June 4th 2019 - Nails Galore!

Today we had an amazing day on site with wonderful weather! A few students spent the day in the lab, but most were at the McKenzie Creek site working on their projects, and in our seven open excavation units.

Students working in their excavation units and sifting dirt.

Students in the lab had time to work on their projects. Kirsten spent time identifying and researching some of the plants found at the McKenzie Creek site, and Rohan continued to research buttons and clasps from the artifact collection.

At the McKenzie Creek site, most spent their time in excavation units with the exception of Aza and Fazila. The two of them worked on the cedar plank road to try and uncover the remaining planks while the weather was still nice. They uncovered 13 planks today, adding up to a total of 38 on site. Aza suspects there to be a couple more hidden closer to the creek on the north side of camp, but she will go back soon to access the situation. Siobhan and Shaunti worked in a tough excavation unit with many roots today, finding one nail in the afternoon.

Siobhan working in her unit and Bob helping students measure in the background.

On the other hand, Mitch found almost 200 nails in his unit today. Allyah and I also found almost 40 nails ranging from very small to very large, and in both Mitch and our units, we found charred wooden planks. The wooden planks in my unit were 10cm below the site datum, while Mitch found his about 20cm below. I also found a few shards of glass, some being from a lantern and others from bottles. Bob gave Mitch the nickname "Nails" due to his large find today!

Mitch and his bag filled with nails.

We had one visitor with us all day. Laura Ng is a PhD student from Stanford University who is studying Asian American communities. Recently she travelled to China to compare and link home communities there to Chinatowns in California. Bob gave her a tour around the site, and she gave students advice on their excavations. She answered all of our questions with enthusiasm and excitement! You can check her out on twitter here!

Karoline was absent today due to an injury, but we still collected all of our project and lunch garbage. She will be working in the lab tomorrow and will be able to add it to her catalogue then.

Our Garbage for the day. Photo by Nikki.

Tomorrow a few of us will be working in the field, but most students will be working in the lab or from home. We are hoping for good weather tomorrow, but the forecast calls for rain. You can find out if we get soaked on the blog post tomorrow!