The Power Of The Nail

From blacksmithing to Indigenous legends to Parliament Hill: how one class forged an unforgettable relationship with Canada’s past

- Tanya Kirnishni

A CLANG REVERBERATES through the room and sparks light up the faces of the students standing huddled around the pulsing fire.

“You have to strike while the iron is hot,” says blacksmith Don MacKay, a Parks Canada interpreter at Ontario’s Jones Falls Lock station. “That’s an old expression that comes from blacksmithing.”

He deals another blow to the red-hot iron he has pressed against the anvil, before plunging it into a barrel of water. The hissing steam has the students leaning in for a closer look. It’s crowded inside the small forge, which sits on the forested banks of the Rideau Canal, but MacKay has their undivided attention as he explains the history of blacksmithing.

For these Grade 8 students from Dr. Roy Wilson Learning Centre in Medicine Hat, Alta., MacKay’s demonstration is just one of many incredible stops on the 2018 Canada’s Coolest School Trip. The all-expenses-paid, five-day journey to historic and natural sites in eastern Ontario was the grand prize of the annual national Parks Canada competition, hosted in partnership with The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Historica Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Nature Canada and Air Canada. The class’s photo essay about fire safety awareness in Elkwater campgrounds in Cypress Hills Provincial Park on the southern Alberta-Saskatchewan border was voted best of the entries, which aimed to document stewardship in natural or historic places.