At the very start of the project a meeting was held with Sheldon Sveinson of Flying Pigment Design Studio. At that meeting were Les Crosthwaite, Roger Dutton and Carl Sabanski. The result of the meeting was the development of the themes for twelve icons. A series of 12 distinct and beautiful icons were designed by the artists of FPDS. These icons are displayed both in the granite tiles which form part of the base plate as well as in the gnomon itself.

Les and Roger played an important role in the design of the heritage icons by ensuring that they factually reflected the theme that they were designed to represent. For some subjects they provided illustrations from books they had to assist the artists in the development of particular icons.

Les and Roger as well as a third volunteer, Jeff Long, have undertaken the task of researching the icon themes and writing about the significance of each theme as it pertains to the history and development of the region. These descriptions will be used in a pamphlet as well as an interpretive kiosk.

This was a job that was definitely not anticipated. But with a lot of help from Bud Biddiscombe, we were able to lay out the outer templates. For these templates we were fortunate to receive a donation of 7 sheets of 5/8 inch tongue and groove chipboard flooring which had been in storage for over 10 years waiting to be used on this project. After Bud and I drew the templates on the sheets, Glenn Honke cut them out for us. At this point the curves were just cut a straight lines. To lay out the curves, we used full scale drawings of the templates. These were placed on the wood and a portion of the paper containing the curve was glued to the surface of the wood. The exposed wood was then spray painted red. Glenn was then able to create the curves in the wood template.

The template required for the circle was made from 3/4 inch plywood by Stan Kekisk. How he made it, I don't know. All I know is that the radius is 5ft., he used a 4ft. x 8ft. sheet of plywood, and the template is one piece.

This work was all done in the carpenter's shop at AECL by Glenn and Stan. We had no idea where and how this job was going to done but all these men pitched in to help. Thank you!

When the granite tiles arrived at Flying Pigment Design Studio, the job of sandblasting the images into the granite began. To protect the areas that were to remain polished, rubber masks had to be created and applied. The masks were cut with the aid of a computer controlled cutter. They were positioned on the granite tiles and "hammered" into place to ensure that they were securely attached. After the images were sandblasted into the granite, these areas were lightly painted white. The white paint provides contrast between the polished and sandblasted areas even when the stone is wet.