Giant Kelp

On this trip to Afognak I really wanted to document the bed of Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) I had noticed near our camp.  Bull kelp is the normal Kodiak kelp and Giant kelp is the stuff you typically find in Southeast Alaska or off the coast of California.  But recently Giant kelp seems to be colonizing the Kodiak Archipelago (click here for older post on subject). The Afognak Island Giant kelp beds may well be the most northern such beds in the world!

Anyway, these photos are all of the Giant Kelp in the bed just south of Lipsett Point.  While kayaking we all loved how the kelp 'killed' the waves.  But the kelp was also so thick it was hard to paddle!

I think the kelp bed by our place has grown rapidly in size the past few years.  I remember just 3 years ago people setting subsistence nets where today the kelp is so thick that setting a net would be impossible.  On our next trip I plan on actually mapping the extent of the kelp.  I also want to keep an eye on how the Giant kelp competes with the more local Bull kelp.  Will Giant kelp replace the local Bull kelp or will they both fill their own niche?

Fun stuff to observe and watch change!
Patrick

Inflatable Kayaks

This past weekend at Afognak the ocean was pretty rough for kayaking.  But we went anyway!

We used the same inflatable kayaks that I use on my archaeological surveys.  Nora and Phoebe used the kayak that Philip used on our recent Alitak Bay survey.  Each boat has its own particular ropes and add ons.  While inflating Phoebe and Nora's boat I noticed that during our Alitak Bay survey Philip had added a line through the grommets along the side to grab onto when outside the boat, or to help with tying down gear.  He used a piece of crab pot line that he had obviously found on a beach while I was up in the uplands looking for sites.  A little more individual character for that particular inflatable kayak.

On this trip I was impressed with Nora's paddling capabilities.  The wind and waves made for difficult conditions, but Nora handled it with aplomb. Stuey and I paddled the other boat while Elke went single on the stand up paddle board (SUP). Patrick

The kelp (actually Giant not the usual Bull kelp) helped knock the waves down - surf pacifier

Back from Afognak

Due to weather and Crab Fest our Memorial Day weekend out at Lipsett Point was a little shorter than usual.  The kids really wanted the Crab Fest experience and so we waited until Saturday to leave.  But then the weather got ugly.  In any case, we still got to spend 3 days out at Lipsett Point on Afognak.  And 3 days of Heaven is always worth it.

On this trip we did a lot of kayaking and very little in the way of hiking.  This blog post is just a little tease of what we were up to - more to come!  Patrick

Second half of the survey

As I related in the earlier posts the second half of our recent survey was spent amongst the trees on north Afognak.  There we documented a second set of fish traps, mapped prehistoric villages, and looked for associated petroglyphs.  We did not find any petroglyphs which was slightly disappointing.  The pecked holes and slashes style petroglyphs seem to be associated with fish traps and so we had been hopeful that we would find them.  However the local rock was a sort of a 'baked' red chert and not very conducive to pecked designs.

The fish traps on North Afognak were similar to the first ones we looked that in that both were situated in the lower intertidal zone and both consisted of built up stone walls.  However, the second set was built parallel to the tidal current against the shore rather than extending out from shore across the current like the first set.  In the second set it seems the dropping tide would trap the fish against the shore rather than exposing the fish on the tidal mud flats above a wall.  And this makes sense given the shoreline particulars of each area - on North Afognak a stone wall out across the current would not have worked because the lagoon above the fish traps does not dry out like it does in the first set of traps that we documented.  Hence the need to modify the fish trap design to fit the parameters of the particular environment.

It seems the Alutiiq fish trap builders used their ingenuity to match their traps to particular circumstances rather than relying on a one design fits all sort of template.  Patrick

The View from Camp

I REALLY like the landscape at the second stop.  It is also a place I know well from my annual fall elk hunt.  And as we flew in there were hundreds of elk grazing nearby in a big field.  I pointed out to Molly that in high summer you can camp in the trees and stay cool - or, like we did, you could camp in the open where it is lighter and things dry out more quickly.  Yet the trees always keep the wind down.

The view from our camp was spectacular.  I have posted a few pictures all of basically the same view from out the front door of our teepee.  Depending on the light and tide the view was constantly changing and I could not get enough of it.  I kept on taking pictures.  I joked with Molly that it was a good thing we were not there for more than a few days or I would fill up a hard drive with pictures.
Patrick

Petroglyphs and the 'Fish Coral'

Rock walls in the intertidal zone

We documented the fish traps at 2 different localities.  The fish traps seemed pretty similar but the landscape was radically different.  The first place we stopped has the vegetation characteristic of the west side of the Island - the occasional spruce tree copse, alders and cottonwood.  The second stop was situated in the spruce forest of North Afognak.  Molly and I debated which one we preferred.  She likes open and sunny while I like the protection and beauty of the trees.

At the first locality there is a long rock wall at a right angle to the tidal current.  It is slightly arcuate in shape and there is a big pen or, as we called it, corral at the end.  We found petroglyphs here when we first discovered the traps way back in 2017, and we found more on this visit.  The petroglyphs consist of pecked holes and a few slashed lines in the rock.  This style of petroglyph is often found in association with salmon fishing localities, and they seem to be often hidden and tucked away.  We theorize that they were a part of some sort of ritual - perhaps to help regenerate salmon? Patrick

Molly with some new petroglyphs that we found

Petroglyphs with fish traps in background

Back from some more time in the field

On survey I still enjoy the non-archaeological discoveries!

Yesterday I returned from yet another archaeological survey.  This spring has been a particularly busy field season.  On this past survey I travelled with my co-worker Molly to 2 different localities on the North end of the archipelago to documents fish traps that we had found found on prior surveys (click here and here for links to blog posts about the prior surveys).  At one of the localities we had found petroglyphs associated with the petroglyphs, and so we were hopeful that we would find more petroglyphs at the second fish trap locality.

The fish traps are rock walls built in the intertidal zone and are designed to trap fish on a falling tide.  The fish float in above the traps at high tide and then when the tide drops the fish are trapped behind the stone walls.  The stone walls sort of remind me of the old New England stone walls I remember from my childhood that were once used to contain sheep.  Fish traps are a fairly common find in Southeast Alaska, but until recently had never been found on Kodiak.  It was Molly and I's job to better document the recently discovered features.

We spent 2 full days at each locality and used a float plane to move camps.  For the most part we experienced pretty bad weather.  We spent a lot of time in waders knee deep in the ocean examining old weed covered walls - in heavy rain.  We were both a little insecure about how to document the fish traps because neither of us had ever done anything like it before.  Give us a big village with housepits to map, and it is easy!  Collapsed weed covered walls half buried in muck are far more difficult to draw and document.  But we did our best and both agreed (jokingly) at the end of the survey that we are now the foremost authorities on Alutiiq fish traps.
Patrick

Molly looks down a seaweed covered fish trap wall

This was the view from our second camp

Molly writes notes about the fish trap in front of her

The Archaeology of Alitak Bay

Severe erosion damaging an archaeological site on the Aliulik Peninsula

The most significant find of our archaeological survey of the East shore of Alitak Bay has to be the sheer volume of new archaeological sites that we found.  We found 34 new sites and all but one of them is prehistoric.  Before we left there were less than 10 known sites in the whole area.  So we basically put the 'archaeology on the map' so to speak.

In general we found that the sites are in pretty good condition - only 2 of them were really eroding severely (both shown on this post - the processing pits and faunal midden).  The main thing damaging the sites is burrowing foxes and bears digging out beds to sleep in.  We found that wherever there is a good view a bear had dug out a bed - I called such beds 'a room with a view'.  Since archaeological sites tend to be built where there are good views out over the water - they also have a lot of bears digging holes into them.  And there are a lot of bears on that part of the island!

I was also surprised by the number of sites we found that appear older than 1000 years.  Normally historic and late prehistoric sites are the most common discovery.  But not so on this survey.  Based on my rough field catagorizations (no radiocarbon dating here!) a lot of the sites seem to date to around 1200 years ago.  This was a time period when many of the marginal areas of the Gulf Alaska were abandoned and people seemed to have concentrated on Kodiak.  Kodiak has a diverse and robust environment and people can find food here even when times are hard.  Alitak Bay seems to have been a favored place at this time period!
Patrick

layers of fauna in a midden - mostly cod

A piece of pottery drilled to hang

A 1200 year old (or so) oil lamp

Processing pits as seen in an erosion profile

Probing a depression to check if it is cultural or not

A positive test - that's charcoal!

Impromptu Helicopter Survey

Last Saturday I went on an archaeological survey in Viekoda Bay.  It was very much a last second sort of thing.  I was not supposed to go, but circumstances dictated that I really had no choice.  I had planned on going skiing with Nora.  Instead I got a helicopter ride to Viekoda Bay.

The kids were sad to see me go - so to partially make up for my absence I got them a quick ride in the helicopter.  They loved it!  Keller the pilot really wanted them to like the trip and for 15 minutes he  showed them an amazing time.  We landed on a mountaintop, looked down on houses, zoomed low over a beach, it was a helicopter ride at its best!

Then it was off to work for Molly and I in the helicopter to Viekoda Bay.  We had to survey a short section of coastline and document the sites a bit better than we do on our usual surveys.  This meant we had to dig test pits into the sites to figure out the depth and character of the site deposits.  Keller helped us with the test pits.

We also found 2 previously undiscovered sites.  One looked like a 500 year-old winter village while the other looked like a seasonal 'cod' camp.  I liked it because on this trip Molly took all the notes.  I got to explore and find stuff while Molly had to do all the thinking!
Patrick