The logistical problems , though considerable, were easily enough solved through the hospitality and assistance of northern people during our travels over the years. The Rocky and Swampy Cree trappers, fishermen, and other northerners in Manitoba and Saskatchewan pinpointed virtually all the sites, and provided abundant historical, folkloric, and other cultural information on the rock paintings. The red paintings reproduce very poorly in most black and white photographs, and color photographs are too expensive and impermanent. Therefore, I was forced to invent. In the laboratory, the tracing is placed on a light table, the images are re-drawn on a sheet of paper which can then be cut into a stencil, and the images reproduced by stippling ink from a brush into the final sheet of paper through the stencils.
Rock art poses many such challenges and many fascinating questions.
This organization has a Canada-wide membership of scholars and interested citizens, as well as members in other countries. We now know that the Canadian Shield style of rock art paintings occurs in a geographical region stretching from northwestern Saskatchewan as far east as Quebec, as far north as Reindeer Lake, and as far south as Minnesota. The Urals rock paintings occur in very similar geological and climatic circumstances to the northern Canadian ones. Most evidence appears to indicate that the paintings reflect the religious philosophy of historical and ancestral Cree and Ojibwa. These hunters and fishers emphasized individual vision-seeking as the major focus of religious experience.