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"The
tree was the healthiest tree you could have imagined. It was
a monster tree," Mr. Etmanskie said. He guessed that
the shoe was hung around it when it was about three inches
wide.
In his experiences as the owner of a logging company, Mr.
Etmanskie has seen horseshoes in trees before, but they've
usually been hung from a branch and the tree has absorbed
the shoe as the branch grows. Neither he nor his late father,
a veteran logger, could ever recall seeing or hearing of something
quite as unusual as a horseshoe laid horizontally inside the
center of a tree.
Curator David Kelley in front of Combermere, Ontario's
Mission House Museum.
Once Mr. Kelley received the artifact for display in the museum,
foremost on the curator's mind was preserving the wood and
the horseshoe. After researching several different preservation
methods, experts told him the best he could do was to apply
linseed oil to the wood. They explained that the section would
eventually develop a crack from the outside to the center
of the tree, but that would be the extent of the damage. "And
that's exactly what happened," he noted. "We're
quite happy with the way it is."
Debora Dekok
http://www.missionhousemuseum.com/
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