How to visit Lake Lovely Water in remote British Columbia
The Grand Gathering, St. Lawrence River, Sainte-Flavie, Quebec
More than 100 life-sized stone and wood figures stare out at the St. Lawrence River from the beach or keep watch in the water itself. Their tall, narrow bodies and the play of light and shadow on their faces give them a haunting presence. Canadian artist Marcel Gagnon originally created the figures as studies for his paintings and now they are the main attraction at the Centre d’Art Marcel Gagnon, in Sainte-Flavie.
Getting there: The Centre d’Art Marcel Gagnon is about three-and-a-half hours from Quebec City on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.
Pingualuit Crater Lake, Pingualuit Provincial Park, northern Quebec
Pingualuit means pimples in English – an odd word to associate with a lake that looks like a huge gemstone. It is also said to have the purest freshwater on earth. The jagged-edged crater surrounding the lake was formed by a meteorite over 1.3 million years ago. The lake is in Pingualuit Provincial Park, a popular place for camping in summer and winter. It is quite remote but you will still find comfortable bunk beds, showers and even Wi-Fi.
Getting there: Travel by air from Montreal, Ottawa or Quebec to Kuujjuaq and then fly on to Kangiqsujuaq. From there, take a helicopter or Twin Otter into the park.
Mount Shasta -Mt. Shasta, California
Part of the Cascade Range in northern California, Shasta is central to the Creation story for local Native Americans and remains a sacred place for them. They have lived there for 9,000 years and though their numbers have dwindled shockingly, descendants still conduct ceremonies in its honor. The towering extinct volcano, once an active part of the notorious Pacific Ring of Fire, stands over 14,000 feet. No other mountain on the continent has been ordained by so many groups with mystical significance. As with many Native American sacred sites, its spirituality has been adopted by contemporary belief systems. Buddhists built a monastery there with the belief that it is one of the Seven Sacred Mountains in the World. Many New Agers believe it to be a vortex emitting earth’s subterranean energy. More than a few believe it to be a refueling base for UFO’s. Some of it may seem sacrilegious, but in a way underline the beauty and power of a place whose beauty has been put here by a Creator for a higher purpose.
Devil’s Tower -Crook County, Wyoming
It is as much as 70 million years old. A stunning geological formation, from a volcanic eruption, it has been shaped and scarred by a millennium of erosion. Known in contemporary culture from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, some twenty Indian tribes have said to had close and sacred encounters with this natural beauty for thousands of years. It is also known as Bear Lodge and Bear tipi. There are many different legends of how it was created by the Great Spirit Legend. The crevices down its side are said to have been left by a bear sliding down in futility after his erstwhile victims found refuge on top. It was the first site declared a National Monument in 1906 and is still a place for Sun Dances, vision quests and other ceremonial customs. Its commanding presence juts out of the Black Hills looking down on its domain- does it have a supernatural power and in its mystery lies the questions by the grace of whom?
Bighorn Medicine Wheel -Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
They are scarce, with only a hundred or so remaining set in starkly, spectacular, settings. medicine wheel’s are intensely spiritual, places that were made for worship. The Bighorn is the grandfather of all medicine wheels, though its 10,000 foot elevation makes it a daunting destination. Its intricate celestial significance is captivating. It’s a circle with 28 spokes, the number of days in the lunar calendar and a sacred number to many tribes. The spokes point to the rising and setting places of stars near and distant, the Sun at summer solstice, Rigel in Orion, and Sirius, the Dog Star (whose apogee in August gave rise to The Dog Days of summer) in Canis Major. Medicine wheels are the New World’s Stonehenge. Despite their name, they were not used for medical purposes. They should more appropriately be called ‘sacred hoops’ honoring the gods and seeking divine wisdom to guide them in every facet of tribal life.
Crater Lake -Medford, Oregon
With a depth of 1,949 feet, Crater Lake is the deepest in the country and Top Ten worldwide. It is an underappreciated scenic gem with one-tenth the four plus million visitors the Grand Canyon gets. The Klamath nation still regards it as a sacred site, created long ago by a terrible battle between the Chiefs of the Above and Below Worlds that completely destroyed the mountain that stood there. Scientists believe that Mount Mazama imploded some 8,000 years ago after a series of cataclysmic eruptions to form a caldera or volcanic depression, which became the lake with an unforgettable shade of blue seen only here. New Age spiritual adherents believe that the lake is a major vortex site and the source of positive energy from the earth’s natural power grid.
TRAVEL EXPERTS
Unravel the Secrets of Tiwanaku in Bolivia
Archaeologists have excavated only a small part of the city, but they estimate that at its peak at least 20,000 people lived in Tiwanaku. Excavations have shown that the citizens lived in separate neighborhoods, which were enclosed by large adobe walls. Other remains found in the city include temples, a pyramid, large gates and carvings of alien-like faces. The only extensively studied area is the city center.
By 1200 AD, the Tiwanaku civilization had all but disappeared from the area. Most archaeologists agree that this was due to drastic weather changes there. However, the culture carried on, as it became the basis of the beliefs of the Incas, who were next to inhabit the area. They did not believe that the region had been previously inhabited by an earlier civilization. Rather, they believed that Tiwanaku was where the Inca god Viracocha created the first humans. Interestingly, the Inca built their own structures next to those previously built by the Tiwanaku.
One of the most interesting structures is the Akapana pyramid. It was one of the largest constructions at Tiwanaku, and probably the principal sacred area in the city. However, looters removed many of the stones, leaving it much less impressive than it once was.
The Kalasasaya Temple is located to the north of the pyramid. It is a ritual platform, with two monolithic uprights flanking the entrance steps. Smaller platforms containing monoliths exist within Kalasasaya. In the northwest corner, there is a large block of volcanic rock, believed to be associated with the sun god. The surface is covered with a sculpture of a deity on one side and a row of four deep cuts on the other, perhaps for offerings.
Situated into Kalasasaya’s northeastern corner is the iconic Puerta del Sol (the Gateway of the Sun), an elaborately decorated portico carved from a single piece of rock weighing ten tonnes. The central figure above the doorway is the best-known image of Tiwanaku, probably the supreme creator god known to the Aymara as Thunupa and to the Incas as Viracocha. The 24 rays emanating from his head have led some to think of him as a sun god although there’s not much evidence to suggest such a cult existed before the Incas.
On June 21, the time of the winter solstice south of the equator, the festival of Aymara New Year is celebrated in Tiwanaku. Locals wear colorful clothing for the celebration, and visitors are welcome. Activities include drinking, chewing coca and dancing until sunrise, when the rays of the sun shine through the eastern entrance of the temple.
Although there are many ruins in South America, Tiwanaku has had the largest share of unique and strange theories surrounding it. For instance, in the early twentieth century, the astronomer H.S. Bellamy believed that the city was a result of one of the earth’s moons crashing in this area. The writer Erich von Daniken stated that his research showed that aliens set up a base at Tiwanaku, and erected the great monuments with their special technology.
In the last century, archaeologists have taken on many projects aimed at unlocking Tiwanaku’s secrets. Only recently have they been able to link the origin of this fascinating city to the original people who built it.
An incredibly detailed map shows where Icelanders have come into contact with “hidden people.”
It’s an oft-reported, can-you-even-believe-it fact that many people in Iceland still believe in the possible existence of elves. This myth from the country’s folk traditions has persisted, and the niggling suspicion that the Good Folk may still be out there among the rocks has even led to Icelandic road and housing plans being altered to avoid sites associated with them. Now, there’s an incredibly detailed map that shows you exactly where such sites can be found.
Iceland’s Saga Foundation compiled and published the map last fall, linking traditional folk tales featuring so-called Huldufólk (“hidden people”) with locations all across the island. While deciphering the attached stories can be a challenge for those who don’t speak Icelandic, what’s striking is the mind-blowing volume of tales mapped. Zoom into any corner of the map and you will find an incredibly dense scattering of sightings, stories, and legends about the hidden people, sprinkling almost all of the island’s under-populated landscape with an intricate network of tales and supposed elf sightings. This past winter, a large portion of this unpopulated zone was back in the (Icelandic) news, as campaigners, including Björk and her union leader father, have lobbied to have the region protected by a new national park.
If created, the park would cover 40 percent of the entire country. If this scope seems huge, rest assured that most of the area is empty—at least of humans. The Icelandic Highlands are largely barren, dominated by glaciers and volcanic desert peppered with small oases but almost no inhabitants. Having this stark, ominously beautiful landscape in their backyards could help to explain why Icelanders’ belief in nature spirits has persisted. It’s not that Icelanders are inherently any more witchy or suggestible that people from other nations. (In fact, when it comes to religion, a recent poll suggested that no young Icelanders even believe that a god had created the world.) Rather, Icelanders have long lived spread thinly across a far-flung island whose natural extremes and emptiness somehow make the perception of a non-human presence more palpable. I would personally challenge anyone to visit the highlands and not feel a little spooked.
The folk tales mapped across this terrain are, by contrast, entirely human in their concerns. Icelandic stories told about elves were, like all folk tales, vehicles for ordinary people to explore their own day-to-day concerns—hunger, sex, jealousy—through supernatural proxies whose form and stature was still similar to their own. As Terry Gunnell, one of the map’s co-creators, commented in the introduction to an Icelandic folk tale collection, elves are:
[N]ear mirror-images of those humans who told stories about them—except they were beautiful, powerful, alluring, and free from care, while the Icelanders were often starving and struggling for existence. The huldufólk seem in many ways to represent the Icelander's dreams of a more perfect and happy existence.
The other overwhelming impression to be gained from the tales listed on the map is of people trying to live in harmony, or at least come to terms with difficult natural surroundings. Often said to live under rocks, Icelandic elves have a backstory: They’re supposed to be descendants of children Eve hid from god because they hadn’t been washed. They nonetheless come across as embodiments of the landscape itself. In one tale, for example, an elf man treats a fisherman to a feast in thanks for preventing his crew from throwing stones at a rock—thus saving the life of the elf’s son, who was sleeping underneath it. Another has a woman who scrubs clothes on a rock being rewarded by an elf with a glass of buttermilk. In scrubbing the stone, she has also inadvertently been cleaning the elf’s house. It’s not hard to read such stories as exhortations to treat the landscape with respect.
The Blue Dragon (an actual river in Portugal)
It’s this idea that lives on in the drive to cover almost half the country with a new national park. Iceland’s interior may be inhospitable and almost lunar in appearance, but for centuries it’s been a stomping ground for the imagination—an imagination that sees the volatile volcanic landscape as full of life. Re-routing a road to bypass a reputed fairy stone might seem somewhat ludicrous, but the spirit behind the move—of respect, forbearance and a need to balance human needs with those of others—is one we should all hold on
to.
Rock Carvings in Tanum
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
|---|---|
Three men in a ritual
| |
| Location | Tanumshede, Tanum Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden |
| Criteria | Cultural: (i), (iii), (iv) |
| Reference | 557rev |
| Inscription | 1994 (18th Session) |
| Area | 4,137.609 ha (10,224.25 acres) |
| Coordinates | 58°42′4″N 11°20′28″ECoordinates: 58°42′4″N 11°20′28″E |
 
Location of Rock Carvings in Tanum in Västra Götaland
| |
The Rock Carvings in Tanum (Swedish: Hällristningsområdet i Tanum) are a collection of petroglyphs near Tanumshede, Bohuslän, Sweden, which were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1994 because of their high concentration.
Petroglyphs[edit]
In total there are thousands of images called the Tanum petroglyphs, on about 600 panels within the World Heritage Area. These are concentrated in distinct areas along a 25 km stretch, and covers an area of about 51 hectares (126 acres or 0.5 km²).
While the region was on the coastline when the drawings were made, it is now at an elevation of 25m.[1]
Scandinavian Bronze Age and Iron Age people were sophisticated craftsmen and very competent travelers by water. (Dates for ages vary with the region; in Scandinavia, the Bronze Age is roughly 1800 to 500 BCE) Many of the glyphs depict boats of which some seem to be of the Hjortspring boat type carrying around a dozen passengers. Wagons or carts are also depicted.
Other glyphs depict humans with a bow, spear or axe, and others depict hunting scenes. In all cases the pictures show people performing rituals. There is a human at a plough drawn by two oxen, holding what might be a branch or an ox-goading crop made of a number of strips of hide.
One of the larger rocks of Nordic Bronze Age petroglyphs in Scandinavia (at 22 metres tall and 6 metres wide), the Vitlyckehäll, is located in Tanumshede. It contains nearly 300 carvings of a variety of scenes, people, and objects.[1]
The rock carvings are endangered by erosion due to acid rain and some are thus covered either permanently or during certain times of the year.[2] Some have been painted red to make them more visible for tourists; a practice which has drawn criticism for removing the authenticity and original state of the drawings.[2][3]
Recent history[edit]
The first records of the images inscribed at the site were made in 1627 when Peder Alfsön, a Norwegian doctor and lector, made ink drawings of some of the carvings. The first professional recordings were made in 1792 by Carl Gustaf Gottfried Hilfeling, who was sent by nobleman Pehr Tham to draw the carvings. A number of excavations and recordings took place over the course of the early 19th century, primarily led by Carl Georg Brunius and Axel Emmanuel Holmberg, who published research and debated at length the most likely era of their creation. Strong arguments for the now accepted era were not made until the late 19th century, when Oscar Monteliusand Viktor Rydberg presented evidence linking the drawings to the Bronze Age.[4] During the early 20th century, studies began to focus more on the meaning behind the drawings, rather than determining their age, but late 20th century work confirmed that the drawings were likely made during the Bronze Age.[4][5]
The site was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1994; encompassing approximately 45 km² in total.[1][4] It is visited by approximately 100,000 people per year, though visitors are not permitted to walk on or touch the drawings.[2]
Gallery[edit]
5 things to know about Australia's mystical Uluru
Uluru is an impressive geological sight and a sacred cultural site. (Photo: Maurizio De Mattei/Shutterstock.com)
The massive, rust-red rock rising from the dry ground in the middle of Australia is a sight that leaves most people in awe. Indeed, it's such a unique structure that the Anangu tribe, an Aboriginal people of Australia, have considered it a sacred site for 10,000 years or more.
Uluru goes by two names. The common name is Ayers Rock, named after Sir Henry Ayers by William Gosse in 1873. However, the Aboriginal name for the rock, Uluru, is its official name. But no matter what you call it, it's clear this vividly red monolith is a popular destination for travelers.
But for those who won't be going to Australia any time soon, you can still explore the site thanks to Google. Here are five things you want to know about this special place — including how to virtually walk around the soaring tower of sedimentary rock.
Uluru is a sacred place
Uluru has a rich geological history but also a rich cultural history. The monolith is a holy place for the Anangu tribe of Aboriginal people in Australia, who have been in the area for around 10,000 years.
According to Uluru Australia: "Aboriginal culture dictates that Uluru was formed by ancestral beings during Dreamtime. The rock’s many caves and fissures are thought to be evidence of this, and some of the forms around Uluru are said to represent ancestral spirits. Rituals are still often held today in the caves around the base where 'No Photography' signs are posted out of respect."
Artwork on the rock dates back at least 5,000 years, possibly longer. Parks Australia notes of the ancient drawings found here, "Anangu have a living culture, this symbolism is still used in sand painting, wooden craft making, body painting and modern artworks today."
After many thousands of years as a sacred ancestral place for Aboriginal people, Uluru along with neighboring geological formation Kata Tjuta, were excised to create the Ayers Rock Mt Olga National Park. It took decades of campaigning for the area to be returned to the Anangu, who are now recognized as the rightful owners. In return, the Anangu leased the land back to Parks Australia so it could continue to be one of the celebrated spots in the Australian parks system.
In 2017, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board of Management unanimously voted to close the site to climbers starting Oct. 26, 2019. The move was made out of respect for the site's cultural importance, the board noted.
"It is an extremely important place, not a theme park like Disneyland," board chairman Sammy Wilson said in an address to the board. "If I travel to another country and there is a sacred site, an area of restricted access, I don't enter or climb it, I respect it. It is the same here for Anangu. We welcome tourists here. We are not stopping tourism, just this activity."
Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. (Photo: PTW/iStockPhoto)It's not the biggest monolith in the world
Many think Uluru is the largest single chunk of rock on the planet. That, however, is a misconception. Mount Augustus in Western Australia is actually the largest monolith around. Though it may lose this compelling title, Uluru is even more fascinating than simply a monolith.
Uluru is an inselberg, a geological term that literally means an island mountain. Seeing the huge rock rise up from the flat surrounding land, the term makes perfect sense. But how exactly did it get there?
The location where Uluru stands was an area where sand was deposited during the rapid erosion of surrounding mountains around 600 million years ago. Because the mountain ranges formed quickly and there was no plant life to slow erosion, materials were deposited very quickly. Then, the transformation began. ABC Scienceexplains:
"After this period of rapid mountain building and erosion the centre of Australia turned into an inland sea… At around 400 million years ago the sands and gravels of Uluru and Kata Tjuta were so far down that they were well lithified or knitted together, changing from sediment into rock. Another mountain-building event — the Alice Springs Orogeny — began around this time, folding the rock and further compressing them… Over millions of years the Alice Springs Orogeny created the great big folds that are visible when you fly over Central Australia today, and in the process further folded and turned the rocks that make up Uluru and Kata Tjuta."
After millions of years, Uluru is what is left from the constant erosion of the surrounding land and the rock itself. Because the rock that forms Uluru is so hard, it's more resistant to erosion than everything around it. Millions of years of polishing from wind and the run-off of rain has shaped Uluru into the iconic structure it is now.
While you know how Uluru was formed, you might be wondering how it got its amazingly vivid color. The rock that forms Uluru has a high iron content, so while the rock really has a grayish color, the oxidation that occurs with weathering turns the surface rust red.
Most of Uluru's mass is underground
Standing at 1,141 feet tall, 2.2 miles long and 1.2 miles wide, Uluru is a truly massive piece of rock. And yet most of Uluru is actually underground. Though it looks like it was set down on the landscape, Uluru is not like a boulder that rolled into place and mostly sits above ground. Rather, the rock is like an iceberg, with some of its mass above the surface but much of it remaining below. More than 1.5 miles of the rock is believed to lie beneath the ever-eroding earth, though no one knows for certain exactly how much.
The stripes running down the side of Uluru's face are from erosion caused by runnels of rainwater flowing down. (Photo: Maurizio De Mattei/Shutterstock)Uluru is now a UNESCO World Heritage site
Not only is Uluru recognized unofficially as a truly special spot, but the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park as World Heritage site, a prestigious designation. According to Parks Australia:
It is one of the few properties in the world to be dual-listed by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for outstanding natural values and outstanding cultural values. The park was first inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1987, when the international community recognised its spectacular geological formations, rare plants and animals and exceptional natural beauty. In 1994, the park became only the second in the world to be acclaimed for its cultural landscape as well. This listing honours the traditional belief systems as part of one of the oldest human societies on earth. We have a responsibility to protect the park's World Heritage values. Traditional knowledge is combined with western science in caring for country.
Uluru is a popular tourist destination, with many accessing the area to celebrate the landscape and the culture surrounding the rock. (Photo: Kokkai Ng/iStockPhoto)You can visit it on Google Street View
If you can't travel to the outback to see Uluru in person, you can still see a significant amount of it thanks to Google. The Street View Trekker is a camera system worn by hikers, who are putting spectacular spots on our planet online, one step at a time. Uluru is the latest location to be put on Google Street View, where people can wander about virtually and explore what the site has to offer.
The Telegraph reports:
"The images, taken by Google’s Street View Trekker (a backpack-like camera system) with 15 lenses, were captured over the past two years in collaboration with the park’s traditional Anangu owners, Parks Australia and the Northern Territory Government, according to the Anangu people’s traditional Tjukurpa law, which prohibits certain sacred sites around the base of the rock from being photographed. Viewers have access to around 40 per cent of the rock and its surrounding sites, including views of the Talinguru Nyakunytjaku, the winding trail of the Kuniya Walk, Kapi Muṯitjulu (waterhole) and ancient art at Kulpi Muṯitjulu (Family Cave). While users can zoom in for detailed views of the “curves, crevices and textures of Uluru” and its 'glowing gradient of colour', they won’t be able to enjoy views from the top of it, as climbing the rock is discouraged by locals."
Tourists hopping online from anywhere in the world can use the interactive map of Uluru to stroll down the paths around it and listen to audio files from the Anangu people who explain the site's cultural significance, how it was created, traditional law about the site and more. In fact, visitors who explore the site this way may learn more about it and be more appreciative of its rich cultural and ecological significance thanks to the added interactiveness of the virtual map.
The Temple of Kukulkan, Tulum, Yucatan, Mexico (Enlarge)
Tulum, Yucatan
The Temple of Kukulkan, Tulum, Yucatan, Mexico (Enlarge)
Eighty miles south of the tourist resorts of Cancun, in the Yucatan state of Quintana Roo, stand the ruins of the Mayan city of Tulum. Its original name long forgotten, Tulum is a Nahuatl term meaning 'walled city'. While occupied from as early as the Mayan Pre-Classic period (300 BC to 250 AD), nearly all the existing structures date from the late Post-Classic period (1200 AD to the time of the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th century) when Tulum was a maritime trading center. Recent research has shown that Tulum was also a pilgrimage site for Maya women on their way to the holy island of Cozumel, where stood the sanctuary of the goddess IxChel (pronounced eesh-chel). IxChel was the preeminent goddess of the Maya pantheon from 100 to 900 AD and her shrine at Cozumel was visited by large numbers of women from throughout the Maya territories, making it one of the greatest pilgrimages in the pre-Colombian world. Ix Chel figures prominently in the Tulum temple murals and the coastline in the Tulum region is fascinatingly female, with a multitude of coastal towns having the feminine Ix (eesh) prefix in their names.
Though architecturally somewhat crude compared to other classic Maya sites such as Uxmal and Chichen Itza, Tulum has one of the most beautiful settings of any city constructed by the Maya. Perched on a cliff overlooking pristine beaches and an aquamarine sea, the Temple of Kukulkan dominates the ruins. This structure, called El Castillo (meaning 'the castle') by the conquering Spaniards was never a castle but rather a shrine and ceremonial center.
The first Maya settled in Cozumel 2,000 years ago. However, during the classic period 300-900.A.D.- a time when priests were at the top of the social hierarchy in the Maya world and life revolved around religious ceremonies – Cozumel became one of the most important sanctuaries in the Yucatan region with nowadays many ancient archaeological sites. Cozumel Island derives its name from the Mayan words Cuzam (swallow) and Lumil (land of), which form the word Cuzamil (land of swallows).
The Mayan word changed with time to the Spanish name of Cozumel. The Mayans believed the island to be a sacred shrine. Religious pilgrimages were common to the island especially from women who were either pregnant or wanted to get pregnant. They pay homage to the goddess IX CHEL, the deity of the moon, pregnancy and childbirth.
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