A 17th century Swedish translation of The Lord’s Prayer has been discovered carved into the bedrock of the Canadian wilderness—but with the twist that it’s inscribed in a form of runes that fell out of use over 1,200 years ago. Although the archaeologist and linguist investigating the odd find believe that the carvings were made sometime in the early 19th century, the strange combination of language, location and lost symbols leave the timing and identity of the author in question.

The inscription, located near the Ontario town of Wawa, was exposed by the uprooting of a number of trees during a storm that occurred in 2015. Consisting of 255 characters that cover 1.2 by 1.5 meters (4′ by 5′) of exposed bedrock, the writing is accompanied by the depiction of what appears to be a boat with 16 people on board, with 14 X or cross symbols arranged in two nearby groups.

In 2018, images of the carvings caught the attention of the director of the Ontario Centre for Archaeological Education, Ryan Primrose, who launched an investigation into the strange inscriptions. Recognizing that the symbols were Nordic runes, Primrose enlisted the expertise of runology expert Henrik Williams, an emeritus professor with Sweden’s Uppsala University.

“Well it’s certainly among the least expected finds that I think I’ve encountered during my career,” Primrose remarked. “It’s absolutely fascinating.”

“We didn’t want to release information publicly until we had done as much as we could at the time to understand exactly what it was,” Primrose explained in regards to the seven-year delay between the discovery of the carvings and their announcement to the public. Terms with the owner of the property that the runes reside on also had to be worked out, resulting in the news of this strange find not being released until the summer of 2025.

After analyzing the inscriptions “under a tarpaulin for three hours with a flash light” on a dreary October day, Williams identified the inscription as a version of The Lord’s Prayer written in Swedish by Johannes Bureus in 1611, albeit in a runic system known as Elder Futhark, a writing system that fell out of use during the 8th century CE.

“It must have taken days and days of work,” Williams remarked. “They are really deeply carved into the rock. Someone must have spent a couple of weeks carving this thing.”

These revelations presented a number of contradictions: as a writing system that fell out of use over 12 centuries ago, understanding of Elder Futhark runes wasn’t regained until Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge deciphered the lost alphabet in 1865, well after the publishing of Bureus’ prayer.

Upon investigation, Primrose found that The Hudson’s Bay Company is on record as having employed Swedish workers at their trading posts in the early 1800s, including at the nearby Michicopoten Outpost; this, along with the weathering on the inscriptions being consistent with this date, led Primrose to believe that the carving was made around that time.

However, the question as to how the author of the inscriptions was familiar with the supposedly-lost Elder Futhark runic system remains, unless the carvings were made sometime after 1865. Bureus, the author of the version of The Lord’s Prayer that appears on the stone, promoted the use of runes in Swedish works, so it is fitting to have this particular prayer inscribed in runes; however, this implies that the carver was also familiar with Bugge’s deciphering of Elder Futhark, and thought to combine the two.

The appearance of the ship and the figures supposedly depicting its crew also adds to the puzzle: while the size of the craft isn’t unusual for the 8-to-12-man canoes used by voyageurs of the era, the prow and stern depicted in the carving is unusually high for such a craft, a feature more associated with Viking longships that would have been used when Elder Futhark was still in use; however, the carving also lacks the rigging and sails that were typical of Norse craft, so it’s currently impossible to say for certain which type of craft the artist intended to depict.

But regarding Primrose’s early 19th century dating of the inscriptions, Williams said that he’s “a little disappointed” that the carvings are only about two centuries old, but pointed out that “the mystery around it doesn’t decrease just because it’s slightly younger than we hoped it was.

“Anybody has to start wondering ‘Why on Earth did they carve it here and why did they choose that text?’ And there’s no answers.”