Stop Two

During that summer of 1909, a swell of people flocked to town - the curious, the spiritualists, and the scientists - to see this place for themselves.

The scientists headed straight to work, and set up a makeshift lab right here in this exact spot. To make room for themselves, their equipment, and their research, they cut down some of the very trees they were here to study. They needed an open space in which to work.

They spent the summer months taking endless samples: gathering particulates from the soil, the water, the air; and cataloguing, measuring, and weighing everything in the path of the trees.¹

And when they were done their work, they took their samples and data, and they left this open clearning in their wake. It’s the only open area you’ll find in Larch Island. The trees never came back to this spot.

But the mystery, of how and why the trees arrived so quickly? That remained. Until a group of observant adventurers made a realization the scientists never even considered.

.

.

foot.note

1. Only some of the scientific data gathered that summer made its way back to Canmore. Two reports were kept in the files of the LIWS, and are now in the Curbside Museum's archives. They’re currently being digitized, and will be made accessible to the public soon.