Yesterday, August 2, someone found the 1915 Pillar of Darkness Expedition sign in the Kananaskis Ice Cave!
It’s remained in place for six years now and further solidifies the Legend of the Pillar.
The 1915 Pillar of Darkness Expedition
Dr. Angharad Llywelyn, Lady Kat Sable, Robert MacTavish, Capt. A.E. Sable, J.A. Irvine investigating cult activity along the Red Deer River.
Cole Halley-Burton gives the all-clear, MacTavish, being a proper engineer disagrees with his assessment and stays behind with Dr. Llywelyn.
“It hasn’t collapsed yet, right?”
J.A. Irvine spots the reported standing icons.
A strange totem!
This pathway had an eerie, unsettling feeling that caused Kat to immediately return to base camp. Dr. Llywelyn had broken a toe, her third in total within a few days, and met Kat at the camp.
Obviously a cult!
The sound of the howling wind made for uneasy investigation.
Haunting assemblies.
The totems were almost beyone counting and extended a vast distance. But what is their purpose?! Who put them here?
Coin offerings were made to many of the totems, over a long period of time.
They mock our efforts to understand.
Dinosaur figurines glued to a large vertebrae. Madness!
“For God’s sake, Sable! Whatever you do, DON’T TOUCH THEM!”
A classic Goddess effigy.
He may have cursed us all.
“I think we’re being watched!”, Irvine whispered.
We returned to the bridge and made our own offering. Not out of superstition, but rather that it felt like the right thing to do.
We’ll take our notes and recollections back and try to come to a consenus about what’s happening in the region, and perhaps plan a return to catch cult activity in action.
Photos by A.E. Sable, J.A. Irvine, Stephen Campbell, & Dees Lees
Journal
16 May 1921
Captain Jas. Cox, retired
Styling by Jim Cox
Styling by Jim Cox
Styling by Jim Cox
Styling by Jim Cox
Our group stealthily ventured past the daunting backyard fence on our way to new adventure. We lost young Winston almost immediately when his pollen induced sneeze brought the steel beast to life. Wendy and I trudged on until we encountered the sandstone cliffs nestled in the hills of southern Indiana. Retrieving my long unused, but immaculate, archaeological tools from my trusty bag, I began examination of the site. It was obvious that natives had been there judging by their etched names in the soft stone, and the remnants of there eating habits. 1000 years from now this would hold great interest. Alas for now, they are just trashy bastards.
Using techniques studied from the writings of Sherpa Tenzing, I made a few attempts at climbing the crag. The conditions at the time, as well as my footwear, were unfavorable for ascent. This will be left for a future adventure.
Berengaria and I, accompanied by our hounds, had a splendid time roaming the wild deer paths above Carmel Bay. We hadn’t traversed far, but nevertheless, we saw some lovely sights.
Berengaria discovering a lone Moricandia Arvensis:
Berengaria discovering a lone Moricandia Arvensis
Bessie on a cliff with her wee beasty, Winkie.
Beri and little Lady Kiacinth observing the bird calls.
A colorized photograph of our surroundings (the Santa Lucia Range)
And lastly, and Africanized Honey Bee, asleep, inside of an Eschscholzia Californica
Respectfully,
Bessie & Beri
This documentary introduction alone should give you a good idea what we’re all about.
We hope to provide more content, more regularly this year.
Please keep an eye out for future stories.
There we were, at Maclean Creek, and what struck me this trip was the incredible fresh quality of the air this excursion. It made both Foster and I feel invigorated and extremely alert. In fact, I’d felt so rejuvenated, I felt I could could see more clearly without my spectacles!
I heard a loud flapping as the sound shutters would make in a storm, and turned to see its source.
Foster said it looked like an eagle to him, but it most certainly was not.
“Yes, I know it was eagle SIZED, but it was clearly moth shaped! Eagle don’t have antennae.” I paused a moment, “You should be nervous. Almost everything you’re wearing is wool. No camp fires tonight.” I drew my pistol, but the creature didn’t return.
Foster left ahead of me and, for a long while, I watched the sky and listened, hearing only the roar of the creek and gentle blowing of the trees.
I arrived at camp to Foster boiling water over a blazing camp fire.
“Blast! I said NO FIRES! We need to douse this out expeditiously!!”
Foster protested he wanted cocoa before turning in and he didn’t see the harm.
“You can have your cocoa later! Moths are attracted to fire!”
Without warning, what indeed turned out to be a curiously large moth dropped upon me from the sky, knocking me into the creek!
“Damn you, Foster.”
I most assuredly did scream as the especially heavy insect crawled up my body heading for my hat! Within moments, my hat was eaten and the moth turned its attention to Foster. He ran down the creek bank, howling as the chattering bug pursued him.
I pealed off two shots from my pistol, hitting nothing substantial. I put my spectacles on, aimed again, and hit the moth in the bottom, as it continued to chew at Foster’s tunic. The fourth shot stung it enough that it fluttered away, leaving Foster completely naked except for a layer of fine dust.
“That settles it, Foster. Next time we’re out here, we’re bringing a crate of moth balls.”
-Capt. A.E. Sable
Vintage Expeditions, Not Values
Kakhi, not red coats.
Civilian, not military.
Self defence, not hunting.
That’s what we’re about.
PLEASE NOTE:
to the Pandemic, this expedition is CANCELLED until it’s safe to travel again. Thanks for your interest.
Mid July (date not confirmed), in Kananaskia, Alberta, near Calgary, Canada.
The expedition will include a short steam train ride, embarking from a historic town, followed the next day by a hike through rugged, pine forested mountains to and from a vast and open cave containing the legendary Pillar of Darkness.
Review of a past participant:
“Having survived the previous first expedition I don’t think we’ll push our luck. Older and wiser, eh? However, we would love to join you for something less arduous like climbing Mt. Everest or swimming in crocodile infested waters. We wish you well. (please leave notes if there is anything specific you want in your eulogy.)” –Col. Reginald Reinholdt, & Lady Eleanor Reinholdt.
Click map to expand
After wrapping up an adventure on the Horn of Africa, and bidding farewell to the surviving team members, I found myself drawn back to the area of the Northwestern Frontier where Jackal had been investigating recently re-opened portals.
After a few days of rail travel, I stepped off the train at a rustic town and made my way to the military post at the foot of a saw-toothed range of granite mountains. I employed my usual ruse of presenting forged documents and credentials to the commander, and soon found myself in the meagerly appointed bachelor quarters, with a Royal Engineer by the name of Captain Finnley. One night, well in his cups, Finnley unveiled me in a scheme of his to locate a forgotten shrine in a valley that the locals shunned.
We secured a couple of ponies and made off one morning “to re-survey the valley, in order to correct errors found on the maps”. Finnley strapped the survey gear to his pony, and added some gray earthenware globes to the load, covering them with canvas. “What are those for?” I asked. “Oh” Finnely said, waggling his eyebrows “All sorts of things!”
We threaded our way through a maze of grotesquely shaped hills that guarded the entrance to the pass, eventually hobbling the oddly nervous ponies, and secured the superfluous survey gear near a copse of sparse trees. Here there began a curious trail of purplish stone chips. The sun beating on the surrounding stone, amplified the heat of the day, and caused ripples in our vision. Finnley brought forth his crude map and indicated some high ground ahead of us, as the location of the shrine. I slung my pack and carbine, placing two rounds in the fingers of my left hand, while Finnley stuffed his valise, with some of his globes and fuses. We stepped through a stone archway then began up the overgrown trail on foot. The chips of purple stone seemed to grow in number. “This is not like the native stone.” Finnley noted, around his cigar “Seems like a violet toned basalt. I wonder where it came from?” Truth be told, I was too busy scanning the copious nooks and hollows in the surrounding rock for bandits to pay much attention.
As we sweated our way up the draw, the trail started to circle the base of a flat topped hillock. The aubergine-hued path passed into the shadow of the hill and shrouded by a jumble of sickly gray undergrowth, a triangular relief in the stone wall was soon revealed. Even in the shade the air was furnace hot, and our vision swam in the heat waves. As we drew closer to the aperture, I could see that the opening was hooded by two slabs of stone, and a kind of sentinel carved of the strange mauve stone squatted by each side of the opening. I pushed the brush out of the way with my boots and rifle butt, and uncovered more of the opening and examined the carved beasts holding up the corners of the stone slabs. Each figure appeared to be holding the slab up, straining in effort, the lifelike carving seemingly stained by pomegranate juice. Finnley unfurled his cloth map again, and smiled, “Those purple bastards must be the gargoyles on this here map!”
Now that some of the brush was cleared away, plainly could we see doors carved in the rock wall. I attempted to pry the portal open with my fingers, then tried levering it with my bayonet, with no success. Finnley pushed me back, with a wink, “Don’t worry, matey, I have just the thing for stuck doors.” and wedged one of his globes into the seam. I stepped behind a nearby boulder. Slinging his bag around his back, Finnley took the cherout from his mouth and touched it to the long fuse.
The burning fuse hissed and spat as it burned toward the door then there was a thunderous crash.
I must have been stunned as I stood up, eyes goggling and ears ringing, I was aghast to see Finnley firing his revolver into a horde of rampaging purple gargoyles, as they poured out of the portal. Ten or so of the creatures had issued forth, and the two we had seen outside now stretched and contorted themselves into living vengeance!
“Start firing already!” Finnley shouted, as he broke open the action on his revolver, fumbling for more bullets at his waist.
My Martini barked in my hands, and I cranked open the lever and slid another round home. I aimed at the center of one of the darting masses and fired, watching as the round smacked into a purple leg, cracking and splintering it off, but the creature kept coming, limping and rolling.
Finnley closed his now reloaded pistol and fired point-blank into one the creature’s heads, and the thing flew back, shaking flinders of living stone from the injury. The head snapped off at the point of impact and stopped, before it vibrated and began rolling uphill toward us. To our horror, the broken off body limped its way to the head, then grasped the’ decapitated crown and hurled it at us! It howled in a thin scream, right past us, and into the ravine below. “That’s for my old gaffer!”, Finnley called at the screeching head. I gritted my teeth and pulled a few more rounds from my bandolier.
I spied, at the portal, a taller, different creature, with a sort of diadem at its throat, who through gesture and sound, seemed to be directing the others. Before I could take a shot at it though, two other creatures swirled around me, and I fought them off with bayonet and rifle butt. Finnley was reloading again, and we backed toward each other.
“This is my last charge of bullets. We’ll never make those ponies now!” Finnley advised, taking aim. I looked south, the trail back, and saw them starting to come over the rocks toward us. I took another two shots, blasting chunks off the closest ones. “How’s your bowling arm!?”, I shouted, indicating the creature with the medallion.
Finnley let his pistol hang from its lanyard, then pulled a globe from the bag. “Think you can hit it!?!”, he intoned, cocking his arm.
I closed the lever on my carbine, aiming toward the boss-creature “One way to find out!”
Finnley underhanded the grenade toward the portal, the creature filling the doorway. I tracked along as it arced and just before it hit the creature I fired.
The creature staggered briefly as my bullet hit the diadem, the stone separating from the gold setting and dropping before the grenade struck the purple chieftain in the chest and fell to the feet of the creature
“Some shot you are!”, yelled Finnley angrily who took off his pith helmet and started batting me with it.
All around us, the creatures slowed in their frenzy, but still closed with us. The lead creature, groped around it’s chest, feeling for the commanding stone, then did a double take, as it saw the gem glittering in the dirt. Ducking Finnley’s blows, I quickly re-chambered and took aim. The chieftain stepped from the portal and squatted down reaching out for the glowing stone and as it did, my next shot flew true.
The globe exploded.
When we picked ourselves up, we were able to locate the flinders of gold jewelry, and many pieces of the glowing stone. As for the guardians, it seemed as the stone shattered, so did they with the sound of talons on chalkboard they collapsed where they were.
We gathered what we could of the shining stone flints and the rest of the gold diadem, and ran for the horses.
I had just swung into the saddle when I looked back and saw something rising behind Finnley…
… end …
For some twenty years, I’d heard about Grotto Canyon, discovered by The Palliser Expedition in 1858. Captain John Palliser described the discovery of a cave having a large stream which lead to a clear pool and green mossy bank. I finally had a chance to investigate the claims in early Autumn, just before the first snow fell.
Apparently, I’d gone about it from the other side than Palliser did. I started at the clear pool and mossy bank and moved West North West before finding a gigantic washout leading to the mouth of a narrow slot canyon – this was first I’ve heard of such a place in my local region of the Bow Valley and Kananaskis Country. Initially, getting over the dried out rock to get into the canyon was quite a chore as it was worn to a polish by thousands of years of raging water. Now, though, the stream was but a trickle, mostly making its presence known through sound rather than sight. It surfaced and hid beneath the canyon floor as it made it’s way down ‘Grotto Mountain’.
The canyon was thoroughly exciting to explore. I’d never seen such high smooth walls or such a tight passage between cliffs. It was warm enough that day that I shed my over shirt and left my tunic open, but that did not stop the sweat pouring down my back nor my thirst. The water in the stream was cold and clean and replenished my water carrier easily.
In truth, the stream widened enough at times that one had to wade through to get to an easier path up the canyon. It was hot enough, though, that my boots and puttees dried almost immediately.
There was some continuing danger as pebbles and stones fell with regularity into the passage near the walls, so I attempted to stay in the open to keep from being pelted.
Astonishingly, I came across ancient pictographs painted by the local natives, perhaps a thousand years ago. in an orange pigment. They seemed to depict devils with spears, but I’m no expert in their mythologies. Still a very exciting find! After walking some time, the sound of the water rose from a trickle to a quiet roar.
A widening of the canyon
It seemed I was getting closer to the source of the stream, which I surmised was more of a rapid creek during the springtime months.
Indeed, I had found a waterfall, one of two, that supplied the stream. The second more leaked from the entire cliff face, rather than fell from above.
And mentioning, ‘fell from above’, the pebbles and stones fell from a much greater height at this part of the canyon and were much larger in size. They pelted my shoulders and helmet, which I was quite thankful to be wearing. I steadied myself against the slick slide of the waterfall’s path, my hands pressed against the rock. Just then, a substantial sized rock struck my hand on the thumb and I nearly tumbled down the fall itself.
The pain was incredible but not as great as the shock. I’d realized I was in a spot of trouble and said so, aloud.
I’m in a spot of trouble.
I’d begun bleeding at an alarming rate, and tied my thumb tightly with a handkerchief and I’d cut off the finger of my glove, which I should have been wearing, to hold the dressing tight. Further exploration of the canyon was aborted as I rushed back to the camp with my hand clutched up and to my shoulder to slow the bleeding. Once safely back at camp, our doctor, Bananas Foster, stitched the gash thrice and instructed me to hold my hand in the ice cold pond to quell the throbbing. I eventually recovered with only minor numbness and a beautiful scar to remind me of taking safety precautions along the trail.
I never did reach the Grotto, but perhaps we’ll mount a proper expedition to find it in the future.
Palliser’s Grotto
