The weather was nice out today, prompting a drive out to Stonewall, a town known largely for its limestone quarries.
Stonewall Quarry Park is literally the former site of the main quarry in town (as if the name wasn't obvious enough). While it used to be a mining operation, it's now the site of baseball diamonds and a lake (though the term "lake" may be stretching it somewhat). But there's also still some of the original features of the quarry present.
There's a number of walking trails running through the park, that take you by features like the old kilns (which were used to breakdown the lime before sending it off for other purposes), and a walk up Thunder Hill, which was used by Indigenous groups to spot and subsequently hunt bison hundreds of years ago. In walking along the trails, you get a full backstory on how the mining operations occurred (fun fact: there was dynamite involved), and how the region came to be the way it is today.
The site dates back to the 1880, if not earlier. Some of the kilns have been standing for over 130 years, and though they've obviously faced their fair share of weathering, they're still remarkably well-intact. The knowledge that these structures have been standing for well over a century, combined with a series of incredibly informative placards (complete with pictures, even!) prompt a sense of wonder and contemplation about lifestyles and industries of a bygone era. It also makes you stop and think for a second about the evolution of the province, and how it came to be the Manitoba of today. Between that knowledge and some of the incredibly photogenic sites you will stumble upon, Stonewall Quarry Park is well worth the trip.
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