When I was a boy growing up in Marathon, Ontario, my friends and I spent much of our free time exploring the shoreline of Lake Superior.

There were countless paths leading to favourite places. One of them followed the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks south out of town. After walking about two kilometres we would arrive at a place we simply called “the rock cut.”

There, the railway passed through a granite outcropping carved away years before to make room for the tracks. To us it was a place of endless adventure.

Beyond the cut, trails led east toward the shoreline of Lake Superior. On the west side stretched a large grassy field backed by a towering sand hill—an ancient, raised beach left behind when the waters of Lake Superior stood much higher than they do today and the crest of which is a lookout named “Hawk’s Ridge”. 

We climbed the granite walls of the cut and sat on the rocks as trains thundered past. We waved at engineers, railway workers, and passengers. Sometimes we raced across the field to see how far we could run up the steep sand hill attempting to reach Hawk’s Ridge  before gravity defeated us. Then we would roll back down, laughing and shouting all the way.

The area was filled with traces of earlier times. Rusted pieces of an old steam engine lay scattered among the rocks. Massive iron ring bolts were embedded in the granite. North and west of the cut stood a pile of granite blocks that provided endless opportunities for exploration as we crawled through the gaps between them.

In the open field there were signs that a building had once stood there. A faint outline remained in the grass and nearby were scattered bits of what appeared to be household refuse.

Then one day my friend Wayne and I made a discovery that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

Walking along the treeline at the southern edge of the field, we came upon three wooden crosses.

Time had not treated them kindly. They leaned at awkward angles. The wood was weathered and beginning to decay. Two bore no names at all. Only one cross still carried an inscription:

Josy P. Zaremsky

Neither Wayne nor I had ever heard the name before.

We straightened the crosses as best we could and cleared away some of the brush that had begun to encroach on the site. It seemed the respectful thing to do.

From that day on, whenever we returned to the rock cut, we would visit the crosses. If one had fallen, we would stand it upright again. If brush had grown around it, we would clear it away.

Even as a boy I found myself wondering about the people buried there.

Who was Josy P. Zaremsky?

Who were the two unnamed companions resting beside him?

How had they come to be buried among the birches beside a grassy field along the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks south of Marathon?

The answer would not come for many years.

In fact, it was not until I was teaching Grade 8 that I finally learned the story.

But that is for next time.