A MYSTERIOUS RUNE STONE IN ONTARIO HAS BEEN DECIPHERED:

Ontario rune-stone. Illustration from Ancient-origins.com.

A mysterious carved boulder in Ontario has now determined to be inscribed with a long inscription in runes, as well as a nearby petroglyph of a boat surrounded by crucifixes.

“Archaeologists have cracked the code of 255 mysterious symbols carved into a rock in Canada more than 200 years ago. The writing was discovered in 2018 after a fallen tree revealed the square-shaped inscription near the town of Wawa, located about 155 miles from the nearest US border crossing in Michigan.” (Liberatore 2025) This strikes me as a terrible way for the whole story to start, being found under a fallen tree sounds like the backstory of the Kensington Rune Stone.

Rune panel carved on Ontario rune-stone. Internet image, public domain.

“Ryan Primrose, an archaeologist from the Ontario Center for Archaeological Education, has identified the characters as Nordic runes, part of an old alphabet once used in Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia.” (Liberatore 2025)

Primrose studied the carved symbols for seven years. The rock bears 255 symbols lined up like writing as well as an image of a boat. With the help of Swedish researcher Henrick Williams, Primrose finally solved the riddle. The markings spell out a 1611 version of the Lord’s Prayer in Swedish.

“It was a surprising find in the middle of Canada, but researchers later discovered that Swedish workers were hired by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1800s to work at remote trading posts – suggesting one of them may have made the carving.” (Liberatore 2025)

Boat carving and crucifixes by Ontario rune-stone. Photograph by Ryan Primrose from the Ontario Center for Archaeological Education.

“The carved boat, containing 16 figures and marked by 14 crosses, hints at a deeper symbolic meaning hidden within the mysterious runestone. Experts are still undecided on whether it served for communal worship or was just the project of one person.” (Brucker 2025) This is a little confusing – the 14 crosses are not on the boat, but are divided up into two groups on either side of the carved boat, with five on the left and nine on the right. No explanation or speculation so far whether there is any significance to the numbers 16, 14, 5 or 9. It may be that the boat represents the trip over to Canada from Sweden by the workers.

The Ontario rune-stone. Photograph by Ryan Primrose from the Ontario Center for Archaeological Education.

 “Scholars are still struggling with core mysteries: why is this text here, of all places, in the boondocks of northwestern Ontario? Was it part of a gathering-place for spiritual reflection, or the creative act of a loner? The reason for the deliberate burial is also still unknown. Ongoing archival work and site analysis may yet bring answers to these lingering questions.” (Brucker 2025) Given the location I am going to assume that this was the personal obsession of an eccentric loner working for the Hudson’s Bay Company.

It also appears to have been intentionally buried although available articles do not explain the relationship to the tree, was it intentionally planted or a natural growth from the intervening 200 years. Let us hope that archival work in records of the Hudson’s Bay Company eventually turns up references that will help explain the history of this inscription. In the meantime it is an interesting curiosity.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Archaeology, 2025, Mystery of Strange Canadian Rock Carvings, 18 June 2025, Ontario Centre for Archaeological Research and Education. https://archaeology.org. Accessed online 19 June 2025.

Brucker, Miles, 2025, Researchers deciphered a mysterious runestone found in a forest in Canada, 3 July 2025, Things, https://www.factinate.com. Accessed online 3 July 2025.

Liberatore, Stacy, 2025, Mysterious carving with biblical message linked to Jesus’ crucifixtion found in North America, 16 June 2025, Dailymail.com. Accessed online 19 June 2025.

FERTILITY, OR WEALTH:

Vulva symbols? Winnemucca Lake,

Nevada, Larry Benson, used with

permission.

The symbol of the "vulva", originally found in Paleolithic art, has long been assumed to represent fertility. This identification was originally made, I assume, by the early students of the cave art in France, who were French. Leave it to the French!

This is now the automatic assumption worldwide when we see these symbols carved or painted onto the rock. What I wonder is if there was ever any attempt to analyze these symbols to see if they could represent anything else? They have been found literally all over the world, representations by diverse and widespread ancient cultures have used this theme. Of course, human fertility is found all over the world, but what else might it represent? What else do all of these cultures have in common? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is cowrie shells. Perhaps most commonly used in adornment; i.e. necklaces, bracelets, or decorating clothing, the cowrie shell was known and prized by many diverse cultures, all over the world, and down through time.

Early Chinese shell money,

3,000 BCE, June 20, 2017,

Smithsonianmag.com.

Writing on Smithsonian.com, Chapurukha Kusimba posited that "Objects that occurred rarely in nature and whose circulation could be efficiently controlled emerged as units of value for interactions and exchange. These included shells such as mother-of-pearl that were widely circulated in the Americas and cowry shells that were used in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia." (Kusimba 2017) So for so many ancient cultures the cowrie shell represents wealth, wealth that is to be displayed for personal aggrandizement. What better way to symbolically display your wealth than to carve it into, or paint it on, the rock, on a cliff, a boulder, or the walls of a cave?

Deer cowrie shells, 

pinterest.com,

Public domain.

Midewiwin shell symbols,

Rajnovich, Reading Rock Art,

p. 53, Fig. 41.

There are examples of this symbol that can be documented as representing something other than vulvas. A very different aspect of the shell, at least here in North America, was found in the Midewiwin Society of the Algonkians.Writing on the Midewiwin Society of the Algonkians, Rajnovich stated: "The Midewiwin was widespread among the Algonkians, practised by the Ojibway, Odawa, Miami, Menominee, Illinois, Shawnees, and others. Archaeologist Charles Callender suggested we cannot rule out the possibility that aspects of the Midewiwin go back 2,500 years among the Indians of Ohio. The symbol of the society and of the power of the medicine itself is a tiny white seashell, often a marginella originating on the southeast coast of the United States. These shells, called megis by the Mides, are shown in Midewiwin picture writing in various forms (Fig. 41), including a small oval figure with radiating power lines, and it may be on the rock paintings as well, possibly at Burnt Bluff (Figure 39). The people of the Shield travelled great distances to obtain the shells. The Odawa(the word means "trader") journeyed throughout the Great Lakes and surrounding areas, covering vast distances in their bark canoes, exchanging goods including the shells among the many Algonkian groups." (Rajnovich 1994:52-3)

Vulva Symbols, Patterson, p. 203,

A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols,

Petersborough, Ontario.

Linnea Sundstrom apparently agrees that on the Great Plains this symbol originated with the Algonkians, although she also assumes that it may represent fertility as she ascribes its creation to girl's puberty rituals. "Track-Vulva-Groove style rock art clearly had its origins in the Algonkian and Siouan territories east and southeast of the plains (figure 8.13). It is more difficult to determine who made this rock art in the Black Hills country and why. Perhaps some was made by girls as part of a puberty ritual. In other parts of the West, girls sometimes made abraded grooves for other kinds of petroglyphs as part of their puberty rites." (Sundstrom 2004:88) This suggests an Algonkian influence in inland North America that could have brought ideas about the shell to the middle part of the country.

Do these images represent shells, or vulvas? Well, I don't really know but it seems to me that we owe it to ourselves to thoroughly analyze all the possibilities before we blindly relegate a whole category of rock art symbolism to definition by a French assumption. Fertility, display, or wealth, you tell me?

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet after a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the originals at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Kusimba, Chapurukha

2017 Making Cents of Currency's Ancient Rise, June 20, 2017, https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/6b/de/6bde6880-df7b-4c03-b2d6-26023d72a2fb/file-20170619-28475-4rc2o7.jpg

Patterson, Alex

1992 A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colorado

Rajnovich, Grace

1994 Reading Rock Art: Interpreting the Indian Rock Art of the Canadian Shield, Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., Toronto, Ontario

Sundstrom, Linea

2004 Storied Stone: Indian Rock Art In The Black Hills Country, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

MICHI-PESHU AT AGAWA ROCK, LAKE SUPERIOR PROVINCIAL PARK, ONTARIO, CANADA:

Michi-Peshu, a canoe full of paddlers, and two giant underwater

serpents. Agawa Rock, Lake Superior Provincial Park, 

Ontario, Canada.

            Michi-Peshu, the underwater panther, has primacy among underwater monsters in the Great Lakes region. In this realm the underwater horned serpents are relegated to the role of Mishi-Peshu’s helpers. According to Conway:

            "The supernatural feline guardian of Lake Superior, Mishi-Peshu is an amalgam of a tufted-cheek lynx, a dragon with spines running from head to tail, and a minotaur with curved horns. Mishi-Peshu represents a bold abstraction of Lake Superior's power and fury - the unrivaled forces of the world's largest freshwater lake. The composite mythological animal mimics the tension between natural elements.
            To Algonquian speakers, the generic peshu can conjure up cat, lion, panther, or lynx, depending on circumstance or a well-chosen adjective. Following a native worldview, where interrelatedness is more important than divisions between living creatures, they are simply “cat”. Even artistic conventions are reinforced by folklore in the case of Mishi-Peshu. Over half of the Ojibwa and Chippewa tales describing the underwater lion mention its spine-covered tail. The three dream portrait pictographs of Mishi-Peshu marking Agawa Rock strongly emphasize this feature of the lord of the depths.” (Conway 1993:66)

            The red pictograph of Mishi-Peshu at Agawa Rock, in Lake Superior Provincial Park may be the best-known rock art image of the underwater panther in existence.  It is portrayed in red paint with a canoe full of paddlers behind it and its two giant underwater serpent helpers below.

            According to Dewdney and Kidd, portrayals of Mishi-Peshu are common throughout the Great Lakes region. Another mythological creature of great interest that may also be associated frequently with the pictograph sites is Mi-shi-pi-shiw, literally the Great Lynx, actually the Ojibwa demi-god of the water. At Agawa we have an authenticated likeness of this sinister deity of swift or troubled waters. In 1851 Henry Schoolcraft, the Indian Agent at the American Sault Ste Marie whose collection of Ojibwa legends was the basis for Longfellow’s Hiawatha, published his Intellectual Capacity and Character of the Indian Race. Included in it were birch bark renderings of two pictograph sites painted by an Ojibwa shaman-warrior who claimed the special protection of Mishipizhiw (Dewdney 1967:14).

Michi-Peshu, a canoe full of paddlers, and two giant underwater

serpents. Agawa Rock, Lake Superior Provincial Park, 

Ontario, Canada. Pen and ink, Peter Faris, 2004.

The scales covering Michi-Peshu are made of pure copper which is confirmed by the discovery of native copper deposits at locations in the Great Lakes region. Six thousand years ago, descendants of the first settlers of this area were utilizing native copper from the Keweenaw Peninsula and other locations on the shores of Lake Superior. These copper deposits served to confirm the truth of the legends about Michi-Peshu.

Michi-Peshu, woven bag, Potawatomi indian, 

Wisconsin, ca. 1840-1880.

Such was the awsome power of Michi-Peshu, that he was chosen to represent the underworld on native woven bags of the Northeastern woodlands and Great Lakes Region. Such bags were almost invariably decorated with the Michi-Peshu on one side, and Thunderbirds on the other side representing the above world. This theme expresses the dichotomy of existence with the contents of the bag, and thus by extension the person carrying it, representing this world between the above and the below.

I have previously written about the ubiquity of underwater serpents among the mythologies of native North American People (Water Monsters – Unktehi and Uncegila, April 10, 2011). What is fascinating to me about Michi-Peshu is that his myths also include giant underwater serpents, but they are only his helpers. What a wonderful creature, mythological or otherwise.

REFERENCE:

Conway, Thor,

1993    Painted Dreams: Native American Rock Art, Northword Press, Inc., Minocquia, WI.

Dewdney, Selwyn, and Kenneth E. Kidd

1976    Indian Rock Paintings of the Great Lakes, Second Edition, University of Toronto Press.