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!