May 30th 2019 - Working in the Lab.

With wildfire smoke from northern Alberta leaving a light haze over the Vancouver sky this morning, students met in the classroom to work on their projects and talk about proper excavation procedures. The first thing Bob brought up when we sat down, is that as the Simon Fraser University group was hiking back to the parking lot yesterday, they encountered the bear that attacked our camp on Monday. At the 2 kilometre mark on the trail, they ran into the bear and had trouble scaring it away, which is surprising as there were over 20 adults in the group. We now know for sure that the bear is not scared of large groups of people, which could be dangerous in the future.

Afterwards we moved onto a round table talk about everyone's projects, and the progress they've made on them. Karoline talked about how the waste audit is going. She reviewed the audit from 2013, and discovered that they used much more trash, such as aluminum cans and ziplock bags than we have this season. Karoline and most other students agreed it is most likely due to our changing society. She has also compared the data she collected from the begging of this field school season to this week, which showed students are bringing less waste in their lunches. Karoline mentioned how this is most likely due to peer pressure from others to bring less trash, because everyone can see when someone places something into the collection bag. Hopefully other field studies will start to do waste audits in the future, and reduce their overall contribution to landfills and climate change.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be talking to people as they make more progress on their projects, and today I got the chance to talk with Rohan and Mitch about what they are working on. Mitch, as some of you already know if you have read previous posts, is working on the rock feature in the northwest corner of the McKenzie Creek site. He said for the past two weeks he has been clearing out foliage and moss from the area, and excavating the outside walls of the feature to determine its depth. He also mentioned that he has been focusing a lot of his time excavating the western wall, because it was completely buried in a diagonal wall of dirt. At first, Mitch didn't know if the wall had an end to it, or if it just continued into the creek close by, but he finally found a distinct end to the wall. The rough sketch below shows the east wall of the rock feature that was uncovered, with the dimensions and general shape of each rock.

Mitch's sketch of the east wall on the rock feature.

Rohan is studying buttons and clasps found at the McKenzie Creek site. The first thing he did was some research on how to classify buttons. He found various resources and organizations that describe different types of buttons from the 1900s, and also says that a lot of the buttons we have were used on headlight overalls which were popular in the 1920s. Rohan has also identified a lot of carhartt buttons. For his project, he is focusing on the size, material and number of button holes on each button. His report will include a detailed description of a few of the buttons from the McKenzie Creek collection.

Buttons in the McKenzie Creek collection.

Next, Bob briefly talked about the difference between our cedar plank road and a corduroy road. Many people use the words interchangeably, but a corduroy road is a row of logs that create a path which is easier to travel on than the dirt or marsh below it. 

Example of corduroy road. Source: Toronto Public Library

The cedar plank road on our site is a row of thin planks that have been made specifically for a smooth path to travel on for an entire logging season. A corduroy road would have been easier to complete, but would be a bumpier ride.

After that quick conversation, Bob began his lecture on excavation procedures. We talked about what to do if we find an artifact in our unit or on the surface of the site, and the proper way to fill out artifact and level sheets. He also reviewed how to label a level bag when you find something in an excavation unit that is not classified as an artifact. Bob also mentioned that when the Seymour Valley Archaeology project is complete, there will be boxes of level bags to sort through, but he doesn't know what to do with all of the materials in the bags. If you have any suggestions on what to do with those materials, feel free to comment on the blog or message Bob on twitter here. Would it be smart to return the items back to the site? Please leave your suggestions below!

Bob also gave us a glimpse of what he is expecting to see on our final exam. Towards the end of the field season, we will be instructed to go to a site and draw a complete map of the area. He provided us with a key of some important symbols that he is expecting us to use on our maps, and said we will have time to practice with a group of people in the next two weeks. The final exam will be done individually, and by the time we reach the exam day, students should understand how to do everything themselves.

Standard archaeological map symbols.

Today we also celebrated two birthdays. Angus and Shaunti have both had birthdays in this field school season, so many people brought snacks, and someone even baked a cake! We all celebrated during our snack and lunch breaks by sharing the food.

Layout of snacks that students organized to celebrate birthdays. 

Next week we will have visitors everyday at the McKenzie Creek site, and students will rotate working in the lab. I hope everyone has a great weekend, see you on Monday!

May 29th 2019 - Tall Trees and Small Bees

Most people joined us in the field today, with only one student working in the lab. Harman is slowly working on her huge project, which cataloguing and organizing all artifacts from the McKenzie Creek site that have been found in the past, and continue to be found this season. So far there are almost 900 items on paper lists which she will be digitizing. While she was working in the lab, others split off into their groups in the field to continue working on excavations. Karoline and I walked an extra 6 kilometres from our site to a patch of old growth trees.

Karoline and the path we took to the reach the old growth trail.

While travelling down the old growth trail, we saw large trees that had a significant sized base, but they weren't as large as the ones we recorded on Monday at McKenzie Creek. With our measuring tape, we checked the circumference of one red cedar tree that has been there for about 350 years according to an information board next to it.

Red cedar tree that Karoline and I measured. (7.1m circumference)

We measured a distance of 7.1 meters around the tree, which is the same as one of the smaller trees on our site. According the the information board, the average circumference of the old growth red cedar trees in the area is 5.5 meters, which is smaller than the average at our site. The largest circumference of an old growth tree on the McKenzie Creek site is 11 meters. We speculate that the difference in size may have to do with the elevation, or how close it is to the mountains on either side of the valley.

More trees on the old growth trail.

While we were looking for old growth trees, an archaeology field school from Simon Fraser University joined us at the McKenzie Creek site. Over 20 students and few professors got a tour from Bob. Currently they are just working in the classroom, but soon they will be working at a site in Courtenay British Columbia with the K'omoks First Nation band for six weeks. Their site will focus on the excavation of a large ancient village at the mouth of the Puntledge River. If you want to read more information about it you can check it out here. They had many great questions for Bob, and I hope that they enjoyed their time at our site. We also displayed some of the artifacts found at McKenzie Creek for the students and professors to look at.

The SFU archaeology field school group.

Display of artifacts found at the McKenzie Creek site.

Once Karoline and I got back from our detour, we joined Phoenix and continued excavating our units. We found four nails, one small circular piece of metal and what seems like melted glass, all surrounded by charred wood. Other students on the site also excavated pieces of bottle glass and nails. Everyone is excited to get their turn excavating, especially with all of the exciting things being found everyday. One group has an especially hard excavation unit, which is filled with large tree roots. They are doing an amazing job working around the obstacles.

An excavation unit with large tree roots.

Alyssa and Siobhan worked on excavating a portion of the ofuro all day, and found lots of small pieces of metal buried within. Mitch and Ali continued to work on the rock feature, slowly digging out the walls that go deeper into the ground than expected.

Alyssa and Siobhan working at the ofuro.

Aza and Allyah were also working on the cedar plank road that runs through our site. They are trying to compare the road to pictures and notes from previous years to see how much it has changed since then. They are doing this by taking measurements of the wood without uncovering too much of it, to reduce possible decomposition. Aza is going to be creating a map of the cedar planks, which will include the depth and size of each plank. She is also hoping to find an average board size by the end of her project. We're all excited to see the final product!

A surface level cedar plank covered in moss. Taken by Aza.

We also kept our eye out for the bear today, and still haven't seen it since Monday when it ate somebody's lunch bag. New signs have been put up on the paved path near our site to warn other people of the possible threat. Tomorrow we are all in the lab working on our projects and sharing our progress with the group. 

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!  

May 27th 2019 - Bears?!?!

Today was an eventful day. We had a couple of guests come and check out the McKenzie Creek site, one of which was a bear that we were not expecting, but I will talk about that later in the blog post. In the morning, students broke off into many small groups to continue working on projects that were started last week, and to start some new projects that will be completed throughout the rest of the term. Mitch continued to excavate the rock feature on the north side of the camp while six other students continued to excavate their units on the south side.

Mitch excavating the Rock Feature.

Aza started her project on one of the wooden features at our site, the cedar plank road. She and a couple other students who were helping her today started to uncover the edges of the planks using brushes and trowels so that she could take measurements of the length and depth of the wood. While everyone was working on their projects, Karoline and I started to work on her second project. Along with the waste audit, Karoline is also describing and taking measurements of the old growth tree stumps on the McKenzie Creek site. We walked around all morning going to each giant stump and measured the height (usually in two or more places), the circumference, and identified all of the possible springboard notches in the stump. In total we found seven stumps spread out around the site.

Karoline Climbing a tree stump to take a peek inside.

The hollow inside of the tree stump above.

We both used our best climbing abilities when trying to measure the height, but it was very difficult to reach the top of the very wide stumps. The average height of the stumps on site is 2.4 meters, with a circumference ranging from 4.7 meters to 11.0 meters. Many of the stumps had second growth trees growing out of them, and a couple were hollow on the inside. A few of the trees also had a significant number of springboard notches. If you don't know what they are, springboard notches are chunks taken out of trees that were used to place springboards in the shape of stairs up trees so that loggers could climb them to cut the tree higher up. Loggers would prefer to cut old growth trees higher up because they are thinner, which makes them easier to cut down, and the base of the tree can contain rotten wood which wouldn't be useful to them. That also explains why some of the trees are hollow, because when they were cut down, all of the rotten wood in the middle would be exposed to the elements and quickly decompose.

We also had a guest visit us in the morning. Hailey Venn is a graduate History student from Simon Fraser University. She got a tour around the site and got to help do some excavations and sifting through dirt! We love having new people come and visit the site.

Bob and Hailey looking at three excavation units on the McKenzie Creek site.

We also had a photographer from Capilano University come and take some pictures of our site and the students working. Taehoon Kim is an amazing photographer who biked in with all of his equipment and walked around for about an hour capturing our working environment. If you want to check out the photos he took of the McKenzie Creek site, you can see them on Flickr here, and you can also check him out on instagram by clicking this link! It was a pleasure having him come for a couple hours, and the photos turned out wonderful!

Taehoon taking photos of students working in an excavation unit.

After lunch Roy Jantzen, the instructor in the Tourism and Outdoor Recreation department of Capilano University came to visit us. Many students who know him from the Global Stewardship program at the university were glad to see him, and many of us were also happy to meet him for the first time.

Roy and Bob talking on the cedar plank road. 

Students continued working on their morning projects after lunch, and Phoenix, Karoline and I measured out a new excavation unit that will be uncovered tomorrow. We used our measuring tape and string to plot two 2 meter by 2 meter units next to each other where Phoenix found some lantern and bottle glass this morning.

The excavation unit measured out by Phoenix, Karoline and I.

At the end of the day while everyone was filling in their yellow notebooks and packing up their bags, we had a bear come and visit our site. Earlier we were warned by some cyclists that there was a bear about a kilometre north of our site, but nobody got too worried. Someone pointed out that the bear was walking towards the tent on the cedar plank road at the end of the day, and soon after we all got up and walked up the skid road to avoid it. We watched as it dug through one students bag next to our picnic tables, and as it took our guest Hailey's bag off of a hook. We were all watching in amazement as it grabbed a bag off a hanging hook and dragged in 20 meters into the forest. Most students were then able to grab their backpacks from the picnic table area and make their way home, but unfortunately Bob, Hailey, Roy and a couple other students stayed behind to try and retrieve our guests bag. They waited until the bear backed away from the bag, with the yummy snacks hidden inside, to get it back. Everyone is safe and the park rangers were made aware of the bear, who clearly had no fear of humans.

The bear walking down the cedar plank road.

The bear trying to get snacks out of Hailey's backpack.

The blog Unwritten Histories is also following our blog every day, and if you are interested in checking out their page about interesting things in Canadian history you can see it here! Also if you are wondering how much walking the average student does in a day of field work, I took 18,500 steps today and walked a distance of 15.6 kilometres! Tomorrow we will be at the McKenzie Creek site again, continuing to excavate our units and touring a large group of students around the site.