Our Alien Rock
Posted February 3, 2001


Last summer I was mountain biking along a backwoods trails on the outskirts of Whitehorse. The old trail took me along an old rock quarry dump. It's a beautiful spot that overlooks a pine forest filled valley with our unique landmarks of Mt. McIntyre and Mt. Golden Horn, which are very familiar to everyone that lives in our city of 22,000. A very peaceful place that many don't know about. I put my bike down and started walking among the rocks, admiring the view. I spotted this rock that was balanced on a much larger one. The teardrop shape of dark granite in the gray struck me immediately as something familiar. I only saw the one side of the rock at first and thought to myself. "Hey, that looks like the side of an alien head. I wonder if there is an eye on the other side of it?, nah, there couldn't be." I walked around the other side and... "Wow!" There WAS another eye on the other side! Not a perfect tear drop shape but a squinting one. I suspect that the intrusion of dark granite goes right through the head making up both of the eyes. So no, those eyes are not painted on there.

Getting it home was another story. It weighs somewhere between 200 and 300 pounds (90 to 140 Kg). I had to roll the thing about 120 feet (40 metres) up and down piles of dumped rock. It took me three bike trips  and I spent about 20 minutes rolling the thing on each visit until I was exhausted. Then I built a ramp out of more rock so that we could roll it into the trunk of our Toyota Tercel. You should have seen the suspension. The front end was way up in the air. The road leading to the rock dump was not the greatest. Deep puddles almost to the floor of the car. There was one steep section with eroded gullies. I thought for sure we would scrape something. We made it to the Alaska Highway and got it home. It sits at the end of our driveway greeting us whenever we arrive except in the winter, when it is covered in snow. There is my daughter (Deanna) and son (Dane) age 3 and 2 at the time. They are  not only there because they are cute but for scale. That's one big alien rock!

A family heirloom for sure!

written by Martin Jasek. 

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