gear to last a few weeks. After all, we were going to   be in the wilds of Northern Ontario and would surely need hiking boots, down vests, sweatshirts and long underwear. Isn’t all of Canada still in the ice age?   As an after thought,  a few t-shirts and lightweight pants were thrown in the mix.  As it turned out, our Fall trip was during a record breaking warm spell. At least we were prepared for a blizzard whenever it might hit.

In Thessalon, Ontario,  we waved goodbye to Lake Huron and headed north for thirty miles to an old fishing/hunting camp near the Mississagi valley. The resort owners had mentioned  we would be driving through the Canadian shield and would see  beautiful Autumn vistas of hills and valleys.

Although I am familiar with the Canadian shield bare outcroppings in Northeastern Minnesota, I had no idea two-thirds of Ontario is a mass of exposed Precambrian rock dating back 4.5 billion years. In fact, the Canadian shield is composed of some of the oldest rock on earth and was the first part of the continent to be raised above sea level. Farming would not be a good choice of occupation in this region, but mining would be perfect.

The 1938 hunting lodge and  seven cabins were built by a Chicagoan for his sporting buddies. The current owners, a husband/wife team, had their hands full maintaining, feeding, and entertaining their guests. Even though we were the last guests of the season and the boats and docks had been pulled, we were treated as if we were their first guests. With enthusiasm they told us about the remnants of a village of 2,000 people on the lake during the mining/logging era, which hiking trails to take, where the best waterfalls could be found, and the beautiful Mississiagi valley with its river  narrowing into a  chute  full of churning waterpools.

Their excitement crescendoed as they told us about one of their favorite pastimes, looking for puddingstone along the hiking trails. They led us to a “rock pile” next to their lodge entrance and showed us white quartz rock interspersed with red jasper, named puddingstone by an Englishman who thought it reminded him of pudding.  It was  as if they had discovered gold as they explained how a billion years ago sand deposited in lakes mixed with jasper pebbles. Volcanic activity transformed these ingredients into a quartzite conglomerate, and voila...we are staring at the end result. Except “voila” took  an unfathomable billion years from start to finished product.

As we bid goodbye and got into our car, they suddenly came over and said, “Wait, we have something for you.” In a few minutes they returned with three puddingstones and softly said,   “We want you to have these.”

On my counter I have the oldest gift I’ve ever received, three puddingstones from the Canadian shield hand-picked off a trail in the Mississiagi valley, each a billion years old. What a treasure!