{"blocks":[{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"A series of unusual stone formations hidden deep in the forests of southern Quebec is drawing new attention, after a local landowner spent nearly a decade documenting a discovery he believes could offer clues to Canada's prehistoric past."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Steve Durand, founder of LeTerrain, a 400-acre wilderness sanctuary and recently designated Dark Sky Preserve in Quebec, believes he has stumbled upon a part of Canada’s ancient past that has long remained hidden on his property. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"A rock musician and producer in a former life, Durand decided to step back from the music industry and return to his roots by moving back home in 2015."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“I was planning to move back to my chosen home and musical community in Montreal,” Durand recently explained in an email to The Debrief. “But I took a little detour to this property on a tip from my mom, actually, and spent two days here just intrigued by the massive private wilderness.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"It was on his second day at the property that Durand says he had what he characterizes as a \"blinding epiphany\" about one of its seven mountains. \"I decided to leave my life in New York, buy the property, and I was living in a 140-year-old off-grid house a month later.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"When Durand initially bought the property, he never considered that there might be something of potential archaeological significance on it. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“I was motivated by the overwhelming beauty of the land,\" Durand said, \"and I felt connected to it. It fueled my intuition and launched me into this very illogical decision to move off-grid with no real bush experience whatsoever.\" "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"It was only later that he discovered the massive stone formations on the property. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Following the discovery of the odd stone features, which he now refers to as \"monuments,\" in a series of videos on his YouTube channel, Durand reached out to locals to see if they might offer any ideas about their history and purpose. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Most area residents, he says, dismissed his discoveries, having been told they were rock piles made by Canada's early European settlers."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://thedebrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Steve-Durand.jpg"},"caption":"Steve Durand, Founder of LeTerrain, appears alongside one of the rock formations on his property (Image Credit: LeTerrain)."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“The locals had been told that it was farmers who made these structures, clearing the fields,\" Durand said. However, this theory had several problems. For instance, there was no evidence of farming, nor fields that might have been used for it in the area. In some cases, Durand observed that the stone features even appeared to have been constructed into specific shapes. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"These are not found near farms or fields; they are found high up in the forested hills,\" Durand told The Debrief. \"They are found in clusters rather than clearing, they are constructed and built into intentional shapes, they often use extraordinarily heavy stones, and the overall accumulated tonnage of stones worked far exceeds the efforts conceivable of early settlers.\" "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Bringing his counter-arguments to the attention of area locals, Durand says he has now \"managed to convince many of them that it makes no logical sense\" that these features resulted from the work of early settlers farming on remote hilltops."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Following his discovery, Durand began researching possible interpretations of the stone features and their origins—a pursuit that he has maintained for the last decade. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Durand highlights the formations’ careful workmanship and their clustering into what he calls “megasites,” arguing that the scale and organization imply spiritual or ritual significance for the people who built them. He also suggests the structures may have been aligned with astronomical events, similar to other ancient stone traditions worldwide, and could reflect a large, long-lived culture capable of constructing monuments across a broad region."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“The territory the stoneworks define is quite specific,\" Durand said. \"Due to the fact that so many megasites are found all around the shores of the ancient Champlain Sea, never below the water line, and never far from the shoreline, I believe that this culture can be dated with reference to the ancient Champlain Sea around 10,000 years before present,” he says. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"While archaeologists have not yet verified Durand's interpretations, he says the discoveries at LeTerrain raise broader questions about poorly understood prehistoric activity in eastern Canada and whether undiscovered cultural landscapes may still exist in North America’s remote wilderness."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“I believe that these stone constructions are the work of a thus far unrecognized ancient culture that built representational and spiritual stone monuments on a colossal scale,\" Durand told The Debrief. \"Their culture terraformed landscapes from up here in West Quebec all the way down the Atlantic coast as far as Tennessee.”"}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"Establishing Why and When","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Seeking an academic perspective, The Debrief reached out to Andrew A. White, a research archaeologist with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, for his opinions on Durand's discoveries."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"The 'why' and 'when' questions are often tough to answer when we’re trying to interpret a pile or line of rocks made by humans,\" White told The Debrief in an email."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"As for determining the \"why\" behind Durand's discoveries, White says that a range of factors must be considered. \"People move rocks around for many different reasons—clearing fields, building walls or house foundations, making monuments, marking important locations, or creating drivelines or corrals for animals,\" he said."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Figuring out the original purpose of a pile or line of stones can be especially difficult in areas where there is more than one possible explanation,\" White added. As an example, White points to known examples of how Indigenous groups in eastern North America have, at times, created rock piles for ceremonial or other purposes. White notes, however, that \"later colonists created similar-looking piles and lines\" as they moved stones from fields to use for homestead and farm buildings."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The \"when,\" White explained, can be just as tricky to identify when it comes to rock formations."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"We can’t directly date the rocks themselves, so usually we have to find something underneath the rocks that can tell us the maximum age of the surface the rocks were piled on,\" White told The Debrief. \"If a burned hearth underneath a rock wall dates to a thousand years ago, for example, the wall can’t be older than a thousand years. It could, in fact, have been made much more recently.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"If I were to pile rocks on top of an archaeological site that is 10,000 years old, after a few decades, the rock pile may appear to be just as ancient as the site it is sitting on top of,\" White said, \"even though it is much younger.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"The difficulty of the 'why' and 'when' questions leaves a lot of room for rock features to be misinterpreted,\" White said."}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"Shapes and Sizes Found","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"In total, Durand says he has identified a variety of rock formations, ranging from stone walls to serpent-like constructions. Some, he explains, spiral up a hillside, with formations appearing at successive elevations."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“I have found so many different shapes and sizes of both the structures and the stones chosen to build them,” Durrant says. “I’ve found many shapes that recur, and I’ve put them into three main categories: mounds, structures, and infrastructure. The mounds are generally built with small stones and are oval in shape, anywhere from 6 by 10 feet to 30 by 20 feet. They all share the same proportions, differing only in size. I’ve found a cluster of 30 large mounds on one hillside.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The structures are formed from larger stones, often 4 to 7 feet tall. \"I’ve found perfect cylinders, serpentine wavy walls with massive ‘headstones,’ all with very intentional and beautifully designed curvatures,\" he says."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Durand goes on to explain that \"on one of the megasites, I discovered seven extraordinarily large constructions: platform mounds of smaller stones, 2 to 4 feet tall, 15 to 40 feet in diameter, topped with extremely large stones, some exceeding two tons.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"The third category is what I call infrastructure,\" he says, which Durand interprets as \"roadways, pathways, retaining walls, and terracing that connect the mounds and structures within a megasite.”"}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://thedebrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1A4BAFA7-2312-48B8-8D53-6DF3B98C6B1F_1_201_a.jpeg"},"caption":"A map of rock formations found on Steve Durand's LeTerrain and the surrounding areas (Image Credit: LeTerrain)."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Durand also believes the hill’s perimeter may conceal an ancient road. As sand erodes, large stones appear beneath the surface, seemingly placed intentionally along what he interprets as a road base. He says he plans to conduct a ground LiDAR scan to determine whether the feature is indeed an ancient roadway and to estimate its age, although the work would be costly."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“The infrastructure, the stone roads and pathways that you’ve witnessed surrounding Mount Bald serve no apparent logical purpose,\" Durand told The Debrief. \"They circumvent this one mountain and don’t lead to or from the megasite; they just exist there in three tiers in a kind of spiral of road circling this one mountain and connecting all of the greater structures.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Although it’s hard to tell, as 70 to 80 percent of these roads and pathways have been swallowed up by the earth over an extraordinary long period of time,” Durand said."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"During a 2025 visit to Durand's property by The Debrief, one structure, which Durand interprets as a serpent-like formation, stood out among the various stone features."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“The serpent construct is fascinating for many reasons,\" Durand explained. \"I have found several, and people researching through New England have found hundreds. It’s a recurring shape not only in these stone constructions but also in ancient cultures worldwide.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"The one here on my land is about 40 feet long by 15 feet wide by four feet high and clearly undulates on both sides quite intentionally,” Durand explained during our visit."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://thedebrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/stone-features.jpg"},"caption":"Alleged \"serpent\" rock formation found on the LeTerrain property (Image Credit: Chrissy Newton/The Debrief)."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“As you can see, the sides have been very specifically constructed to form this undulating wall,\" Durand said. \"At one end, we find, as we do with so many others in the area, a very large headstone of between 500 and 800 pounds. I feel it’s noteworthy as well that this serpentine body and head face directly into the setting sun on the winter solstice.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Currently, the most widely accepted archaeological evidence for the earliest human presence in what is now Canada comes from sites such as Bluefish Caves in the Yukon. Dating to roughly 24,000 years ago, animal bones bearing cut marks from stone tools support the idea that humans occupied Beringia—the land bridge connecting Asia and North America—during the Last Glacial Maximum. Evidence from Bluefish Caves and other ancient North American archaeological sites upended the previously accepted “Clovis-first” model, which argued that human arrival in the Americas began no earlier than around 13,000 years ago. Many Indigenous communities across Canada also maintain oral histories that describe their deep and long-standing presence on these lands."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"If confirmed, Durand's discoveries would add to a growing number of archaeological finds in Canada that have recently attracted attention. Last year, archaeologists in northern Ontario reported the discovery of a rune-inscribed stone slab discovered in remote wilderness near Wawa, featuring 255 characters from the Nordic Futhark alphabet. The inscription was found to be a full rendering of the Lord’s Prayer, along with carvings of a boat and additional markings. Although initially thought to be ancient Viking writing, analysis suggests a much later origin, likely carved by Swedish Hudson’s Bay Company workers in the 19th century as an act of devotion."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Canada has long been home to unique archaeological discoveries. Sites such as the Peterborough Petroglyphs—known to Indigenous communities for generations—depict animals, humans, and symbolic figures, while petroforms and stone alignments across Ontario and the Prairies form large patterned arrangements of stones often linked to ceremonial, navigational, or astronomical purposes. Many of these Indigenous cultural features date back roughly 1,000 to 2,500 years and remain only partly understood, with their meanings preserved primarily through oral traditions."}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"Consultation, Caution, and What Comes Next","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"If Durand’s observations are correct, the implications could represent an important addition to Canada’s ancient history; however, the need for proper analysis of the area and its features remains essential."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Archaeologists like Andy White emphasize that stone formations alone are not enough to confirm human construction or cultural intent. Proper excavation, documentation, dating methods, and consultation with Indigenous communities are required before any conclusions can be drawn."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"For his part, Durand has begun reaching out to researchers, cultural historians, anthropologists, and Indigenous representatives in an effort to move the investigation forward respectfully and transparently. However, he says he has encountered limited response and, at times, some pushback. One recent past communication was with Quebec’s Ministry of Culture and Communications, which Durand says “reached out to me shortly after my first YouTube video, saying they would be paying me a visit.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"They sent their experts, spent the day investigating,\" Durand told The Debrief. Following that initial visit, Durand said further engagement came in the form of \"a couple of years of Zoom calls with their team as I pushed for proper investigation, validation, and protection of the site.\" "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Ultimately, Durand says representatives with Quebec’s Ministry of Culture told him there was “nothing of archeological interest” to the sites. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Which, to me, translates into 'these are not Algonquin',\" Durand told The Debrief. Nonetheless, officials with Quebec’s Ministry of Culture had reportedly advised Durand not to disturb the sites, \"just in case.\" "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The Debrief also reached out to Quebec's Ministry of Culture regarding Durand’s claims, but received no response to our inquiries. "}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"A Inuit Elder's Perspective","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Peter Ittinuar Freuchen, an Inuk elder and former Canadian Member of Parliament who was instrumental in the formation of Nunavut—the largest and northernmost territory of Canada—also commented on the formations during a YouTube interview on Durand’s Le Terrain channel (seen below), where he notes that traditionally “the Algonquin have been shown these rock structures, and they said these these are not us; these were not made by us.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Apparently, government officials have come and looked at these structures and said they were made by the farmers in the area,\" Freuchen said, echoing Durand's interpretations by adding that \"there is no reason for the farmers of the area to make these structures whatsoever. They were too busy trying to feed their families.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"These structures are symbolic,\" Freuchen says in the video, suggesting that there may have been \"a spiritual reason to be there.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“If they were not made by the Algonquin ... then the conclusion can be made that they were made by people before the Algonquin,\" Freuchen says."}},{"id":"4d471una-v5w2otwi","type":"embed","data":{"service":"youtube","source":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/po_2PYISPbQ","embed":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/po_2PYISPbQ","caption":"","height":"auto","width":"100%"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Freuchen also notes in the interview that archaeologists have long debated who first arrived on what is now Canadian soil."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"The Inuit and anthropology agree,\" Freuchen says in the video, adding \"that there were people before we Inuit—we called them the Tuniit—I thinkanthropologists called them the pre-Dorset culture. And there was an overlap when the Inuit came into the Arctic areas, the Tuniit were there. They were a different people, physically—apparently bigger, according to oral history—apparently bigger, stronger physically, but very, very timid, employing very much the same technology that the Inuit have, but not as advanced.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"According to oral histories, the Tuniit gradually died out over time, although anthropological views on the persistence of what is commonly called the Dorset culture into recent centuries differ from accounts in Inuit oral history."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"At the interview's conclusion, Freuchen says that his observations of the stone structures on Durand's property \"astounded\" him, adding that they could point to echoes of Canada's pre-Algonquin culture. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"If the Algonquin say these are not ours, they were not obviously made by farmers on a whim, or for symbolic or spiritual reasons, the only real conclusion I can come to here as a layman is that these were made pre-Alonquin, and there were people before them here,\" Freuchen says. "}},{"type":"header","data":{"text":"Lingering Questions","level":2}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Durand says that in the future, ground-penetrating radar scans will be conducted to better understand whether anything exists beneath the surface of the hill that could provide additional context for the stone structures, as well as whether their placement could reveal clues to their design. "}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"For archaeologists like Andy White, such information could offer crucial evidence to help establish when these features were assembled and, ultimately, what the builders' purpose might have been."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"To get accurate interpretations of these kinds of stone features, you first need evidence that establishes when they were built,\" White told The Debrief. \"And then you need to work carefully to develop ideas about why they were built.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"The more independent lines of evidence you can utilize, the better,\" White added."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"That’s how you build a convincing case.\""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org."}}]}

Mysterious Stone Structures in Southern Quebec's Wilderness Spark Debate Over Canada’s Ancient Past

A Lake Vanished Without a Trace in Remote Quebec—Can Satellite Data Solve the Mystery?