SOLDIERS’ CAVE ART A WAR WONDER

Saskatchewan stonemason’s work carved into history

Aleck James Ambler was a stonemason by trade and a Canadian by choice, leaving his native England at age 21 in 1905 to start over as a pioneer in Saskatchewan. Ambler’s first stop was Moose Jaw, a frontier town, where he worked with stone until he had scraped together enough money to buy a homestead near Foam Lake. He planted crops, married a Canadian girl named Mary and started a family.

Ambler was 30 when war broke out in Europe. He was quick to enlist and arrived in France in 1916, earning his place as a sniper and patrol leader. He was already battle-worn by the time of Vimy.

An older presence, among mostly younger men who, about three weeks before the historic battle, and as the bombs crashed overhead, sought refuge 10 metres beneath the ground in an old chalk mine.

The Canadians affectionately referred to the mine as the Maison Blanche — in honour of the chalk-white farmhouse nearby.

That old white farmhouse is now red brick, but the Maison Blanche cave remains. It is a wonder of the war years, an art gallery of sorts, that was effectively lost to history until a bunch of history buffs — many of them retired British soldiers — rediscovered the mine about 10 years ago. It was jammed with farm garbage that the resident farmer, a fellow by the name of Delabres, dumped there, presumably out of convenience. What the mess concealed was a multitude of cave drawings, etched into the chalk walls by the soldiers.