Earlier this year I wrote about Sandland, the peculiar underground "playground" being excavated beneath rural Wisconsin. Other obligations have kept me away, but I was able recently to go and work for an afternoon. Moving sand. Here I am in full kit. Respirator, hearing protection, grubby clothes, steel toed boots. I should have brought a headlamp. As it turns out they had no loaners so I just duct taped a flashlight to the muffs and it worked fine.
Inside of course there are no seasons. In fact there is no day or night, no variation in temperature, no sound from the outside world. There is just stone and the slowly advancing tunnels gnawing through it.
The procedure for tunneling is interesting but not easy to document in photos. Some of it takes place in cramped, noisy spaces with plenty of sand in the air. The actual excavation is done with these guys:
This is a heavy duty demolition hammer made by Milwaukee Tool. Even these robust units can only stand 8 minutes of continuous work before they start to complain. So the Sand People have three of them. When the 8 minutes are up the excavator just steps away and goes to another face where the next tool is waiting. And then the next. This allows the sand removal person, yours truly, to get the debris moved with minimal interference in the digging. Shovel the pulverized sand into buckets. Buckets into some very clever wagons that can snake through winding tunnels. Wagons dumped into hatches that lead to a miniature mine train. The train gets hauled up and out to be dumped on the spoil heap via an elaborate cable system.
It is grinding labor. You are shoveling at odd angles then hefting buckets and carrying them down twisting passages to where the wagon can reach. Fill the wagon. Pull it through more winding tunnels. Dump it down the hatches into the train cars below. Repeat. You bump your head on things, you get sand everywhere, it is hard to breath through the respirator. Conversation is impossible.
And it is also quite fun. I felt as if I was working on a Dude Ranch run by dwarves. Among other things it has given me a perspective, perhaps unique in the 21st century, of what it took to dig 19th century brewery caves. Same geology. Same basic tech. To go full 19c just ditch the power tools and do it all with pickaxes supplemented here and there by some good old dynamite you could buy at the hardware store back in the day.
As discussed previously this is a long term project. In the tool shed there is a chart documenting numbers of loads dumped on work days going back in time.
I suppose I could puzzle out how many tons of sand this is....each "car" in the train is about 500 pounds, but the number would be horrifying.
There is a long term plan here. Very long term. The expectation is that in 1000 years somebody could come here and enjoy the maze, the tavern, the donut room, the various shrines and attempts at timeless humor. Geologically this is feasible. But realistically? People are transient and even determined, indomitable people eventually falter and pass from the scene. Eventually so also passes knowledge. Truth becomes lore and eventually myth. What would the uninitiated think of Sandland if they stumbled upon it in 50 or 100 years?
I've suggested that an elaborate time capsule would be in order, as well as some kind of monumental inscription near the entrance. This last in particular. We are still figuring out things about Vindolanda based on 1800 year old bashed stonework that turns up. And one assumes, or at least hopes, that Sandland will have fewer issues with religious iconoclasts and savage Picts and Visigoths. But what should such an inscription say?
Maybe just SANDLAND with dates for the geology (going back many millions of years) and for the human efforts which are a Mayfly's cup of morning coffee in comparison. But will the eccentric humor that pervades indeed defines the place become a factor? What would future marveling discoverers make of something off beat? Perhaps....
or
OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS
Addendum. Below is a nice video showing recent work on The Sand Bar. Gabe does excellent videography.
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