THUNDER BAY – An archaeologist who has been looking into the mysterious rock circle in Boulevard Lake will be allowed to get his motor running.
City council unanimously voted to grant Lakehead University Anthropology department professor Scott Hamilton an exemption to the prohibition against motorized watercraft on the human-made lake at a meeting on Monday.
“Dr. Hamilton’s research holds the promise of a better understanding of the heritage of our community and his request for a waiver of the restriction is a very reasonable one,” Coun. Iain Angus wrote in a letter to council.
Hamilton captured what he called “The Ring” using drone photography to create contour maps in September 2015 when the lake was drained. He intends to research whether sonar devices can replicate his earlier findings while mapping underwater forms.
“Essentially, it’s messing around with technology to see how effective it is as a reconnaissance tour,” he said.
“What I’m hoping is that because the sonar will be doing transects across the floor of the original Current River up onto its former bank…we’ll be able to get a much more comprehensive picture of what the current river bottom, which of course doesn’t get drained, what it looks like. What’s the contour of its river bottom is as it moved form whatever the bottom is, up onto the shore, onto what was once terrestrial shore and is now, of course, submerged most of the time.”
Hamilton reached out to the public for clues as to the origin of the 24-metre-diameter open circle in March. While that call yielded some discussion, he said time alone with his thoughts has narrowed down hypotheses.
“Some people are indicating they think it is a cultural feature of Aboriginal origin. Others are suggesting its’ a natural landscape feature. Others are offering up perspective that it’s just a pile of rock from construction,” he said.
“The answer to what that might be, which is the right answer, we have no data but essentially my 25 cents is that it’s some sort of Aboriginal feature. Whether it’s 100 years old, whether it’s 500 years old, I have no way of knowing.”
