Long before Roosevelt and certainly long before our generations learned about National Parks, people of Native descent were discovering and wondering the beautiful lands we now call National Parks. It is said that prehistoric people used petroglyphs and pictographs to tell stories, mark territories, give directions, as well as many reasons that may still be unknown to us today. Petroglyphs are rock carvings, created by banging one rock on top of another to carve an image into a larger rock face. Pictographs were created by mixing clay with a binder such as blood, and painted onto rocks typically inside caves where they would be less susceptible to weather damage.
Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site of Canada displays a vast variety of this ancient art form. National Parks are meant to showcase some of the world's finest nature sites, wildlife, and scenery. Few National Parks have the privilege to contain artwork that is thousands of years old; however, Canada was a popular area for prehistoric natives that left behind a legacy of their own. Kejimkujk National Park is nestled in the centre of traditional canoe routes between the Bay of Fundy the Atlantic Coast, located in Nova Scotia, Canada. Estabilished in 1967, this is Canada's only island based National Park, and had several different Indian Tribes inhabiting the land. 4,500 years ago, the Maritime Archaic Indians occupied the grounds; the nomadic Woodland Indians came next, setting up campsites along the river and lake shores. Finally the Mi'kmaw, descendants of the previous tribes, took over the land and marked their territory. Because of natural erosion and weather, the petroglyphs are the only traces left of the Mi'kmaq tribal communities.
Because the petroglyphs and pictographs are quickly fading, many tourists take advantage of the guided tours Kejimkuijik National Park offers, which allows tourists to see these ancient stories that one would otherwise never see. Petro and pictographs are an important part of Canadian heritage that cannot be preserved and put into museums around the world. These guided tours allow everyone the opportunity to feel a part of Canadian history that will not be around forever. Although not protected in a National Park, Kamloops has a display of pictographs near Kamloops lake that is only accessible by boat. These artwork displays will soon diminish as well due to the accessibility of water and weather damage.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ns/kejimkujik/index.aspx
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