Thoughts on a UFO Landing Pad

1967 was Canada’s Centennial Year — the 100th anniversary of the Confederation of most of the remaining British Colonies in North America, the nucleus of the Canada we know today. 1967 was a year of great hope, of joyful confidence in the future of humanity in this technological world. The celebration perhaps had its high point in the huge party in Montreal called Expo ’67.

I have a child’s memory of the feeling of that year and of that celebration in Montreal.  Expo ’67 remains a touchstone of promise for me half a century later.  In 1967 the Voyageurs paddled from the Rockies to the St. Laurence,  Trudeaumania still made us all smile, and the October Crisis had not taken our dreams down a peg or two. The summer of 1967 in the public sphere of Canada was a time of unbridled and joyful hope.

All across the country cities and towns created Centennial Projects great and small. Edmonton built a library in the heart of downtown and called it “The Centennial Library”. Alberta established a Provincial Museum in a glorious piece of architecture in the Glenora neighbourhood of Edmonton. The name of the library was changed and later the entire exterior and interior was altered beyond recognition. All that remains of the Centennial Library is the small Centennial Plaza on the library’s south side, under reconstruction now and little used since 1967. And the Provincial Museum sits empty and neglected, replaced by a grey neo-brutalist stack of blocks downtown. Too often we easily push aside the past.

Recently I visited a quirky Centennial Project that stands in quiet opposition to the dimming of the hopeful flame of 1967. In the town of St. Paul, Alberta, a location with a difficult history as the last century began, an unlikely thing was conceived in 1967: the world’s first and probably only purpose-built UFO Landing Pad.

The St. Paul Landing Pad is the subject of snickers and snidery by all manner of critics who have never visited and a few who have visited with the most ungenerous of hearts. From its inception, the St. Paul Landing Pad was a joyful shout of hope and a call for universal peace and tolerance was inscribed on it for all to see:

As mankind stands on the threshold of inter-galactic travel, let us not forget our failures on Earth.
If we are to become voyageurs of space, we must learn the true meaning of tolerance to others that are different from us.
We must remember that no matter how large the universe, the smallest creature has its place in the order of life.
If we fail to conquer disease and pestilence on Earth, but instead transmit them to other planets, we shall never be welcome.
If we fail to travel earth without destroying the environment, how shall we ever travel the universe safely.
If we cannot develop international goodwill among all men, how shall we ever develop inter-galactic goodwill among all beings.
Lastly, if mankind travels this Earth or the universe armed with kindness, tolerance, hope and good spirits, he will always be welcomed.

The plaque to the left of the stairs leading to the pad reads:

Republic of St. Paul
(Stargate Alpha)
The area under the world’s first UFO landing pad was designated international by the Town of St Paul as a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife, that future travel in space will be safe for all  inter-galactic beings, all visitors from earth or otherwise are welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul.

It takes a measure of bitterness to snicker at such a call.

When a visitor realizes that the call of hope has been heard and taken up and amplified by successive generations of citizens of St. Paul, the snickers simply must stop.

In 1967 the Landing Pad was built by a generation at the beginning of the Space Age wanting to express a hope for a tolerant future. This optimism was the oxygen of the time. The moon landing was about to happen, Star Trek was on the television promising a Star Fleet utopia that looked an awful lot like Expo ’67.

A generation later, in the 1990s, a Visitors’ Centre was added, a retro flying-saucer-roofed space with 360 degree windows connected to the Landing Pad by a concrete bridge, welcoming visitors from around the world and across the galaxy. Sometime after the Visitors’ Centre was finished, someone noticed that the Landing Pad was not wheel-chair accessible, and a ramp was seamlessly added to the design, helping to realize the universality expressed by the original design.

In 2017, 50 years and two or three generations after the building of the Landing Pad, a time capsule was installed in a beautiful sculpture in the International Space beneath the Pad. The time capsule is to be opened on the 100th anniversary of the building of the Landing Pad, Canada’s Bicentenial of Confederation.

When you visit the Landing Pad today, surrounded by mature trees that were not even seedlings in 1967 photos, you will likely be welcomed in the Visitor Centre by a young person who represents at least the fourth and probably the fifth generation since the Landing Pad was erected. The Landing Pad has been a fixture of hope in St. Paul for about half the life of the town. This unlikely monument has been maintained and augmented by generations of citizens of this small town for over five decades.  It’s message of tolerance is carried on by those citizens: St. Paul Pride commissioned a lapel pin depicting a flying saucer riding a rainbow, onward and upward, into a better future, a better future in which we now live, and and even better one for which we must continue to strive.

When I look at some of the Google (ab)user reviews talking about a boring town and a stupid UFO thing, I just shake my head and think, and say it out loud: “You weren’t actually here. You weren’t actually there.  There are no boring towns, only boring visitors.  You weren’t actually there.”

Please, go visit the St. Paul UFO Landing Pad if you are ever in east central Alberta. Explore the town and learn about the early history of St. Paul des Metis, a Metis settlement destroyed in just a few years by the disasters of colonial paternalism, residential schools, and forced relocation. Learn about the long road to acknowledgment of the lost Metis generations, of the generations of Quebecois immigrants, of the generations of Ukrainian newcomers looking for that better future, and of another disaster, the Holodomor.  All this in a sculpture park on the lake shore in Lagasse Park, beside children at play on swings and laughing on the spray deck and with parents taking a moment to rest and chat on a summer morning or a winter afternoon.

Stand on the shore and consider the monumental sculpture “Broken Wheat”, a shattering reminder of what must never be again, but tragically probably will, and build yourself a warm UFO Landing Pad of Tolerance and Hope deep in your own heart.

The world really really needs more of those.

The St. Paul UFO Landing Pad is open and welcomes visitors throughout the summer months.

The Town of St. Paul, Alberta, is open and welcoming to visitors every day of the year.

Horses in the Americas

     It seems like so much longer a span than just since March of this year that I’ve had a pile of particular books and article offprints concerning horses stacked up on a side of my desk.  Perhaps it is because I’ve just finished reading Walter Edmonds’ tremendous story “Courtship of My Cousin Doone” that that I am spurred to complete my thoughts on Horses in America this evening.  Or, perhaps it is the sound of thunder rolling onto the Alberta parkland from the foothills and the Rockies beyond that has suggested it is time for a storm.

     In March I downloaded and read an article: “Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies”.  This article seemed to follow hard upon a bit of a nonplussing news story which came to my attention about a PhD. absurdly granted by the University of Alaska:  The relationship between the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the horse: deconstructing a Eurocentric myth.  Carl Feagans has already debunked this doctoral thesis pretty thoroughly in “Pseudoarchaeological Claims of Horses in the Americas”  but I can’t help but add a few notes I’ve made over the last few months. . . .

     Some may suggest that the “standard history” is that horses were only dispersed into the North American West after the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, almost a century after the Spanish began importing horses to the Americas and breeding them intensively.   This “standard history” is a myth, not history, as, while it has never been doubted that the Pueblo Revolt had an explosive impact on the breeding stock of indigenous held and bred horses, there has never been a doubt, that I am aware of, that indigenous peoples held stock of horses before the Pueblo Revolt but not before the Spanish brought horses to the Americas.

     There has never been any serious doubt that the horses experienced by indigenous people since 1492 have been horses derived from the Columbian Exchange.  Even the much celebrated article (mentioned above) from March of this year unequivocally agrees:  “Admixture graph modeling did not show evidence of gene flow from Late Pleistocene into historic or modern North American horses (“Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies” Science, 379 . p. 1317. )  In a nutshell, horses in the Americas, including the commonly named “Indian Horse” of North America, are descendants of horses brought from the Old World since 1492.

      A big part of the modern myth of horses in the Americas seems to be the idea that indigenous people at contact were somehow in awe of European horses.  At the same time, a popular idea is that indigenous people were totally down with horses because, like, they’ve always had horses from forever.  While my childhood somehow contained the erroneous idea that the Aztecs were dumbfounded by Spanish horses, my youthful reading of the History of the Conquest of Mexico by Prescott immediately cleansed me of that lie.  Horses were almost always just another domestic animal to the people of the Americas, albeit a threatening one when European hands were on the reins.

     It’s been several months since the Science article appeared and who knows how long since the absurd and embarassing (to the) University of Alaska PhD. thesis appeared  and the kerfuffle has perhaps died down a little bit.  Maybe it is safe to present the notes I made over the last few months about horses coming to the Americas.

      First, some notes on William H. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843)  (I use the Random House Modern Library one volume Edition of the History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru, n.d.), which has been described as “often cited (though seldom read)” by one Mark A. Peterson at Encyclopedia.com.   For what it’s worth, I have read every word of Prescott’s magnificent Mexican and Peruvian Histories and poured over a great many passages for some four decades since first looking into those epic histories..

p. 144, note:  Bernal Diaz minutely describes all the horses Cortez brought on the expedition.

p. 157:  It is in describing an early encounter in Tabasco that Prescott mentions the Tabascans being panicked by the advent of the Cavalry, quoting the words of Paolo Giovo, an Italian who never once left Italy, and who was therefore not actually a witness, in his Elogia Virorum Illustrium [(sic) likely actually Elogia virorum vellica virute illustrium rather than his vitae virorum illustrium].   The chroniclers who were actually present do not seem to take much note of any panic at the sight of horses – as opposed to normal panic at the arrival of heavy cavalry as reinforcements to the foundering infantry.  One might suspect that the first tank groaning across WWI trenches would have instilled a similar initial reaction, followed by a brainstorming of tactics to defeat this new feature of battle.  This is exactly the reaction of every army Cortes’ horses encountered during the march to Tenochtitlan and in Tenochtitlan itself.  If there were some sort of superstitious awe, it was short lived in every case.

p. 277:  The Tlaxcalans kill two horses and drag riders from their mounts.  Neither the Spanish Chroniclers nor the 19th century historian pretend that the peoples of the Mexica’s Empire or their neighbours were in awe of horses beyond the first moments of encounter.

p. 230:  The Spaniards are explicitly disappointed that the horses are not held in awe, but rather are killed and mutilated by the Tlaxcalans as readily as they kill and mutilate Spanish soldiers.

p. 239:  long before reaching Tenochtitlan all the horses have been wounded or killed.

p. 418:  whatever the untold wonder might have been toward the horses, the Mexica very quickly are grappling the horses’ legs and pulling the riders from the saddles.

pp. 651-652:  The Maya of the Isle of Peten are left an injured horse to care for.  Not knowing what to feed it, they inadvertently let the horse die.  They erect a statue of the horse on their Teocalli and give it reverence.  In 1618, almost a century later, Franciscan friars come to preach the gospel in the area and find the horse statue still being revered.  This is a rare case where a particular horse is revered by the Indigenous People of the Americas, and it demonstrates that the adoption of the horse into the centre of local culture could be very rapid.  It should be no surprise wherever it is observed.

Contemporary European witnesses:

Bernal Diaz, in his discussion of the Tlaxcallan Campaign in his The Conquest of New Spain gives no indication that the enemy was in awe of horses.

Bartolomé de las Casas in his Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies talks a great deal of horses and cavalry, but there is no mention of any sort of superstitious awe.

David Ingram, in his account of his journey across the south-east of North America in late 1568 and early 1569, a half century after the arrival of the Spanish in continental America, mentions in passing that “there is also great plenty of  . . . horses” in the areas he traversed. (p. 560 of the 1589 edition of Richard Haklyut’s The Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation, etc. (London: George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputised to Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie, 1519).

     It should be noted that Narváez, Coronado, and De Soto all travelled in the early 16th century into what is now the south and southwest United States with significant numbers of horses (and other livestock) which were fully capable of escaping, going feral, and being recaptured/re-domesticated.

     It should also be noted the alacrity with which Old World cultures adopted and made their own such New World products as tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, and maize.  What did Italians eat before they got their hands on tomatoes?  Where would Pad Thai be without chilies?  Where would the Irish be without potatoes? –  well, probably exactly where a lack of potatoes put them today – but you understand my point.  The process of cultural appropriation of useful products and technologies is almost universally extremely rapid.  Turkeys came to England from the Americas, by way of Turkey – a country with absolutely no colonial ambitions in the Americas but quite healthy trade links apparently –  in an historical blink of an eye.  Remember how quickly tobacco and chocolate, fairly useless products by any estimation, were made integral to European culture!   It should be very much a surprise if such a mobile and vitally useful technology as the horse had not preceded European humans in penetrating the American Plains Cultures with or without the Pueblo Revolt.

     A postulated American equine survival from the Pleistocene is an absolutely unnecessary multiplication of entities which flies in the face of concrete genetic evidence and clearly established historical evidence.  The notion should be set aside until new concrete genetic evidence – not simply more anecdotes – is forthcoming.  That may well happen.  I can remember a time not so long ago when it seemed that genetic tests of the Neandertal bones in the Shanidar Cave in Iraq “proved” that Modern Humans and Neandertals did not interbreed.  Science – and scientists – moved on and forward when new evidence arrived.  If ever concrete evidence of pre-Columbian domestic horses in the Americas arrives, I’m sure we’ll all move on and move forward – to investigate why buffalo jumps or buffalo pounds or fortuitous muddy bog traps were clearly used in any discovered remains of pre-Columbian Bison hunts but never, ever any horses.  Yes, an absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, but it does seem strange that if horses had been a part of Indigenous cultures “forever” that they only began to be used in Bison hunts on the great plains a century or two after the Spanish and other European powers brought their horses to the Americas.

     Science is not “a Euro-centric myth”.  It is Science.  Science can be and is constantly tested and refined and brought closer to something which, for all intents and purposes, can be proven right.

     Myth, by its nature, for its believer, cannot be tested, and so, it cannot ever be proven wrong – and it can never be proven right.

     When I’m in a thinking mood, or a feeling mood, a poetic mood, or a mood of just plain wonder, I’ll go with Science.