There’s about a dozen, each featuring a square rock base measuring about 1.5 metres and with a smaller stone square sitting on top, like offspring of the large rocks.

Welcome to the Stone Age. Hundreds of these huge, sometimes meandering stone arrangements have been compiled over the last 50 years by Cam Millar. Now 83 and still going strong, Millar estimates there are 1,500-2,000 tons of material in his prized stone garden.

“...I’m not trying to prove anything with it,” said Millar about his heavy collection.

In his red plaid shirt and poor boy cap, Millar shuffles contentedly around his stone domain. He’s a little stooped and admits his hands aren’t so steady, but he’s still a prolific hobbyist.

“I like keeping busy and making arrangements. I come out and work late into the night,” said Millar, who adds that retirement “doesn’t mean you go sit on a rocking chair.”

He said his creations are the stuff of the imagination, referring to his items variously as Arctic caribou, a bear, UFOs and there’s a long meandering one he calls a three-toed dragon.

“It’s a friendly one,” he said.

Others look like Stonehenge and some resemble Inukshuks, the Inuitinspired stone figures enjoying broad popularity nowadays.

More recently, Millar has enjoyed assembling ‘pet rocks’ from small stones. They frequently resemble miniature Mr. Potato Heads or turtle-like figures.

“They’re smooth, everybody wants to pick them up. I don’t think there are two stones that are exactly alike,” he said about the pet rocks. “Everyone seems to like the turtles. They make good pets.”

He has combined a few skills and interests in his longtime hobby.

Some of his large stone groupings are granite, but most are limestone. Millar said most come from local farms, where there has always been a plentiful supply.

“They were happy to have me take away the stones,” he said. “I had my own backhoe and ’dozer, but I stopped working with the big ones three years ago.”

Staff from the nearby quarry, Nelson Aggregate, have also helped with his largest stone designs.

Millar formerly worked in construction and operated the family business, which nowadays boasts the Camisle and Land of Legend public golf courses. He saw the stone arrangements as a good draw. “I thought if there was an attraction, we could bring people in and generate more revenue for the golf course,” he said.

These days, he devotes his energy to making hundreds of pet rocks that fill a cottage-like wooden workshop situated alongside a pond. He uses a special glue than adds an acrylic glaze. His wife, Marion, paints the eyes on the turtles.

“I like to collect as many different stones as I know,” said Millar. “It seems like every country has exotic specimens. I import from as many countries as I can.”

He orders stones from a Seattle importer and they come from Europe and Mexico.

People have enjoyed the stone gardens at no charge and Millar is thinking about starting a little gift shop.

There’s also ‘the trellis’, which is actually an octagonal-shaped building. He enjoys the building’s spaceship design and notes it can support 24 flower boxes around the upper level.

“When we get the flower boxes finished, it will have a lot of colour,” said Millar. “It’s nice to view plants by looking up instead of down.”

Stored away upstairs are 1.5-2-metre models he made of airplanes like the Tiger Moth and the Mosquito. Millar served in the air force from 1943-45.

On the ground floor are pet rocks and other items which visitors can view through fencing built into the walls. His four daughters are very supportive of his hobby and the pet rocks have been popular presents for younger family members.

“They say ‘I like that’ and away it goes,” said Millar.