Brothers carve out stone-lifting community in Edmonton, start a podcast
Lifting stones, an ancient tradition of strength, perseverance and in some cases manhood, has been adopted and popularized in recent years around the world, including here in Edmonton.
Brothers Dave and Dale Nisbet participate in lifting historical and non-historical stones, creating a community of like-minded individuals that call themselves “Edmonton Stones of Strength.”
“We use that as a form of strength training and a good time to get together with people outside. And it’s a lot of fun,” Dave told CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM on Wednesday.
“But the stuff that really was interesting to us is the historic stones which are all over the world.”
The group was started by Dave in 2022 and later joined by Dale, who started lifting stones that same year. In May 2023, they launched a podcast called Stones of Strength, where they discuss the development and re-emergence of the activity.
Stone lifting involves people being challenged to lift heavy, natural stones — anywhere from 200 to 400 pounds — to prove strength. Lifting stones is very popular around Europe, especially around Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and parts of England.
Dave said he became interested in stone lifting in 2019 after participating in Strongman, a competition where competitors display their raw strength by doing challenges such as lifting rocks, toting refrigerators, pulling semi-trailers or trains.
Around the same time, he watched a 2016 documentary called Stoneland about the historical stones of Scotland.
“Dale and I have Scottish heritage, so immediately I was like, ‘this is something that I’ve just got to go and do,'” he said.
In 2022, the brothers travelled to Scotland and lifted 12 historical stones, including the Fianna stone, a 280-pound rock that has 700-plus years of documented history of being a test of strength.
“Young men could become eligible to become and start training to be a Fianna warrior,” Dale said.
Brothers Dave and Dale Nisbet put a weighty spin on the question, “What can you lift?” The Edmontonians are passionate about stones that have been lifted for centuries, and the history surrounding them. They met with CBC’s Mark Connolly to shine a light on this unique sport.
History of stone lifting
According to Conor Heffernan, lecturer in sociology of sport at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, stone lifting goes back to ancient times.
“Going back to as early as the 6th century BC, we know that someone named Bybon, was a great Greek athlete, was lifting a heavy stone to impress people with his strength,” Heffernan said.
He said there were old lifting cultures in India and Japan, and across Europe in Scotland, Ireland and Iceland.
There is pre-modern history where stone lifting is associated with gods and demigods, and then there is modern history dating back to the 1700s where stone lifting was tied to work.
“Effectively, they had a lifting stone as a job interview,” he said. “If you wanted to row this boat, you had to lift the heavy stones.”
Heffernan said in recent history, stone lifting dates back to 1986 when it was added to Strongman competitions.
Then in 2002, actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger created the Arnold Strongman Classic which, unlike the Strongman, focused on the history of lifting and promoted some of the historic stone lifts.
However, “the most important change in terms of popularizing the stones was in the last decade,” Heffernan said. It was the release of a series of documentaries on stone lifting by a fitness equipment company called Rogue Fitness.
Stoneland is the first of these documentaries, followed by Fullsterkur, on Icelandic stone lifting and Levantadores on Basque stone-lifting culture.
Stone lifting in North America
While hunting for historical stones in North America, Ryan Stewart, a stone-lifting history enthusiast and gym owner in Utah, found them on a small island called Arvia’juaq in Nunavut.
He turned to Canada after failing to find any records of lifting stones in the U.S.
“I thought with the Inuit stack stones [inukshuk], there has to be a tie and there definitely was,” he said.
The island contained two Cousin Stones, which are supposed to be walked from the resting place to the bottom of the hill and back — originally a battle between two cousins to test strength — and 10 other weightlifting stones, according to Stewart’s research.
Although Stewart is still searching for any other record of Indigenous stone lifting in North America, he is starting his own traditions in the meantime.
Stewart founded the Utah Stones of Strength to give people in the U.S. the same feel of lifting stones.
“They would get a little bit of that taste of what it is like to go overseas and do it,” he said.
Stewart in Utah and the Nisbet brothers in Edmonton are trying to create a tradition of stone lifting in this part of the world.
Edmonton Stones of Strength has dedicated stones that people from across Alberta and some even from Ontario come to lift.
Edmonton AM7:07Edmonton brothers find their niche with the Stones of Strength podcast
Dave and Dale Nisbet are the hosts of Stones of Strength, a podcast dedicated to lifting stones.
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