Where did all the stones for the Hermit’s Trail come from?
Imagine Charlie Abbott shifting them, a few at a time, in a wheel barrow, from wherever he might have found or quarried them, to the network of walls and trails he built stone by stone, year by year in the woods above Chemainus!
The craftsmanship and ingenuity of his haven are a marvel, but consider the work! Did he have a grand plan, or did he sculpt his vision as he went, following architectural intuition and the lay of the land?
Did he trim the stones he selected, break them up so they would fit into his design? The walls, staircases and terraces have a finished look to them. Their surfaces appear to be flat, as if the stones were dressed. But that doesn’t seem possible.
Our son, Ian, built a set of curving garden walls for us a few years back. He laboured at it for months, selecting stones, breaking and chipping them with sledges and hammers, hefting them into place, rearranging them when things didn’t work.
But he had his stones delivered by truck from Porter’s quarry, and was in his mid-twenties at the time. The Hermit must have found his material in the bed of Askew Creek, I would imagine, and carted them load by load to his workplaces. And he was an elderly man before he even began his project.
Imagine him hauling wheelbarrows full of rocks – the same wheelbarrow he went shopping with in town – up the steep creek embankment to his trail sites! Was it a labour of love, or some kind of penance, or both?
His legacy is layered with moss and lichen now – I don’t think Charlie Abbott would be displeased with the effect. It stands as a testament to the solitary being that built and maintained the trails for anyone to use, and to the town that still honours his odd devotion.
But it’s a legacy with no inscription about the man who raised it stone by stone or his motives.
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