Wallenstein mural honours legacy of Queen’s Bush pioneers
Ottawa artist Kalkidan Assefa's 'The Song Continues' celebrated on grounds of former Black settlement
WALLENSTEIN – Black migrants, some free, some formerly enslaved, cleared the land at the present-day border of Wellington County and Woolwich Township and farmed it in the early 19th century.
But when the government surveyed and sold it in the 1840s, many of the 1,500 Black settlers couldn’t afford to stay on the very land they had cultivated.
On Saturday, a new mural by Ottawa artist Kalkidan Assefa honouring that story was celebrated at Earthscape in Wallenstein, on land that was part of the settlement.
Titled The Song Continues, the mural covers two sides of a building’s corrugated metal exterior.
On one side, hands work a hoe into the land and swing an axe into wood. A row of tombstones are based on a nearby cemetery connected to the settlement.
On the other, hands are raised toward a higher power, and a boy reads with the hand of an ancestor on his shoulder urging him onward.
As the sides converge, two people sing with hands outstretched, clapping — the mural’s central focus.
The singers were inspired by Guelph resident Tracy Lee Johnson, a descendent of John Lawson and Thomas Mallet, Black freedom seekers who fled enslavement in the U.S. via the Underground Railroad and helped form Queen’s Bush.
“The inspiration … really was Tracy and her family story, and that being the entry point for me, and for a lot of folks to understand this history,” Assefa told a gathering of around 120 people.
Johnson performed Oh Freedom, Wade in the Water, God Bless the Child, I Know Where I've Been and others at the event.
“My ancestors are here right now … they are shining and smiling down on us as we continue with this,” she said.
Assefa said he began with a water-based primer over the metal exterior, sketched his artwork on the primer, and worked through large blocks of base colour with latex paints.
Then came details — highlights, shadows, textures— all spray painted from a boom lift.
It took all of July to finish the mural, he told the Advertiser.
“I had bins, I had a whole truck full of paint, so much paint — I went through hundreds of cans on this project,” Assefa said.
The idea originated with Mark Schwartz of Mapleton-based playground builder Earthscape.
He took it to Elmira-based Hearts Open for Everyone (HOPE), an anti-racism non-profit that ultimately organized the project.
“When Mark approached us in May with a vision for this project, we knew it was a sacred opportunity to bring regional Black history out of the archives and into the open to give this history the honour it truly deserves,” said HOPE executive director Abby Cooper.
The project cost just over $45,000, according to Cooper, with contributions from Earthscape, the “RT04” tourism group, Township of Woolwich, Mapleton Historical Society, Wellington County Historical Society, and individual donors.
Kitchener-Conestoga MP Tim Louis, Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz, and Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae provided remarks at the event.
Rae said drivers will see the mural while cresting Highway 86, a daily reminder of the area’s history.
Cooper said generations to come can look upon the mural “with pride for the legacy that paved the way for them.”
Assefa said his work, and its title, “alludes to a continuity, and not just a past history.”
“Legacy is something that continues,” he said.
