Author: Martin Eisenloeffel (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
Website: Click here
Photo location: Midland, Georgian Bay
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Category: [discovery]  

When I was a kid, my parents dragged me all over southwestern Ontario on road trips and cottage get-aways. I didn't really like them. I was a weird kid. I got anxious on long drives, bored on historical treks, and I wasn't at all interested in all those old, dead white guys that all of these locales represented in some distant, albeit tangible way.

Still, I learned recently that somehow, the trips did have an impact. My parents used to rent a cottage in Midland, near the coast of Georgian Bay. From this central location, we were not far from all sorts of tourist traps; I was reluctantly taken to all of them. I forget exactly why, but we stopped going to Midland when I was about 11 or so. I hadn't returned until just two weeks ago.

Now some 20 years later, my partner and I decided to go camping up by Georgian Bay once again. We took a day out to drive into town and found ourselves, among other places, at the Martyr's Shrine. The Shrine is a basic old-style Catholic church on a simply stunning piece of land. I had no idea what I was missing when my family went there before. I always thought we went only for my grandmother, who would take home vials of holy water from the place. I never knew what she did with them. Being the last of the devout Catholics of my family, I expect she used the water in ritual. But there were other things there too.

The photograph accompanying this piece is taken during a long walk along a part of the grounds. Peppered along the walkway that goes through open areas, wooded areas and man-made structures are a number of statues, most of them likenesses of long dead saints. I suppose I really should have written down the name of this particular saint, but I got caught up in the moment of the photograph, and didn't note it. I had no memory of ever looking at the statue before, even though I most likely had. I crouched down to the height of a 9 year old, looked up and this is what I saw. I can understand how it might have had an effect on me, in spite of the fatigue and boredom my 9 year old self probably felt the last time I stood here.

On the way out of the grounds, we stopped at the church, and they were still faithfully offering holy water for people to take with them. I half-filled an empty bottle with the water, and took it with me to sprinkle on the grave of my grandmother when I got back home. I think she would have liked that.

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