Engraving the Stars for the Ad Astra Monument Replica
Some projects come with a bit of weight to them. This was one of those.
My friend Mike runs LaFontaine IronWerks, and back in April 2024 his shop built and installed the Ad Astra monument at the north entrance to CFB Borden, a striking, star-pierced obelisk commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force, at the very base where the RCAF was born. Designed by Simcoe County artist Marlene Hilton Moore and funded by community donations, the monument was unveiled with full ceremony: dignitaries, a piper, and a fly-by from a pair of fighter jets.
Mike was then commissioned to build a smaller replica of that same monument, something that could sit on a desk or in a display case, a piece you could hold in your hand and still feel the scale of the original. He came to me to laser engrave the stars.
Sic Itur Ad Astra
The monument takes its name from the RCAF’s motto, Sic itur ad astra, Latin for “such is the way to the stars,” or more simply, “this is the path to the stars.” It’s a line that’s followed the air force since its earliest days, and it’s the whole reason the monument looks the way it does: a dark obelisk, perforated with hundreds of tiny points of light, reaching upward.
At night, the full effect comes through. The monument practically glows, a field of stars cut straight through steel.
The Replica
Recreating that starfield at a fraction of the size is a different challenge than it looks. On the full-scale monument, the perforations are physical holes, and light pours through them. On a piece small enough to hold in one hand, that same density of stars has to be laser engraved, every point sized and placed so the pattern still reads as a sky and not as noise.
This was a meticulous job. Hundreds of individual points, varying in size, scattered with the same kind of randomness you’d see looking up on a clear night. Nothing about it could feel gridded or mechanical. We spent a lot of time getting the density and spacing right before a single pass ever touched the material, because at this scale, every star matters.
Hundreds of stars, engraved one careful pass at a time, on a piece built to honour 100 years of the RCAF. Genuinely one of the proudest pieces I’ve had a hand in.
Huge thanks to Mike and the team at LaFontaine IronWerks for trusting us with a piece of this one. He built something that now stands permanently at CFB Borden, and we just got to add the stars to the version that travels.
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