A stone that can be discovered in many buildings across the province and was discovered in Manitoba, is now attracting foreign attention.
Tyndall Stone is mined in Garson, Man. et has been the perspective of brands for nearly two hundred years. Limestone is more than 400 million years old and full of fossil fragments.
It was first used to build the walls and warehouses of Lower Fort Garry in 1832 and is now a component of the Manitoba Legislative Building, the Manitoba Museum and the Central Bloc of Parliament in Ottawa.
Tyndall Stone was used to build the walls and warehouses of Lower Fort Garry (CTV News Winnipeg archive)
Number TEN Architectural Group will use Manitoba stone in the design of the Richardson Innovation Center.
“We had a specific vision in the brain of combining glass and a very smooth design with some textured features. So it has very good compatibility with the big picture,” said Doug Hanna, the company’s architect.
Donna Gillis, director of operations at Gillis Quarries, Garson’s quarry, said most of the time, the stone is used for external cladding.
“But we do it in other internal things depending on what the user wants. It can be just internal pieces, it can be just for tabletops, you know, by giving it another look, another fashionable use of the same material,” Gillis said. saying.
Now, the stone is identified globally through the Subcommittee on Heritage Stones.
Donna Gillis, chief operating officer at Gillis Quarries, explains that Tyndall Stone has several uses. (CTV News Photo Jon Hendricks)
“There were no Canadian stones on the list. They had Carrara marble with which Rome was built. They had the Portland stone with which he built London. They had Tennessee marble that was used throughout North America. There was no Canadian stone,” said Graham Young, curator of geology and paleontology at the Manitoba Museum.
Young, along with one of his colleagues at the University of Saskatchewan, proposed the stone and now the organization is classifying Tyndall Stone as a designated World Heritage stone resource.
“Humans have this dating with geological fabrics, we take them for granted. We take them for granted,” Young said, adding, especially when one of the tissues is only extracted in Manitoba.