Charlottetown Boulder Park Brochure

I was reading a blog post about a pigeon named Athena on my friend Dave’s blog this morning and thought “wow, that Dave’s a weirdo.”

Then I returned to put the finishing touches on a brochure I’ve created about the local boulder park (here’s a free copy, should you like one).

We are all weird in our own ways.

The brochure extends from my summertime project to elevate the Charlottetown Boulder Park, and it happens to have come just at the right time, as the park is enjoying arenaissance, partly due the closure of Province House, partly due the presence of two food trucks on its edges, and partly due the shade offered by its towering trees in this summer’s oppressive heat. Never in recent memory have their been more people availing themselves of the boulder-enhanced greenery of Queens Square.

Photo of the Boulder Park Brochure.

I used the Charlottetown Boulder Park Wikipedia page as a starting point for the brochure, and added descriptions of each of the boulders, a locator map and a detailed map, and a capsule history of the park. I was generously aided by my father (a retired geologist, helpfully) and by my friend Valerie, both of whom read early drafts and offered helpful commentary.

Charlottetown Boulder Park Map (from brochure)

The brochure is at Kwik Kopy for printing right now, and I’ve ordered a couple of plexiglass outdoor brochure holders so that I can distribute them at the park once they’re ready.

Matt Rainnie from CBC Island Morning taped an interview with me about the park this morning, part of a larger story about the revivification of the area; it should air soon.

And, in the next week, look for a copies of the brochure in the park itself.

Comments

Dave's picture
Dave on August 8, 2018 - 08:54 Permalink

Imagine not being weird. shudder

vbj's picture
vbj on August 8, 2018 - 16:22 Permalink

The brochure looks great, Peter!

Jim's picture
Jim on August 10, 2018 - 10:02 Permalink

Peter thanks, some more info for you . The CNR donated free freight to get the boulders to Charlottetown. The Bernard Stamp and Stencil Co. of Hamilton Ont. donated all the brass plaques in Boulder Park.

Jason Simpson's picture
Jason Simpson on August 15, 2018 - 20:43 Permalink

I think it would be great to see the territories represented in said park?

Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on August 15, 2018 - 23:47 Permalink

Agreed. Indeed it’s strange that they are not, as the articles in The Guardian and The Patriot on opening day both suggested that the two territories of the day were represented.

I’ve already written a letter to the chair of the Fathers of Confederation Buildings Trust suggesting they right this wrong.

Oliver B 's picture
Oliver B on August 19, 2018 - 22:29 Permalink

I was interested by some super obscure and yet fairly interesting backstory I found looking into that cryptic description of the New Brunswick boulder as "containing Archaeozoon acadiense." It could be I learned no more than there is to be read at the footnoted link out from the Boulder Park Wikipedia page...but the link was dead. Anyway, FYI, a couple sites describe rocks containing Archaeozoon acadiense as stromatoliths/stromatolites, which per the Stromatolite Wikipedia page are fossilized deposits of cyanobacterial biofilms that grew successively on top of each preceding layers over lots of years. Per my Googling, "Archaeozoon acadiense" seems all but unknown to the Internet except as geological Canadiana and the premier scientific discovery of Saint John geologist George Matthew. The obscurity of the species I think may be deserved, because it seems its known only from these fossilized films, and I doubt the provide as much to hang you hat on as an intact fossil Archaeopteryx skeleton (I guess they'd tell you when and whereabouts they lived, possibly gross shape, size and maybe some chemistry, presumably all together persuasively implying fossil cyanobacteria....or the pages I found wouldn't have called them stromatolites). Their discovery, OTOH, does sound pretty noteworthy. "The first presumed Precambrian fossil was discovered in the 1860s and was part of an intense search for the first record of Precambrian life. This first discovery was discounted by the end of the 19th century. Meanwhile Saint John geologist George Matthew described a fossil in 1890, not far from Dominion Park. His identification of the stromatolite Archaeozoon acadiense has withstood scientific scrutiny and is now known as the first Precambrian stromatolite fossil described in scientific literature." I read that here:
https://stonehammergeopark.com/geosite/dominion-park/

Oliver B 's picture
Oliver B on August 20, 2018 - 18:26 Permalink

Correction - actually the faulty footnote link was on the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganderia
page, which was the only other Wikipedia page that mentioned Archaeozoon acadiense, and I guess where I saw the word "stromatolite"...and bounced around from there. Whoops