Summer of Power #2

In June I spent a “week” in the field up north. In actuality it took as eight hours one day to drive up to the project area and a second day to drive back home. This left us three days to survey just under a forty kilometres long route through the boreal forest. To complete this task water crossing and high and/or flat areas near water were the places focused on. The survey area was also was also nearby the road which made reaching it fairly easy and allowed us to travel between locations quickly. However it was not easy, something discovered right away.

This is a picture of my first test pit, I ran into the regular problems one would expect when digging in the boreal forest a nice humus layer, roots and a nice thick clay soil. I did not dig very deep as about 10-25 cm I hit ice. This was most unexpected. The location was not anywhere close to where permafrost exists and it was figured that it was late enough in the season for the ground to be thawed.

The first man produced object found was this cabin. It appears to be fairly old but it showed signs of continued use, we could see plastic containers and a tarp. The nails were definitely machine crafted but an archaeologist who knows more about historical material would be able to suggest a good time frame for the construction of the cabin.

Besides the cabin two archaeological sites were located, both on hilltops with flat areas. The first had a large number of quartz flakes and shatter within about ten centimetres of depositions. The other contained just a few buried quartzite flakes. The most interesting thing seen on the trip though was probably a stream that contained a water fall and still had ice surrounding the stream and even arches still going over. I also climbed a large almost total hidden cliff, about five metres off the road, that was covered in vegetation which made climbing fairly easy. One on top it provided an excellent view over Raven Lake, unfortunately while on top I found no indications of an archaeological site.

Well those were the highlights of the northern trip.