Smiley stone wall remains a tourist attraction

By Joan Janzen

A wall of stone in the midst of the flat Saskatchewan landscape has attracted the attention of motorists for close to sixty years. Johnson’s stone wall, sometimes referred to as the Great Wall of Saskatchewan, is located one and a half kilometres west of Smiley, Sask.

The man who started building the wall back in 1961 passed away in 2001 at the age of 92. However, the archives of the West Central Crossroads contain a January 25, 1984 article when the famous farmer, Bert Johnson, was alive and well and excited to talk about his wall-building journey.

The then 75-year-old Johnson said his job as a boy had been herding cattle, “And we had storms during the winter that were as severe as the ones today, which means you didn’t have any protection out on the land.” So Johnson would get on a high spot in the pasture and gather stones around him to make a wall that might be six feet high by four feet wide to offer some protection.

When asked, “Why did you build the wall?” he replied,” Everyone, when you’re young, has something you want to do when you’re older. And more often than not, you don’t get the chance.” Bert Johnson had both the opportunity and the time to build his stone wall and started collecting rocks in 961.

Johnson told the Crossroads reporter in 1984, “It didn’t have a beginning because when I started, I didn’t know what I wanted. I just wanted to do something to show I’d been here.”

Sxty years later, the wall still remains, running along the property line of the Johnson farm for half a mile, twelve feet tall at its highest point and six feet wide.

“It really didn’t have a beginning, and I don’t want it to end. I’m hoping the next generation will keep adding to it,” Johnson had said. Perhaps he was not only hoping future generations would continue building the wall but also encouraging them to continue building their dreams.