May 28th 2019 - Bear Update

With the lingering threat of a possible bear attack today, some students worked in the lab while others took the risk of working at the McKenzie Creek site. The students who were in the lab today had a couple of projects to work on. Some began researching items found by past field school students, such as buttons and metal artifacts form the McKenzie Creek site. Sepideh, who is creating the video about our project worked on scanning some line drawings onto her computer so that she can add them into her creation. A couple of other students sorted through artifacts found on other sites that have been studied by Bob, such as Suicide Creek and the Martin/McKay site. They separated the glass and ceramics into organized groups so that Bob can view what the collection contains.

Bob and the nine students working in the field today continued to excavate the units that were created in the past few days. Phoenix, Karoline and I started excavation on the unit that we measured out yesterday by removing the litter mat.

Karoline in the newly created excavation unit. 

It took us all day to carefully scrape off the moss and twigs from the unit and sift through them to check for cultural debris. Luckily there was a giant fallen over log that was covered in soft moss so we were able to sit down for a lot of the sifting process. Before sitting down I did check to see if any glass or nails were on the log that could have possibly hurt us, but luckily there was nothing to be seen. We ended up finding multiple pieces of metal, bottle glass, lantern glass and a few nails just on the surface level!

Sitting down on the mossy log sorting through the litter mat.

Aza continued to work on measuring planks from the cedar plank road, and Angus started his project on barrel rings. He drew a map of the site and found all of the metal barrel rings that sat on the surface, recording them in his book and noting their location on his map. The last group of people on site kept excavating the three units that were created last week, continuing to work through the tough roots of a second growth tree that protrude into the space.

Now for an update on the Bear that came to visit our camp yesterday. This morning we arrived to see our roll of toilet paper on the ground with giant bite marks in it. Clearly the bear was very interested in this soft tissue. We also found the lunch bag that had been torn up and eaten by the bear, with empty plastic jam containers that had very large puncture marks on them from its teeth. Along with those two things, we also found bear feces next to the ofuro in the afternoon. 

Bite marks on our toilet paper roll from the bear.

A ripped up lunch bag that the bear took out of a backpack yesterday afternoon.

Bear feces next to the ofuro.

Bob and all of the students in the field were very aware of their surroundings, but the bear didn't come back for seconds today. From now on, all of our lunches and backpacks will be put in the trunk of Bob's car with the hope that the smell won't attract the bear again. Hopefully the bear won't disrupt any more of our excavations this season. 

Yesterday I mentioned that a few students would be touring around a large school group, but unfortunately due to the bear invading our camp, they had to cancel for the children's safety. Tomorrow we will be back in the field working on more excavations and student projects. Karoline and I will be hiking another five kilometres north from our site to visit a patch of old growth trees that still stand today, and a group of archaeology students from SFU will be visiting our site. You can read more about that experience tomorrow on the blog!