Rock garden to open in Haileybury

A rock garden designed to illustrate Canada’s geological diversity will open this month in Haileybury, Ont.

Haileybury Mayor Thomas Wells and local Member of Parliament Ben Serre will be on hand for the event, which will form part of the town’s Heritage Festival, slated for July 21-22.

The Haileybury School of Mines donated the five acres on which the garden sits and is overseeing the project. The school is a satellite campus of the Northern College of Applied Arts and Technology, in Timmins.

While only the first phase (about two thirds) of the garden is completed, it features an extensive collection of large rocks and ore specimens, including a “mill rock” from the Kidd Creek mine, near Timmins, and a 6,000-lb. “Inukshuk,” an Inuit rock formation from the Nanisivik zinc-lead-silver mine on Baffin Island. A large chunk of ore from the soon-to-be-decommisioned Sullivan mine in Kimberley, B.C., is also on display.

A series of rocks, some as large as 10 tons, illustrates the development of Canadian geography, and an interlocking brick pathway links all the exhibits.

The idea for the park was spawned in 1991, when a large rectangular iron formation from Dofasco’s defunct Sherman mine, in Temagami, was donated to the Haileybury school. The garden remained in the conceptual stage until 1997, when a committee was formed to get the project off the ground.

For a “virtual tour” of the garden, visit the web site www.rockwalkpark.com