I’ve spent some time thinking about religion today–primarily as part of working on my argument that Christmas as practiced in North America is essentially a secular holiday
So I was already primed to appreciate the new map at Lapham’s Quaterly (for the religion issue, which I hope will arrive here sometime soon since getting my subscription copies more than a week after I’ve seen the issue on the newsstands annoys me).
The maps shows some sacred sites around the world–just a taste to get you interested in some things you can Google up, of course.
I note though that it misses my favourite site here in Canada: The Place Where The Thunder Beings Rest. (A.k.a. “The place where thunderbirds nest”, a.k.a. Animikii-wajiw, Anemki-waucheu, Thunder Mountain, and most colonially as Mount Mckay.)
To make a long story short, the northern Ontario city of “Thunder Bay” takes it’s name from the body of water, which is in turn named because of the storms/weather that happen there. This weather is attributable, apparently, to the actions of the thunder birds, who nest on Thunder Mountain–later renamed Mount Mckay–at the end of the bay. Cool story.
And a really cool looking place. Check out this great series of photo posts by northshorewoman: part 1, part 2, part 3.
Of course there’s lots of other cool lore in the area, that ties in, such a the Sleeping Giant legend, and the story of the chapel atop the mountain.
(When Trish and I were touring the area a number of years ago, one of the things I made sure we did, in addition to going to the mountain, was to tour the Silver Islet mine stuff–not so much because of the story of the Sleeping Giant and the secret of the silver, but rather because of the true story of the missing coal shipment in 1883 and the subsequent mine flooding. And that story I only knew because of the Tanglefoot song.)
