Spirit in Red Ochre

 Spirit In Red Ochre

Here an ancient chapel that you enter by canoe...

On Hegman Lake off the Echo Trail, paddle north to a narrows 

Overhung by a rock bluff towering over the water,

A dramatic headland covered by lichen and crowned by fir.

Then you see it, a trinity of images, as wilderness travelers have for some 400 years:

Drawn high on the rock wall, the Great Spirit with arms outstretched,

The Giver of Life to the totemic animals below, the Great Moose and the Panther.

Floating in the stone sky nearby, figures in canoes, the Ancestors. 

Homage to Spirit portrayed in red ochre on a canvas of rock.