June 20th 2019 - The Last Day.

Today was the last day of our field school. We were all sad to part ways with each other, especially with those who are moving to new schools in the fall. Today we started off class with Bob mentioning a few things before we jumped into presentations. For starters, a writer from the North Shore News will be publishing an article on the project, which will most likely come out sometime in July. You should be able to find it on their website here, so keep an eye out for that. Bob also mentioned that he is going to continue tweeting about the project for a few weeks, as he looks through the student reports and analyzes them. You can follow him on twitter here to stay updated.

After that short introduction, students began presenting their finished projects to the class. Aza started us off with her research on the cedar plank road. For the road, she measured the width, depth, length and distance between each plank. The average distance between planks is 132.5 centimetres, and the mean length of the planks is 146.8cm. She showed us pictures from past field schools to compare the level of decomposition to this year, and also colour coded a digital rendering that shows the planks decomposition in 2019. On top of that, she created a photo journal with images of the cedar plank road, and tagged each plank with a sticker on the east side, so you can look up information on specific planks according to their number.

Colour coded digital rendering of the cedar plank road showing levels of decomposition.

Photo journal of cedar plank road.

Kirsten then showed us her maps of vegetation on the McKenzie Creek site. She split the camp into 5 zones, and create a colour coded map that showed different types of trees and plants living in those areas.

Nikki gave us an amazing slideshow of pictures from the past seven weeks, which were mostly students working in the field, as well as the guests that came to visit our site.

Nikki's slideshow.

Sepideh presented us with the amazing video about the McKenzie Creek site that she created, and I highly recommend that all of you watch it! You can see it on youtube here, and feel free to share it on all of your social media accounts. She made it easy for the general public to understand, but also added a lot of super interesting information about the McKenzie Creek site in it. If you do end up sharing it on twitter, make sure to mention @bobmuckle in the post so they can find his page and read more about the project if they're interested!

I gave quick presentation on the blog statistics which I put in yesterday's post, and I also talked very  quickly about the level bag report from 2019.

Shaunti gave a brief overview of the seven artifacts that she researched throughout the term, including the supposed glove fastener I mentioned in detail several posts ago.

Alyssa showed us the amazing sketches that she made of the ofuro, and also talked about how she excavated the southern side of it to try and identify its use. The small platform of rocks on the southern side could have possibly been a place where people cooked food, shown by evidence of many small pieces of mammal bone, but also where they could heat water for the bath that sat next to it.

Arial view of the ofuro. Drawn by Alyssa.

Siobhan talked a lot about the four major artifacts that she researched. She looked at the cans from the McKenzie Creek site and did quite extensive research on evaporated and condensed milk cans from Eaton catalogues. She also went into detail about ponds cold cream jars, mentioning we have a total of 28 in our collection which were manufactured between 1910 and 1925. Siobhan also looked into Colgate toothpaste and a stove piece from a 1917 Victoria Steel range model XG1 stove.

Rohan talked about the buttons that were found at McKenzie Creek, and counted a total of 75 artifacts that are or relate to buttons. There were 20 sew on buttons, 15 tack buttons, 28 donut buttons,  7 snap fasteners, 3 broken items that were found in level bags, and 2 unknown items. He couldn't find any evidence of gender-specific buttons in his research to show women and children living in the camp, but he did find Carhartt buttons which were using primarily in working overalls.

Phoenix studied bottles and found a minimum number of 90 alcohol/drink related bottles in our collection. These do not include medical or cosmetic jars. He mentioned that there are multiple missing level bags from 2004-2010, so there could be many more bottles within those. He calculated a minimum number by counting the bases of bottles; if a bottle base was more than 2/3 complete, he would count that as one bottle.

Mitch also showed us his sketches from the rock feature. He excavated around the entire feature, and said that is goes 60 centimetres deep almost the entire way around. We still don't know the exact use for this area, but it could possibly be the base to a shrine, or a platform for loggers to wash themselves on before going back home after a long day of work.

Fazila went over statistics about Japanese ceramics from the McKenzie Creek camp, Hastings/Seymour camp and the Suicide Creek site. The table below shows the level of completeness of ceramics found at all three sites.

Harman showed us her beautiful excel document with every artifact from the McKenzie Creek site, which totalled to 904. She also created separate spreadsheets listing items by material, and of what items are not physically present in our collection at this time.

Karoline talked about the old growth stumps on the McKenzie Creek site, and the waste audit. She said that the tallest stump on the site was 4.5 meters, and the largest circumference was 11 meters. For the waste audit, she pointed out that we had a total of 28 granola bar wrappers which was minimal compared to 2013 when they had 87 with one less student. She also said that bob drove a total of 374 kilometres to and from the site over the course of our field season. The chart below shows all of the project-related waste from the 2019 field season, not including plastic and non-plastic personal waste.

Allyah talked about the ink bottles, talc powder cap, Bauer and Black ointment, and a few stove pieces. She found that the Bauer and Black ointment tube that we have was from the Toronto branch of the Kendall Company, which only started manufacturing and sending out products in 1928. This is the best evidence that we have so far of people staying at McKenzie Creek after the logging camp had closed.

Angus gave us an overview of the many industrial items he studied such as stove pieces and twisted metal, but he also gave us a minimum number of lanterns, barrel rings and barrels on the McKenzie Creek site. He found 12 lanterns, 13 barrel rings which most likely came from 4 barrels.

Ali showed us 9 line drawings and 4 sketches that she had completed over the course of the field season.

One sketch of Alyssa, Fazila and I working at the ofuro.

All students worked very hard to complete their projects, and everyone did an amazing job. All of the projects that were done have an important role in piecing together this small Japanese residential camp hidden away in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve.

After our presentations were over, we gave bob a couple of gifts from the class, went outside to take a group photo, and then most students and Bob went to a restaurant close by for lunch.

Bob looking through the scrapbook that was made by Nikki, with hand written notes from all students. 

Bob looking at a mug that Shaunti got engraved with the image of a women's shawl pin found at the McKenzie Creek site on one side, and "Bob 'The Great' Muckle" on the other side. 

Group photo from top left to bottom right: Bob, Allyah, Rohan, Harman, Aza, Ali, Sepideh, Fazila, Shaunti, Nikki, Angus, Siobhan, Kirsten, Mitch, Phoenix, Alyssa, Kirsten, Meredith (Me)!

Overall, this field school was an amazing experience for all of the students who were lucky enough to be picked for it. We all put 100 percent of our energy into this project, and I'm sure it will be hard for a lot of us to stop working on it. I know for me, it will feel weird not having a blog post to write at the end of the day, but you can still stay updated on the project through Bob's twitter page. I'm sure that all field students will see each other in passing and get the chance to hang out a few more times. I hope that all of you enjoyed reading the blog, whether it was a few posts here and there, or every post from day 1, I am glad that I got the opportunity to write it. There are no plans to take this blog, or the past field school blogs that are linked on the right side of the page down any time soon, so feel free to take a look back through older posts.

Don't forget to check out this amazing video made by Sepideh about the McKenzie Creek site, and share it with all of your friends and family!

June 19th 2019 - Atlatl Party!

Today started off with a couple of students showing up in the lab and three others meeting Bob at the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve parking lot.

The students who met in the parking lot were given a map showing the location of the Hastings/Seymour camp from 2010. A few years after excavations, there was a large flood and rock slide that swept right through the location of the site. Bob explained to us that the camp may not even still be there, but he wanted to try and find it using the map and his memory of the location. Unfortunately when we got to the entrance of the trail it was closed off for construction. We were very disappointed that we were not able to find the camp today, but hopefully Bob will relocate it someday in the future.  All students who were in the LSCR went back to the lab to work on projects.

In the classroom, everyone was working on something different. Most people were finishing up their reports to hand in tomorrow. I finished all of my papers yesterday so I helped a few students by proofreading their reports.

Aza finished up her report on the cedar plank road and colour coded her digital renderings. She will have over a dozen different digital maps of the cedar plank road, showing it in multiple scales. There are a total of 47 planks on the McKenzie Creek site that span a length of 82 meters.

The complete cedar plank road. Digital rendering by Aza.

In the afternoon, all of the students working in the lab joined Bob on the field behind the sportsplex at Capilano University to throw spears using an atlatl (spear thrower/ arm extender), and learned how to make tools with stone in the lab. Every student had a few chances to throw a spear with the atlatl, and most students threw it pretty far! 

Bob throwing a spear with an atlatl.

The "Atlatl" field at Capilano University. 

Rohan setting up for a throw.

Once everyone was happy with their spear throws, we went back to the lab to make tools out of obsidian with stone. Bob demonstrated how to create flakes with a piece of obsidian and a rock, and all students had the opportunity to try it.

Bob showing us how to make obsidian tools.

Students making flakes.

Sharp edge of obsidian that I removed from a larger piece.

He also showed us some examples of tools that can be made with obsidian flakes. 

Example of a knife.

Example of a tool used for scraping.

The day was filled with fun activities, and we are all sad that the field school is coming to an end tomorrow. All students will be making a short presentation on their projects, and we will be handing in our final reports. Make sure to read tomorrow's post for final updates! 

June 18th 2019 - Nikki the Photography Expert.

This morning four students came into the lab, a few others joining in the afternoon. Shaunti, Nikki, Sepideh and I all worked on our projects as the sun came out from behind the clouds.

Nikki worked on cataloguing artifacts found in the 2019 field season, and also distributed pictures to a few students of artifacts she captured in the past few weeks for their projects.

All of the artifacts found in 2019. Photo by Nikki.

Shaunti worked on writing up the report on all of the information about artifacts she has researched in the past few weeks. She is using some of Nikki's photos, including one of 'Stevens Comfort' foot warmer. Siobhan is also using some images from Nikki of ponds cold cream jars in her research report.

Stevens Comfort foot warmer. Photo by Nikki.

Ponds cold cream jars. Photo by Nikki. 

Sepideh got some images from Nikki to use in her video, while also working on sorting through level bags. Bob created a project for a few students to take one of each item from all level bags to keep in his collection, so the storage situation doesn't get out of control. Most bags contain multiples of nails, bottle glass and small metal fragments, and because they are all logged in level bag reports, there is no need to keep everything.

Angus came in this afternoon to start putting back industrial artifacts from the display case in the lab. When he was assigned his project on barrel rings and other metal artifacts, he put a bunch of them in a small display case at the back of the classroom. Because we are getting to the end of the term, him and others are beginning to clean up.

Display case of industrial artifacts.

I spent the day working on writing up a report on the blog. I looked into the statistics of the website and found it very interesting. It showed that most of the views on this blog come from within Canada, but people from other countries are also reading it. 

Working on today's blog post. 

How many views we have gotten from each country on the blog so far.

Tomorrow, some students will be going to try and find the Hastings Seymour Camp in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, and others will continue to work on their projects.

June 17th 2019 - The Start of the End.

This is the last week of the field school, which is sad for many, but also exciting because projects are being wrapped up. We are all working very hard to make sure that the reports for our individual projects are being done to the best of our abilities. Today was a mandatory class for all students, so everyone showed up to meet this morning.

Bob talked about the self and peer evaluations that students are to complete by Wednesday, so that he can get a better sense of what our grades should be for the professionalism portion of the course. Once that was covered, he got all students to give an update on their projects at our round-table discussion.

Aza told the class that she started using a software to plot the cedar planks from the road because sketching it to scale was very difficult. The software is called Rhinoceros and is used by architects. She also found that all of the planks that are buried deeper in the ground are preserved much better than the ones on the surface. Bob explained that microorganism's that lead to decay are less active in lower-oxygen environments, such as below the surface. There are also many other factors that can delay the decomposition of wood such as cold and dry environments.

A portion of the cedar plank road, mapped on a computer software by Aza.

Other students were assigned to work on sorting items in level bags, and cataloguing artifacts found in 2019. We only found a few artifacts this year, including the ointment bottle and the lid to a talc powder container. Sepideh is also working very hard to finish the animated video about the McKenzie Creek site. She is getting pictures and sketches from many people to incorporate into the video. If you want to see what projects students are working on, check the list out here if you haven't already.

Bob also talked about how he wants to take a group of students to look for the Hastings Seymour camp on Wednesday. He tried to find it on our first day, when he gave us a tour of the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, but was unsuccessful due to flooding that has occurred since he last visited it. Hopefully those students will be able to find it and tell the rest of the class about it on Thursday. 

After the morning discussion had ended, students had the choice to stay and work in the lab, or go home to work there. Students who still needed items from the lab to complete their projects stayed, and most others left to work on their projects at home. 

The day went smoothly, and everyone was happy to get the chance to see each other again after a week without a classroom meeting. Tomorrow will be an optional lab day, as most students are able to work from home, and Thursday will be our final day.

June 13th 2019 - Relaxing Lab Day.

Today was another relaxing day in the lab. Seven students arrived throughout the morning, and all others worked from home. As the project due date approaches, students are working harder and more diligently than ever.

Aza spent the day sketching the cedar plank road from the McKenzie Creek site and looking at other roads in the area to compare it to. She also printed out photos of the road which she is working on numbering to match the data in her report.

Aza working on the cedar plank road report.

Karoline analyzed the raw data she collected for the waste audit. She found that in total we used 105 meters of flagging tape and 90 meters of string. She also calculated that 45 percent of our non-plastic personal waste was granola bar wrappers, which are very difficult to recycle due to the diversity of materials used to create them. On top of that, 32% of our plastic personal waste was wrapping for dairy products such as string cheese.

Karoline working on the waste audit.

As I said in yesterday's post, Allyah did some more research on the tube that Mitch found in his unit last week. The tube that was manufactured by a branch of The Kendall Company, Bauer and Black, is most likely a burn ointment that came in a Boy Scouts of America first aid kit. The Kendall Company had a branch in Toronto, which is most likely where the one in our collection was shipped from. Allyah can't find any pictures of the actual ointment tube online, all images show only the box.

Shaunti did more research on a fastener that was found at the McKenzie Creek site. She looked quite deeply into it, couldn't find a brand, but found an image that looked like the fastener we have on a leather mitten. After reading more about it, she has made the conclusion that the item was most likely from a leather mitten like the one in the photo she found. Most loggers used gloves that separate their fingers while at work, which also lead her to a conclusion that it was possibly used in the winter. Loggers didn't work in the harsh winters, so if that is the case, it shows that people were living at the McKenzie Creek site after the logging season had ended.

Bob also brought down some books from his office for students to take if they wanted. I got a copy of "Coast Salish Essays" by Wayne Suttles, and "Art of the Northwest Coast" by Aldona Jonaitis. Other students got more books on First Nations in British Columbia, and he even gave out some textbooks that he no longer needed.

Books from Bob.

Next week is our last, and we are all eager to finish our projects. Next Thursday we will be presenting our project findings to the class, and everyone is excited to learn about what others have been working on. On Monday, all students will meet in the lab to discuss their projects with Bob.

June 12th 2019 - Quiet Lab.

For the remaining duration of the field school, students will be spending most of their time working on their projects in the lab or at home. Bob opened up the lab at 8:30 in the morning, and two students were waiting and ready to work. As time went on, more students trickled in if they needed items from the lab to work on their projects.

Karoline looked through and recorded items in the last bag of project waste from when students deconstructed camp yesterday. Angus came in to get Bob's opinion on the rough draft of his written report on industrial artifacts, which Bob happily did. Phoenix also came into the lab to work on his report on bottles found at the McKenzie Creek site, and Ali continued working on line drawings of artifacts all day.

Ali working on line drawings.

I spent the day going through level bags and creating tables in a word document of their contents. I finished looking through all of the bags, and I am over half-way done the written report. We have a total of 42 bags from the 2019 field season.

Looking through past level bag reports and writing up my own.

Rohan worked on his report on buttons and clasps in the lab as well. So far he has over 3000 words in his report. There is lots to know about the different types of buttons found at the McKenzie Creek site, and the materials they pair with. Shaunti is helping Rohan research a certain brand of work overalls that he believes pair with a few buttons in the collection.

Again, Nikki spent all day photographing artifacts from the McKenzie Creek site. Sepideh also dropped in this afternoon to get some pictures from Nikki for the video.

Bob spent some time clearing out the lab storage room that is filled with field equipment and projects from past years. In the late morning, he pulled out maps from field projects he has worked on in the past, and some maps from the early stages of the Seymour Valley Archaeology Project. He offered the maps that he no longer had use for to students working in the lab, and a few people took him up on the offer. Interestingly, Bob stumbled upon a few maps from Ontario, and they just happened to be of Nikki's hometown, so she got to keep those ones!

Bob and Nikki looking for maps. 

Bob clearing out the lab storage room.

Some students also spent time working on their projects at home. Mitch finished up drawings of the rock feature and scanned them on to the computer. Aza also got a lot of work done on the sketch of the cedar plank road. She finished taking measurements yesterday in the field, and now has everything she needs to draw her pictures to scale.

Sketch of the rock feature done my Mitch.

Most people were very focused on working today, which provided a quiet and peaceful lab to work in. Hopefully we will all be just as productive tomorrow as we were today.

June 11th 2019 - Packing Up.

Today has been a productive day for many. Just over half of the students worked in the lab to try and get as much of their project done as they could. The other students spent the day in the field, breaking camp and finishing up measurements for sketches and final reports.

In the field, students dissembled both of the tents, the picnic tables and moved all of our project supplies back to lab with two trips in Bob's car. Some also helped backfill the excavation units that we closed last week.

Angus, Aza and Mitch deconstructing the tent. Photo by Bob.

Phoenix and Kirsten taking apart the picnic tables. Photo by Bob.

Alyssa, Aza and Mitch filling our excavation units back up with dirt. Photo by Bob.

In the lab, Ali spent the day working on line drawings of artifacts. She spent the first two hours working on sketching the bottle that Mitch found last Thursday, which we now know is most likely not a toothpaste tube. It has "Bauer and Black" and "Toronto" engraved on the lid which lead us to believe that it was some type of medical ointment made by the Kendall Company in the 1920s or 1930s. Allyah is researching more in depth about the tube, so hopefully we can narrow down the date. Ali has also started a sketch of a teapot from the Hastings Seymour camp.

Line drawings done by Ali of the Bauer and Black tube.

Yesterday I mentioned that Ali has been working hard on sketches from the field as well, so I thought I would share one of her favourites with all of you. This is a drawing of Mitch working at the Rock Feature from a few weeks back. Everyone is excited to see more sketches from her!

Ali's sketch of Mitch.

Fazila finished measuring, recording and taking pictures of all of the ceramics from the McKenzie Creek site today. Allyah helped her take the pictures while she focused on measuring the diameter of each rice bowl with callipers.

Fazila recording and measuring ceramics.

Nikki spent all day with her camera, and artifacts from McKenzie Creek. She worked on getting pictures of ponds jars and ceramics on the white and black backgrounds she created. Sepideh also wants to add images of buttons and toothbrushes to the video she is creating, so Nikki also worked on taking those this afternoon.

Nikki taking pictures on black and white backgrounds. 

A collection of ponds cold cream jars from McKenzie Creek.

I focused on looking through level bags that we created in the 2019 field season. We had bags from each of the 7 open units, and also a few bags from test pits done around the site. I managed to go through over half of the bags, removing all of the contents of each, recording them, and weighing the flat sheets of metal that were found. When I finish going through all of the bags, I will put all of the information into one document so it will be easy to see the contents of each level bag without looking through them.

Recording the contents of 2019 level bags.

Siobhan spent the day researching a few artifacts that Bob assigned for her to look into. She did a lot of research on Colgate toothpaste, because previous field seasons found some tubes on the site. She narrowed down the date of the toothpaste tubes to have been manufactured between 1914-1928 from the broader date of 1857-1928. In the afternoon she also started researching ponds cold cream jars. 

Siobhan researching ponds cold cream jars.

Overall the day went very well, and many students were very productive! Tomorrow most students will be working from home or in the lab, but there is the chance that Bob could take a few students to another site in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve. Check out tomorrow's post to see what happens!

June 10th 2019 - Crunch Time.

This morning all students met in the lab to begin our weekly discussions. Last week we didn't have a day where everyone was in the classroom together, so it was nice to all meet and give updates on our projects.

We started the day by talking about our grades for the course, and about the final exam that was supposed to occur next week. Bob mentioned how over the weekend he was contemplating whether or not students should have to do the final exam this field season. In previous years, students would fill out a site inventory form and create a map of a site that was unfamiliar to them. In recent years, the form has changed substantially to where it would be hard for a non-archaeologist to complete it with little information on the site. Bob also mentioned that to do well on the exam you need to have practice with mapping, which takes up a lot of time. He said it may be better for students to have lab time to work on their projects, so he proposed to change how the course is weighted. Our class unanimously decided that we will weigh professionalism and field notes more heavily, and spend more time perfecting our projects, rather than doing the final exam.

After having a long discussion about that, Bob mentioned that he visited the Burnaby Village Museum on Saturday, and got the chance to view the ofuro they have there. If you want to see some pictures of the re-opening of the ofuro in 2015, you can check it out here. If you live in the lower mainland and want to visit the Burnaby Village Museum, you can find information about when they're open on their website.

The ofuro at the Burnaby Village Museum. Photo by Bob.

Next, we began giving updates to everyone on the progress of our projects. So far Nikki has taken 1800 photos of artifacts and almost 2000 pictures of the site. Shaunti, Siobhan, and Allyah have all been researching artifacts found at the McKenzie Creek site, and Rohan has finished measuring the diameter of all buttons, and described the materials that they were made with. Mitch and Alyssa are working on their sketches of the rock feature and ofuro. Alyssa will be in the field tomorrow taking some final measurements of the rocks at the ofuro, and Mitch will be working on his drawings. Ali has completed 4 sketches of students working and has 3 more on the way. She will also be doing some line-drawings of artifacts found in the field. Angus and Phoenix have found minimum numbers of barrel rings, lanterns and bottles. So far, Angus has come up with 12 barrel rings and 12 lanterns, and Phoenix has found over 90 bottles. Harman has finished cataloguing 500 artifacts, with 300 still left to do. Once she is done with her written catalogue, she will be putting everything into an excel spreadsheet. Fazila finished measuring and recording information about ceramics from the Suicide Creek site, and she will now be working on tableware found at the McKenzie Creek site. Kirsten is almost finished writing up her report on plant life at McKenzie Creek, she is just looking at satellite images to create a map of the foliage. Aza has a few more measurements to do tomorrow on site of the cedar plank road, and then she can finish up sketches for her report. Karoline has started writing her report on the waste audit, but she will need to wait until camp is broken down to get the total amount of garbage produced by the project. I am also starting a small project on the side of the blog, creating a report on the level bags from 2019 excavations. We are all working hard to get our projects done quickly and neatly.

Bob also mentioned during our round-table discussion that he has been emailing back and forth with Lisa from the Nikkei Museum who visited our site last week. She has been thinking about the possible uses of the rock feature that Mitch is working on, and says that it could have been a washing station due to its close proximity to the creek. Hopefully we can do some more research on that type of structure in the future to try to figure out what the purpose of the rock feature on our site is.

After lunch, a few students travelled with Bob to the Suicide Creek site. Ali, Aza, Nikki and I all went into the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve with the task of finding the site that Bob hadn't visited for a decade. Luckily with Bob's permit we were able to drive up to the area where the site is, so we didn't have to walk over 10 kilometres from the parking lot.

The road to get to the Suicide Creek site.

Once we got there, Bob pointed out how overgrown it has gotten since the last time he visited it. He said there used to be a clear path to get to the site, and today there was definitely no clear path. We travelled through thick shrubbery to get to the site, climbing over and under fallen trees and branches. It took us about 15 minutes to walk to and find the site, where Bob gave us a tour of the major features. Among other things, he showed us a cedar plank road that ran into the site, many artifacts that he had put back on the site once they were catalogued by students in past years, the suspected flooring of a mess hall, and a saw that had grown into a second growth tree.

Bob showing Aza a cedar plank road that runs into the Suicide Creek camp. 

Ali standing on the possible floor of a mess hall somewhat covered by a fallen tree.

Artifacts put back on site after Bob was finished working at Suicide Creek.

Saw blade that has grown into a tree. Photo by Nikki.

Finding our way back to the car was a little bit more difficult as there was very rough walking terrain, and no path to follow. Aza stayed at the front of the pack for most of the hike back, coming out with a a couple of wasp stings.

Aza and Bob walking through trees and ferns to get back to the car. 

Tomorrow half of the students will be in the field breaking camp and finishing up some measurements, while the other half are working in the lab on their projects. If there are any student projects that you seem very interested in and want to learn more about, feel free to leave a comment down below and I will try to include some more details about it in a future post!

June 6th 2019 - And Then There Were Six.

Today was the last day of excavation in the field. Only six students hiked into the field today, while all others worked in the lab. Many began writing and drawing up reports for their final projects in the classroom, while students in the field focused more on finishing up excavations. On the McKenzie Creek site, we have a total of 7 open units. We wanted to be able to close all of them today, but before they're closed, we made sure the unit hit a sterile layer. When a unit is sterile, it means there is no more evidence of culture such as nails or glass. In the morning, Nikki, Karoline, Mitch and I took our buckets and trowels to our excavation units to get as much done as possible. Aza continued to work on her cedar plank road project, while Alyssa spent time measuring and finishing up sketches on the ofuro.

Mitch sifting dirt in a beam of light. Photo by Nikki. 

Nikki found a rock feature in her unit last week, and she spent a couple of days excavating around it. Today she had the chance to remove the rock feature from her unit, and surprisingly she found the tops of some bottles underneath it. She mentioned that they are likely the tops to bottles that she found a few days ago in the unit. She also got to remove some cans that Sepideh found in the unit next to hers, so that we could close it.

In the eastern units, Mitch found the cap of a tube of toothpaste 40cm below the pit datum. While he was sifting through the dirt from that area, he also found the rest of the tube rolled up in a tight cylinder. He also managed to find a complete aqua glass bottle with the stopper buried 60cm below the pit datum in his unit. He was on a roll today!

Top of a tube of toothpaste found by Mitch.

Bottle found by Mitch.

Karoline and I found almost 100 nails between 20cm and the sterile layer in our 2 by 2 meter unit. We also found an incomplete file, some broken pieces of glass and a large metal bolt with the nut still attached.

Four eastern units.

We also had some guests visit us in the morning. Lisa Uyeda and Trevor Wideman from the Nikkei Museum and Archives came by to visit the site. Bob was very excited to talk to them about what has been found on the site, and the insight they had to offer.

Bob, Lisa and Trevor looking at artifacts.

Lisa provided extremely useful thoughts about what may have been happening at the camp, such as it being mainly for women and children while the men travelled to work in the surrounding valley area. There is another Japanese camp about 4km away from the McKenzie Creek site that was shown to be occupied by mostly males, which fits perfectly with her suggestion. She also explained to Bob about how the Japanese prepared for internment, by telling him what items people would choose to take with them, and what they would decide to leave behind. If you want to follow her on twitter you can do so here. Trevor has been working with documents that were recently donated to the Nekkei Museum that belong to Tadashi (Jack) Kagetsu, who was the son of the person who established the McKenzie Creek camp. Bob was pleased when Trevor told him that he had letters and emails that were made between Bob and Tadashi before his death about 10 years ago. If you want to follow Trevor on twitter you can do that here.

After our lunch break, everyone went back to excavating with the exception of Aza, who continued to finish up her measurements of the cedar plank road. Alyssa joined us in the eastern units, finishing up excavating what was previously Phoenix's unit. She found a few nails and bits of glass along with a large piece of barrel ring.

Overall the day went quite well and we got lucky with sunny weather once again! Bob said that this is one of the driest field seasons he has ever had in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, with a record of only ONE day of rain so far! On Monday we will all be in the lab, and everyone will be jumping into their projects to try and get them done.