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hirty years ago, on a trip to England, Wendell Sedgwick’s bus was held up by construction on a arrow English road. When he looked out is window he saw construction workers uilding a stone fence. In an effort to viden the highway, the workers were 2aring down the existing fence and sbuilding it farther away from the road armac. Sedgwick was struck by the pru- ence of the spectacle. “J had been dumping stones for years, ust to get rid of them when I take them ff the field. Dump them anywhere. I rought, ‘Why don’t I start building ences?’ The pioneers did it, I can do it, 30.” Small strands of hay cling to iedgwick’s blue sweater, the result of vaking at dawn this morning to feed his attle. His white hair slightly ruffled, he 3 eager to talk about his stone fence. When I notice a dirty elastic bandage round his left wrist, he says it helps to tabilize it because “arthritis tends to wrt.” The supports on his knees help out s well. That doesn’t stop Sedgwick from doing he work of two men on his farm off Dounty Road 1. Aside from his cattle, he uso chops wood, plants crops and of rourse, builds stone fences. The stone ‘ences are sprawled throughout his prop- wrty stretching for hundreds of yards. Sedgwick estimates, with a full day’s work, he can move two linear feet for- ward a day. “It’s not exciting work and it’s not fast work. It’s boring, dull, and deadly. And I -ather enjoy it.” Sedgwick remembers helping his father ‘epair old, rusty barbed wire fences in his youth. He says it was “just horrid stuff to jo”, but during the Second World War orand new wiring was hard to come by. That same old wire fence is now onveloped in a six-foot triangle of loosely set stones. And while wire fencing has a ifespan of only 20 to 40 years, the stone fences Sedgwick builds will last for cen- turies. An ordained minister in the United Church, Sedgwick spent most of his life away from the farm serving congrega- tions near Madoc, Campbellford, and Port Hope. It is only since retiring in 1997 that he has returned to the farm he grew up in. He appears talking about his ministry, saying, “I Id Wendell Sedgwick first gained an appreciation for stone fences ona were trip to England. Now he builds them. e stone fence builder He once ministered to souls; “now Wendell Sedgwick tends to row housing for God’s creatures Story and photos by Lance Crossley didn’t like the idea of being a minister. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know if I ever did come to like being a minister. So now Ihave come back to my roots.” His father suffered from poor circula- tion when he was young, losing a toe to gangrene (his mother lost a leg to the same ailment). That meant spending more time on the farm for young Sedgwick, delaying his high school grad- uation until the age of 20. Sedgwick worked another seven years on the farm before being confronted with a dilemma. In the post-war culture there was a pre- vailing sentiment that farmers were not needed. At the same time the United “Church was advertising a shortage of ministers. Since a university degree was required to become a minister, Sedgwick decided to take a correspondence course in English literature at Queen’s University. Secretly he hoped he would fail, thereby cementing his vocation on the farm. “Unfortunately, I got the highest marks of anybody who took the course. And so I said, ‘Well Wendell, you can’t flop out on that’. So I took the plunge.” eo Sedgwick hops on his tractor and says he’ll meet me by the stone fence he’s working on down toward the railroad. As I’m walking down the dirt road I get a chance to take in the view. of the land. Sedgwick’s farm is nestled in a valley between a creek and a hill. In the dis- tance, at the edge of a road, a long stone fence rises over the hill as far as I can see, perhaps a half-kilometre or so. The fence traces the contour of the hill with an elastic elegance, not daring to disturb the integrity of the countryside. Its beau- ty is indistinguishable from the trees and animals that surround it. When I catch up to Sedgwick he is already busy at work on the fence. He starts by laying the largest stones five to seven feet apart. He then administers the stones as a bricklayer would, breaking the joints, trying to cover the two stones below with one stone above. He chooses a stone with great care, sizing up the best spot to place it or, conversely, he finds a spot and will look for its appropriate stone. The art of building’a stone fence seems akin to playing cupid, finding stones that are best suited to co-exist together. They see EVEN page I Comm i Viess