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00:00We can get within, I think, a mile of where White Man's Writing on the Rock is.
00:07In this book, they talk about this White Man's Writing on the Rock.
00:10We wanted to go investigate it.
00:12Our guy's name is Amory Hudson, but his nickname is Chittimo.
00:16And Chittimo means chipmunk.
00:19Carving something, people's names.
00:21Okay.
00:22I think it had a year.
00:24I have not done that in chirps before.
00:26Breaking through the ice, getting stuck in slush.
00:30Our people were here.
00:33But how did they exist here?
00:36We're actively on the hunt.
00:38We're not going to give up, though.
00:39Tell them to be careful.
00:41It's a great mob.
00:42Open up the back door.
00:44Waiting for the north shore.
00:46They're quick.
00:47They've always been a very good team for as long as I can remember.
01:00We can take the winter road.
01:01Essentially, it kind of runs out here.
01:03in some of those remote communities here.
01:04We can get within, I think, a mile of where we are.
01:05We can take the winter road.
01:06We can take the winter road.
01:07Essentially, it kind of runs out here.
01:08In some of those remote communities here.
01:09We can get within, I think, a mile of where White Man's Riding the Rock is.
01:11When you're a professional explorer, the planning never stops.
01:14While researching Behrens River, which is on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, it's
01:19a great place to go.
01:20We can take the winter road.
01:21We can take the winter road.
01:22Essentially, it kind of runs out here.
01:23In some of those remote communities here.
01:24We can get within, I think, a mile of where White Man's Riding the Rock is.
01:35When you're a professional explorer, the planning never stops.
01:39While researching Behrens River, which is on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, the team
01:44finds information in a book that describes a carved rock along the Leaf River.
01:49Several years ago, we became aware of another oral story up in Behrens River of a thing called
01:55White Man's Riding on the Rock.
01:57We started calling the local people and saying, hey, have you seen anything?
02:01Could this be the location of the lost Viking cairn?
02:08Well, the problem with these things is that everybody has a piece of the story, right?
02:12We went through six people, I think, trying to find somebody that had heard of it.
02:16Many people hadn't heard of it because it's such an old story.
02:19But it's sort of a consistent, persistent story.
02:22And especially when it says White Men's, plural, Riding on the Rock, singular.
02:27It's kind of, you know, you think there's got to be something to it.
02:30Because it's not just a general statement, it's a specific statement.
02:34What makes it special compared to what the locals did at that time?
02:37The locals say we didn't do it.
02:40And it's carved instead of painted, which is quite different.
02:45Behrens River has been a key region for indigenous cultures for more than 10,000 years
02:50that has been a trading route and a home for many.
02:53In 2018, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
02:58which are internationally respected and protected areas.
03:01It's part of Pimachi Oenaki, or the land that gives life,
03:06the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg people that extends close to 30,000 kilometers.
03:12It's known for its deep forests, wildlife and abundant waterways,
03:17as well as pictographs and rock art representing Anishinaabe culture.
03:22It's thought that Norse travelers would have passed through here
03:25if they came from the North Hudson Bay.
03:28This potential Norse route was of keen interest to Canadian author and environmentalist Farley Moat.
03:35Earlier, David speaks with Farley's widow, Claire.
03:43Have you heard of that phrase,
03:44Farley never let fact get in the way of a good story?
03:46Yes, I've heard that before.
03:48He was a master storyteller.
03:51He loved the forgotten corners of the world.
03:55Farley is one of Canada's most celebrated authors that sold more than 17 million books.
04:02He passed away in 2014.
04:05Claire was a willing participant in Farley's research and travels,
04:09and shared with him a love of the North.
04:12What do you think of his West Viking book?
04:14Because it seems to be more fact-focused than fiction at all.
04:18Oh, it wasn't fact.
04:20He explored all sorts of areas that generated the people who sailed West.
04:27One of the areas of particular interest to Farley was Nunavat,
04:31which was originally part of the Northwest Territories.
04:34The name means Our Land in the language of the Inuit.
04:39It's more than 2 million square kilometers in size,
04:42and takes up approximately 20% of Canada's total land.
04:46Farley was captivated with the North,
04:49and that passion is reflected in many of his novels.
04:55I spent a lot of time in his archives
04:57because we started looking at a story that he wrote
05:00called Curse of the Viking Grave.
05:02Do you remember him writing that at all?
05:04Well, he talked about the subject of the Nordic people crossing the ocean
05:10from Northern Europe into what is now Canada.
05:13He was fascinated.
05:14He read everything that anybody ever wrote about it.
05:17It was just part of his psyche, I guess,
05:20is to find out where people went and what they did,
05:24how long did they stay.
05:25I think a lot of people traveled back and forth,
05:28but they left no record of how they did it
05:32or how long it stayed.
05:34But it wasn't a blank space in the world.
05:37It was just that nobody knew about it.
05:39So this is the mystery we're trying to solve.
05:41The thing we found is actual RCMP police reports.
05:44Oh, yes.
05:45From the person who found the cairn.
05:47Cairns are man-made stone monuments
05:50that have been in use for thousands of years
05:53as geographical signposts for travelers and burial markers.
05:57The person who found the cairn, his name was Windy,
05:59and he wrote a letter to the police saying,
06:01hey, I found this cairn, because he was dog sledding by it,
06:04and he saw he could get out of the wind behind it,
06:07but he didn't go into it.
06:08The story we're trying to follow is in Farley Mowat's writings.
06:13Why has nobody followed up on these stories?
06:18And some of them aren't stories.
06:19They're facts that have sort of been written out
06:22of the theories of 500 years and nobody came.
06:26And I wonder what Farley knew that he didn't tell anybody.
06:35The team is using both Farley's account and the RCMP report
06:39as a rough road map to try and locate the cairn.
06:43We're kind of learning about painting versus carving,
06:46and it seems painting much easier, right?
06:48Is there any pictures of it?
06:50Not that we've been able to find.
06:52One of the tools they are using on this expedition is photogrammetry.
06:56It's a process of taking numerous overlapping pictures
06:59of a subject from all angles.
07:01The results are fed into special software that creates a 3D image,
07:05which can then be studied without disturbing the original subject.
07:12Like any diligent explorer,
07:14before they start searching for white man's writing on the rock,
07:18they will test out this photogrammetry process in Behrens River.
07:22They will be looking for a formation called Elephant Rock
07:26on the shores of Lake Winnipeg.
07:28If there was something 1,000 years ago or 1,200 or 1,700,
07:31however many years, 100 years ago,
07:33it would all be covered up with those orange lichens and moss
07:37and any other thing that's growing over it, I guess.
07:39The problem is you'd have to take all of that off
07:42to get to the rock to do the test.
07:44This rock has been used as a navigational signpost
07:47for thousands of years for those traveling on the waters
07:50of Lake Winnipeg in all seasons.
07:53Just showing up.
07:55We can get scans of it, do a 3D model it,
07:58but it's not going to do the scanning thing
08:01to be able to see scratches in it.
08:04He was giving an example of a marble countertop.
08:07Using shadowing and cameras, the sliding,
08:10you literally can see the texture in a marble countertop.
08:14That's pretty cool.
08:15You think it's pretty smooth, right?
08:16Yes, yes.
08:17But on Elephant Rock,
08:18it's just not going to be able to shadow the thing
08:21to see if there's anything there.
08:23The winter road goes within about a mile of it,
08:26and the winter road's only there for about a month.
08:28Got up, got a good vehicle, a Sherp.
08:30We're still on the hunt.
08:36Though finding it in winter could be a lot more difficult.
08:39Using this one off-road utility vehicle
08:42to travel directly on the lake should speed up the process,
08:46if they mapped it correctly.
08:49The one we have today, I would say,
08:51is a Cadillac of utility vehicles.
08:54It's a very comfortable way to go off-road.
08:57I got snow blindness.
09:00My God!
09:01I think I just pulled my back.
09:06There are many dangers on a frozen lake
09:08that they must be aware of,
09:10including thin ice,
09:11tectonic-like shelves of ice jutting out
09:14and getting lost.
09:16On a day like today,
09:17there's not much that stands out on the horizon,
09:20making it challenging to find Elephant Rock.
09:23Right now,
09:24there are three possibilities of where the rock is.
09:27David checks his phone
09:51to see if he can identify where the rock is
09:54and where they need to go.
09:56The only problem,
09:57they're in a cellular and satellite dead zone.
10:00It just does not like being here.
10:03No satellite to it.
10:05No, it's still trying to talk to satellites
10:07to determine which way it's pointing.
10:09At more than 24,000 square kilometers of surface area,
10:12Lake Winnipeg is the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world.
10:17Landmarks visible in the summer
10:19are now fully covered in snow.
10:21So David and Joe need more than luck
10:24to find Elephant Rock and might have already passed it.
10:28However, by looking back on previous pinned locations
10:31from other trips,
10:32they determined they are 3.2 kilometers from the rock.
10:35All right, communications off.
10:37Okay.
10:38Cool.
10:39The team is back on the hunt,
10:42this time in the right direction.
10:44Where I just dropped is 52, 36, 97, 11.
10:48Two miles that way.
10:49Okay.
10:50Soon after, they think they spot it.
10:51I can see it from here.
10:53Finally found it.
10:54We missed it by about a mile,
10:55a lot closer to the shore than we thought.
10:57Oh, yeah.
10:58See?
10:59Oh, yeah.
11:00Bless Aldrin opening the door for Neil Armstrong.
11:04Now that they've landed on the rock,
11:05David is concerned about using the drone in this frigid weather.
11:10I brought the drone.
11:11Yeah.
11:12And I already noticed my phone is dying.
11:14I'm concerned about the drone batteries.
11:15Okay.
11:16Because I've never really flown it in this cold weather
11:17and there's a bit of a wind.
11:18So I think we should just use the standard camera
11:21because we can test with that software
11:23and then get ready to use the drone up north.
11:24There is no hiding from the wind or the cold on a frozen lake
11:27and there's no guarantee that their equipment
11:29will even function.
11:30They are hopeful that the camera will be operating
11:32to be able to operate in this frigid.
11:35because we can test with that software and then get ready to use the drone up north.
11:41There's no hiding from the wind or the cold on a frozen lake,
11:45and there's no guarantee that their equipment will even function.
11:49They are hopeful that the camera will at least work and start taking pictures and mapping it.
11:55After the pictures are taken and a 3D model rendered,
11:58they will be able to study it for any imperfections or identifying marks.
12:03Elephant Rock is a very prominent big orange rock on the shoreline of Lake Winnipeg.
12:11And very much like the graffiti in the Mediterranean or rune stones,
12:15if anybody is traveling down the lake, it's a very good place to leave a message.
12:20There is evidence of ancient Viking travelers leaving messages and names carved in rocks all over the world,
12:27including Istanbul and Venice.
12:29Elephant Rock could potentially be another location that signifies Norse activity in Canada
12:36and lead the team to the elusive Viking Cairn.
12:38So we wanted to go there because it's just north of Behrens River to take a look at it.
12:43We took pictures of the whole stone to see if we could see any carvings.
12:48Daylight hours are short in the winter, and when you're in the middle of a frozen lake,
12:53every second counts to get off the ice before darkness covers everything.
12:57As they're getting ready to leave, they see an area close to shore that could lead to trouble.
13:04While the vehicle that Joe and David are driving in was designed to handle extreme conditions,
13:10the support side-by-side vehicle following the hind wasn't.
13:22There's a giant patch of open ice that will swallow the vehicle if they don't avoid it in time.
13:28Tell him to be careful. No, seriously, he's still coming.
13:37With the sun and temperatures dropping on Lake Winnipeg,
13:41there's potential danger for the support vehicle that's racing towards open water.
13:45North shore as fast as you can get. They'll open up the back window and wave them off.
13:54They wave off the other crew in the nick of time before disaster strikes.
14:00Wow. So, tomorrow when we're up on the leaf river on the other end.
14:05This is level to happen too. Yeah, we'll be fine. Whatever happens, we'll be fine.
14:09But we went through the ice there. We'd be freaking dead if we were in that thing.
14:15It's a good reminder of the dangers of traveling on a frozen lake near the end of winter.
14:21For Joe and David, the leaders of this expedition,
14:24keeping the crew safe and bringing them all back home is of the greatest importance.
14:32They have always been really close. They get along really well, obviously,
14:36and they work really well as a team. They always have something cooking up together.
14:39They also feed really well off each other. I think they balance each other off. There's always
14:46something that if one doesn't know, it tends to be the vice versa. They've always been a very good
14:51team for as long as I can remember. Joe and David set up base camp for the night.
14:57Holy smokes. Look at the size of this tent. Ah, man. Size matters.
15:03Okay. Go on in. You go get that box. I'll grab some wood.
15:08Okay. Get that puppy fired up.
15:11They've secured a rugged outdoor tent that will keep them protected from the sub-zero elements and
15:18give them room to plan the next adventure. As we move into more pictographs, petroglyphs,
15:24right? Yeah, the carvings, and we get up north, we find some stuff. I think we're going to have
15:28lots of good practice. Pictographs and petroglyphs are both forms of ancient rock art that can be
15:35found all over the world, including the Canadian shield. The main difference is that pictographs are
15:41created by painting on rocks or in caves, whereas petroglyphs were made by carving or engraving images
15:47into a rock surface. We still got to do the analysis of that, but it let us, again, use the
15:52Sherp to get out to the middle of nowhere and record data to bring back to analyze. David sends the
15:59photogrammetry data collected from Elephant Rock off for analysis. Now they turn their attention to
16:05locating white man's writing on a rock, which they hope will lead them to the Viking Cairn.
16:11Had a heck of a journey, hit some slush, had some excitement, but we're back in the game. Everybody's home safe.
16:22Joe meets with fellow explorer Robert Lee, who shares stories of expeditions he went on with his late
16:32father Thomas. These experiences inform the Faraheim team on what to look for when they travel north in
16:39search of the Viking Cairn. Thomas E. Lee was an archaeologist with the National Museum of Canada,
16:46whose controversial discovery of artifacts on Manitoulin Island in 1951 suggested that it
16:52was home to people more than 30,000 years ago. These artifacts dated back to the Stone Age,
16:58though the archaeological community remains divided on the findings. He later traveled north to the
17:04Ongava Peninsula with his son Robert in search of proof that Vikings visited the area centuries ago.
17:11Why, there's Farley Mowat with your dad. Yes, we visited him in Cape Breton.
17:16Thomas was friends with Farley Mowat, and they believed that Vikings landed in what is now North
17:23America, centuries before Columbus. Both were sure the Vikings had the ability to make the trip from
17:31Greenland. They just needed to prove where they landed at the Ongava Peninsula. I used to travel by
17:37paddling canoe up that Ongava coast. Okay, there's no motor double-ender? No, no, it's a 17-foot old town canoe.
17:47These are the three beacons, the Cairns, on Ivuk Island that I spotted when I was coming in from the sea.
17:53Yeah, that's a serious structure, the one on the left. Yes, 13 feet tall, 350 pound boulder up on top.
18:01Robert later returned to the Arctic locations he saw earlier with his father. That trip convinced him
18:08that his father was right about the early Viking settlers, and that the Cairns were erected to help
18:14guide other Norse travelers. This would be the Hammer of Thor, and the small end is pointing upriver.
18:20That's like 10 or 12 feet tall? 10, just shy of 10 feet. Thomas discovered this rock formation on the
18:28banks of the Ongava Peninsula in 1964, and named it the Hammer of Thor. Thomas suspects this was an axe
18:37head carved by the ancient Vikings. Okay, so the blade part is the bottom? Yes, the socket would have been
18:44up at the top, and that's what's broken away. More significantly, he found this untouched rock
18:50formation. I believe this is tomb number one where the European skull was found. Okay. And it would
18:57have been open like this when my father saw it. Just a structure of rocks to protect the body. The one
19:05on the left, as compared with the one on the right, it's a fairly narrow face. My father thought from his
19:09anthropological training, probably European, and one of the anthropologists who examined it said yes,
19:16fully European. The one on the right, Eskimo, wide cheekbones. There was no DNA analysis available at
19:23that time. Right. Adding to the evidence of Viking settlers, Thomas uncovered foundations of longhouses
19:29with signs that wooden posts were used to support a roof of skins. Tell me about the longhouses your
19:35father found. He was taken there by his guide. Right. And they had traveled all the way up the
19:40coast from Coojoac, used to be called Fort Chamo, 100 miles. This guide took him to this jumble of rocks,
19:47of boulders, about 20 odd feet wide and 70, 80 feet long. And it's all jumbled, but he recognized it as a
19:56dwelling of some kind. Sure. Just very big. After my father had done all his work, wasn't getting any more
20:02money. We went up one more time. An old lady was, an old Inuit woman was being interviewed, and she said
20:09about that longhouse out there, that it was built by white men with bushy eyebrows and things, and that
20:16they had lived there only one year, and they swept their house, they cleaned their houses out.
20:20It's easy to surmise that if Norse travelers made it this far north, that some might have ventured more
20:27inland, even to a place like white man's writing on a rock.
20:40My name is Katewasinmikinak. Black Rock Turtle. That's my real name. Katewasinmikinak. That's a long word
20:49to spell. And nobody knew how to spell those kind of names back then, so they gave us Christian names.
20:55Joe and David meet with a Behrens River elder to ask him about local geography and history.
21:03These hints keep showing up. An artifact here, a hint of a runestone, a rock carving. We're trying to
21:09sort of follow the threads, follow the breadcrumbs of our ancestry, as much as you do as well. We're
21:15trying to understand where you came from and how you came to be. Our people were here, say for example,
21:21three thousand years ago. But how did they exist here? Where did they come from?
21:28The indigenous people of Behrens River traveled west along ancient trading routes from the Great Lakes
21:34before settling in this area centuries ago. They are primarily Anishinaabe Ojibwe,
21:40part of the larger Algonquin language family, and continue their ancestors' deep connection to nature.
21:46How many generations of your ancestors are here in Behrens River?
21:49I would say about six, seven generations. They just lived off the land before they encountered the
21:55white people to trade. But before that, they lived off the land, whatever.
22:01Yeah. The thing about oral stories is they get handed down. White Man's Writing the Rock is an
22:07interesting local oral story. The guidance you get out of oral stories is a kernel of truth that you
22:15have to go then ground truth and go search for. Do you have any stories of rock carvings, letters carved
22:23many places, any places? Yeah, up the main river here. They're all over the place. Do you have any
22:28locations, any history? Well, some of them look like there's a horse, there's a human being standing.
22:35There's one island here where they live, but I haven't discovered anything around that island yet
22:41because the water is too high all the time. The weather is different today. The way that indigenous
22:47history was passed down verbally through generations is similar to how Norse cultures shared their own
22:53history, which can make finding official records difficult. Thank you very much for sharing with us.
22:58I really hope that you trust us with the information you've given us. We'll be kept in a safe place and
23:06we'll use it wisely in our hunt for our ancestry, which is really why we're here. I appreciate you
23:12sharing your stories with us. Thanks very much. You're welcome.
23:20In 2015, Joe and David attempted to locate White Man's Writing on a Rock by boat, but were unsuccessful.
23:28A key part of that expedition was local guide and legend, Amory Chittimo Hudson, who they are going to use
23:35again for this attempt. Our guide's name is Amory Hudson, but his nickname is Chittimo, and Chittimo means chipmunk.
23:45And I have no idea whether it's, I think he did have sort of chipmunk cheeks, but I really don't remember.
23:51We'll see if they're still chipmunk cheeks or whether they're jowls just like the rest of us 10 years later.
23:57Oh, winter road coming up.
24:00We want to find this White Man's Writing on the Rock, and there aren't a lot of carvings
24:05in rocks done by the indigenous people on the east coast of Lake Winnipeg. Lots of rock paintings are
24:11everywhere, but not a lot of carvings. Runestones are carvings in rocks, and it's kind of coincidental.
24:19It's called White Man's Writing on the Rock, and it's a carving.
24:22If they can find and authenticate these carvings, it could be valuable evidence of early Viking settlers
24:29passing through Behrens River. This would be enough for the Faraheim team to continue north
24:34in search of the lost cairn. I haven't seen you forever. Yeah. How have you been? Good.
24:40So do you think this rock is going to be under snow? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've got shovels,
24:45and we've got some brushes, and we've got to, you know, if there's ice on it, we've got something to be heated off.
24:49Chittimo may have seen the rock that they are looking for years ago. It was large with letters,
24:56with possibly numbers on it. This looks like the best chance Joe and David have finding a message
25:02left behind by their Viking ancestors. In this book, they talk about this White
25:07Man's Writing on the Rock because of the discussion of the ability to come down Hudson Bay, down into
25:12Lake Winnipeg, and down into the middle of the continent. Because we are all from Winnipeg, and it's close,
25:17we wanted to go investigate it. What does it say? Carving something, like people's names.
25:22Okay. I think it had the year, um... When they were there, Lake. Okay. Yeah. I remember, yeah.
25:29Do you remember what the year was? Uh, no. I can't remember. It's been so long. It's been a long time.
25:34Did it have four numbers or three numbers? I think four numbers.
25:38The mission is to locate the rock that Chittimo thinks is near some rapids on the Behrens River.
25:47When traveling to rapids in the middle of winter, the fastest and most efficient way is directly on
25:53top of the frozen river. Not all of it is frozen, however, providing another test for the giant utility
25:59vehicle. We have slush in the middle. Slush pocket's probably two, three feet deep. He's not in here.
26:05Oops. Crabble are breaking through. Are we? We thought we'd gone right through the ice.
26:18There's three feet of snow. It's on the north slope. The river was high over the winter. It goes down.
26:24We got slush in the middle. Slush pocket's probably two, three feet deep. At one point,
26:28we thought we'd gone right through the ice, but really, we were just in heavy slush.
26:32I didn't realize there was going to be so much slush as we went with that big machiner.
26:37These conditions are exactly what the vehicle was designed for.
26:41Though slush they're driving on still puts a little doubt into the crew.
26:45It was really impressive riding in that big machiner.
26:59What side of the falls is this thing on? North side or south? On the north side.
27:05On the north side. Yeah. When we, uh, it's one of our regrets that he tells a story about all the
27:12time because we came up the south side of the river as we were portaging up. Yeah. And we didn't have
27:18a boat to, uh, get across the third falls. So, yeah, so we're on the, we're on the south side,
27:24looking at the north side, going, I bet you it's over there.
27:31They made it through the melting ice in one piece, but have lost track of the crew in the support
27:37vehicle following behind. Hey, transmitting blind here. If you can hear me, we're at the falls,
27:43just waiting and a wet's over here. David's attempts to reach the lost crew fail because the cell
27:50reception is so bad. He makes out one word though, stuck. Yeah, we're stuck. You got, yeah, it's not
28:01going to make it. The, the Sherp is, uh, basically a, a go anywhere, uh, you want kind of vehicle. The crew
28:09have a standard tracked vehicle that they got into some slush that we noticed, but, uh, didn't stop
28:16for. They got stuck. So later, let's see. Yeah, no, I don't have cell service. Yeah, I don't have
28:25cell service here yet. And we got a satellite thing with us. We can fire it up and we have cell service,
28:31but, uh, they won't have it. Won't help. And we got out of radio range and, uh, ended up going back to
28:38figure out where they were. David, Joe, and Chittimo turn around to find the stranded crew.
28:44Upon arrival, they see how deeply trapped the side-by-side is and make a plan to get them out.
28:51This rescue mission requires a lot of finesse when dealing with a giant utility vehicle.
28:57One wrong step on the gas pedal could be disastrous. The thing is, not the easiest elephant to control,
29:04you know? Whoa. Whoa, whoa. You're just a poor driver then. That's pretty much what I just said.
29:10We're putting shit about of work. What the heck?
29:14And I'm just going to keep on going as far as I can go to try and get on the dry, right?
29:18The plan is to pull the support vehicle as close to the shore as possible.
29:23With the freezing water temperature, falling through could be fatal.
29:34But, uh, another, uh, 20 feet just going. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me pull, let me pull.
29:41We got about another, uh, length from another 20 feet.
29:46It was a very easy job in the Sherp. We spent more time just trying to get the other vehicle ready to
29:52get pulled out than actually recovering them. And then everybody hopped into the Sherp to get to the site.
29:58They leave the side-by-side on the shore and then carry on with all crew and equipment on board.
30:05All right, let's take, let's take it back then. We'll load everybody in here then. We'll load everybody in here.
30:11The mission to find white man's writing on a rock is finally back on.
30:16So Joe is playing the role of Moses here.
30:19They've reached the base of the falls and will have to travel on foot with Chittimo taking the lead.
30:25We persisted. We talked about, um, okay, so where would you, where would you be if you wanted to
30:31inscribe something on a rock? What would the rock face look like? Chittimo says it's, uh, two inches high.
30:37It's about two feet long. Couldn't remember what it said. Some names and a date. Couldn't remember
30:41much about it. Uh, he saw it when he was sleeping or having a nap when he was moose hunting.
30:47My god, look at that. Wow. That is a nice view. Yeah. Don't fall.
30:55Even breaking trail to get from the Sherp to the site today. I was winded.
31:00The deep snow along the shore hides a series of smooth rock faces close to the waterfall.
31:06The carvings that Joe and David are chasing could be on one of these rocks. But first, they must find them.
31:12That's ice. There's rock. There's still rock out here. Oh, that's ice.
31:19That's ice, that's ice. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, rock carvings and pictographs are something that are
31:27across North America. In this area, it's, uh, well known around the world as a place for, uh, paintings
31:33on rocks. Finally, the shoveling reveals familiar contours to Chittimo. Joe prompts Chittimo for
31:42every detail he can remember about the rock carvings in hopes that something catches their eye while
31:48digging. You think it was in the backrest of, uh, where you were sleeping? Not on the flat, but on the,
31:54just on the slope. Yeah. Okay. Good. On a rock like this. Yeah. And how tall were the letters? How big?
32:00Like this big, I guess. Okay. And they were pretty, it was carved kind of deep. Very deep. Okay. And so
32:05how long would the, would the words be? Like two or three words? It had names and, uh, and a year. Okay.
32:13Like when they were here. Okay. Okay. Well, listen, we'll just keep looking along this band here. So
32:17uh, is it going to be, uh, a thousand year old or a seven hundred year old, uh, carving? No idea. But
32:25the fact that it keeps being called, uh, as Johan mentioned, white men's writing on the rock,
32:31it's a very specific thing. And, uh, it's either post 1600s, uh, European traveling, or it's something
32:39way earlier than that. Because, uh, 1610 is, uh, about, uh, Henry Hudson and Thomas Button, who, uh,
32:47went looking for Henry Hudson. So early 1600s is the earliest Europeans are here,
32:52or it's much earlier. So I'm still waiting. We gotta, we gotta see what it says.
32:59Well, that'd be a good rock to sleep on at the right angle. Yep.
33:03This tree is going to be a problem if you were lying right there, though.
33:06The letters, the letters we're looking for, how tall would they be?
33:09Yeah, thanks. Fairly small, eh? Yep. And they're carved deep.
33:13The, the fact that Chittomo said, though, that there's a date on it is probably going to mean
33:19it's newer than older. The date you'd see, I don't think anybody, uh, is going to be able to read just
33:26looking at it. Man, it's getting warm. Very warm. Hot.
33:29Is that in trouble for? Slow down a bit then.
33:35So we get to the part and we're, we're just exhausted. We're, it's hot. We've, we've got,
33:39we're starting to take clothes off now, even though it's, it's winter.
33:43We're coming. What a hard taskmaster this guy is. No rest.
33:47Why do you hang out with this guy? Yeah.
33:51One of the things about searching for things on a rock in the wintertime is,
33:56depending where it is on the rock, it's going to be under snow. So we had to shovel a lot of snow to
34:02get to the rock face. We were in three or four feet of snow with, uh, some pretty small shovels
34:10taking turns because we were huffing and puffing. Toss me that broom there, will you, Dave?
34:20Trouble is three feet of snow. Where do you dig? How do you find it? Chittomo hadn't seen it for 10
34:24years. First saw it 25 years ago. Uh, so a lot of digging.
34:28Well, it's nice. The sun's starting to dry off the rock pretty fast.
34:34And it can't be too low because it's hard to chisel right on the, you know, right,
34:37right where it's flat. So guys sitting or whoever did it sitting or kneeling.
34:43That's nothing, right? So this might be too high past us.
34:47It could be under here on, on just where the transition is, but yeah.
34:51But we won't know until we keep digging. Got up close and started digging.
34:56Chittomo says, I think it's here, but it could be over there. We took the easiest one to start,
35:01which not the right one.
35:03Ah, here we might be at the center point. Okay.
35:06All right, we'll move. Come in there.
35:08They're using every type of snow removal tomb they have to find this hidden inscription,
35:14including shovels, spades and brooms.
35:17Chittomo suggests another area that he thinks could be it.
35:21Oh, is he going to take it at that point, the next point?
35:23Yeah, it could be that point.
35:24But I kind of remember it just at a point like my phone.
35:27Yeah. Well, let's go and have a look over there.
35:29Why did I have a shower this morning?
35:32You're still having it.
35:38Michelle, when we're talking, I say to David, this is exactly the kind of slope
35:42that you said you would carve on. It's like 45 degrees. It's smooth. There's lots of rock there,
35:47but a lot of it is fractured. No use carving on that when you've got these blank canvases.
35:53Chittomo told us that its letters are about two inches high, so they're about that tall.
35:58Said it was about that long. So I don't think it'd be on anything like this when you've got this
36:03perfect face for it to be on all the way down here. And then you can sit on the rock here and kneel
36:08down and just chisel the way in. Joe speculates that cutting into the stone would have taken hours or
36:15even days. So the carver would have needed a comfortable position. He's looking for a spot
36:20that fits this theory. At the end, of course, if the thing you find is always in the last place
36:24you look, right? And bingo. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that? What does that say?
36:33We tried it in the summertime and it's hard to get to. A lot of portaging, a lot of pushing,
36:39a lot of bushwhacking. The winter road goes within about a mile of it. And the winter road's only there
36:44for about a month. Got in touch with Chetimo again, drove up the winter road from Barrens River.
36:51The thing you find is always in the last place you look, right? Three feet of snow,
36:55shoveling snow, shoveling snow, and bingo.
37:01The search for this specific rock with what could be significant carvings has spanned seasons and years.
37:08Now, deep in the Barrens River area, the explorers think they found something.
37:13Yeah, we got a nice clean face here. So here, just keep me going over there and I'll go this way.
37:19Local guide Chetimo has seen the inscription firsthand, as well as hearing the stories about
37:24it passed down by his elders. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that?
37:30There's a number, part of a number, and he thinks I'm joking. So we dig a little bit. We only see it
37:36because there's snow in the cut in the rock, the cut in the numbers, and the cut in the letters. It's the
37:41only, we'd walk by it a hundred times in the summertime, never see it. Oh yeah, what's that?
37:47Well, it's something. The hours of work and perseverance are paying off. Look at that,
37:54actually. It's A-S-R. That's carved. Okay. What does that say?
38:03Is that 1144?
38:04That's kind of, that can't be, that's got to be a 1944.
38:11I don't know. Is this what you saw, do you think, Chetimo?
38:15Probably, yeah.
38:16Do you see the carving there?
38:17It's been like 30 years ago.
38:21Though it's been decades since Chetimo last saw this, he's sure it's what they have been looking for.
38:26This is carved. Oh, you can't see it very well when I clean it out.
38:38Oh, look, look, look, look.
38:39Yeah.
38:40Chetimo was right about the letters and numbers on the rock. They're just not Norse related.
38:491944. I'm telling you.
38:51S-R-A-B.
38:52That is a needle in a freaking haystack right there.
38:55Finding this little thing, we've already dug for probably a hundred feet, right?
39:00Yeah.
39:01And this is, but this is perfect.
39:02When David said never be kneeling down carving on a vertical face,
39:06so all that stuff we were looking at though was pretty good.
39:08This is the thing that you do, right?
39:10But 1944, we could probably find out who these people are.
39:16Yeah, could be Barons, could be Bitterin.
39:17Yeah, could be Bitterin.
39:18Tom Bitterin, this is his trapline, right?
39:20He's up in the Copper River.
39:21I wonder if Tom would know.
39:22Tom Bitterin and Bitterin are common surnames in the area,
39:27so it's possible this was done by a local resident or trapper more than 80 years ago.
39:32But that's, man, I'll tell you, a lot of digging to find this puppy.
39:37So, I'm trying to remember though, the first time this shows up is…
39:42Yeah, somebody's writing about it.
39:44Yeah, I was going to say the 30s, 40s.
39:46Gelmer Hall or somebody, right?
39:48Yeah, so 44 seems late.
39:50While this is not the ancient Norse rock carvings they were hoping for, it's not a total loss.
39:55With Cittimo's guidance, they were able to find this carving under deep, blanketed snow cover,
40:01which will give them confidence heading into the next phase of this adventure.
40:05Someone wrote about it, I think back in the maybe 30s, 40s.
40:09A lot of things written about the Kensington Runestone down in Minnesota.
40:13One of those authors that mentioned a rock inscription somewhere on the Leaf River
40:17called White Men's Writing on the Rock.
40:20It's on a trade route, but not a major trade route.
40:23It is close to a river that goes to another river that comes in from Hudson Bay,
40:27so it's sort of linked on a travel corridor.
40:30Though they found what they came for, the team will use the rest of the fading daylight
40:36to keep searching before heading back to base camp.
40:39So, it could be a baron, it could be a baron.
40:44She's trapped, I might be putting her up.
40:47Well, maybe this isn't even it though, maybe there's something else here.
40:50If you go to the pyramids, you know, they were built thousands of years ago.
40:54Like a tourist in like 500 AD comes along and carves their name.
40:58Matter of fact, the Vikings, Constantinople.
41:00Yeah, I know, I know.
41:01Even in Rome.
41:02Graffiti.
41:03There's graffiti.
41:04We shovel around it and it's not very big.
41:06The letters are two inches high and there's four letters, initials and a date.
41:12At first, I thought the date was 1144.
41:15It was actually 1944.
41:17However, it's a blank canvas.
41:19It's a perfect rock face, perfect smooth rock face.
41:23So, when people carve their initials,
41:25it's often because someone else has already carved something there.
41:28So, they find a good place.
41:30It's sort of like ancient graffiti.
41:34Because if I was going to graffiti, I'd graffiti by the original one, right?
41:39Yeah, yeah.
41:40Well, it's a good canvas.
41:42So, we found some carvings on the rock, but they're not white men's writing on the rock.
41:48What we found was a trapper's initials and a year.
41:52That was part of a person's trap line.
41:54Very much like what we'd expect someone who was in the area and wanted to make a mark.
42:00Literally, they carved their initials into the stone.
42:03So, that wasn't white men's writing on the rock and Chittimo identified that's not it.
42:09Modern graffiti artists tag things.
42:11They do the same thing.
42:12But Chittimo says, I don't think that's it.
42:15I think there's something else.
42:16We're going to come back and find it, if we have to, in the spring.
42:20These and other rock carvings, paintings and monuments
42:24reveal a moment in history and time that prove humans were there.
42:30So, if there's one, there must be more.
42:45There must be more.
42:47There must be more.
42:48There must be more.
42:48There must be more.
42:50There must be more.
42:51There must be more.
42:52There must be more.
42:53There must be more.
42:54There must be more.
42:55There must be more.
42:56There must be more.
42:57There must be more.
42:58There must be more.
42:59There must be more.
43:00There must be more.
43:01There must be more.
43:02There must be more.
43:03There must be more.
43:04There must be more.
43:05There must be more.
43:06There must be more.
43:07There must be more.
43:08There must be more.
43:09There must be more.
43:10There must be more.
43:11There must be more.
43:12There must be more.
43:13There must be more.
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