Earlier this week I got back from a remote, 8-day archaeological survey to the south end of Kodiak. We travelled by inflatable kayak, camping along the way, and surveyed around 100K of shoreline. We found over 30 new archaeological sites. This section of coastline had never been surveyed before and rarely gets visited. On the first day I even found a glass ball - a true indication that the beach does not get visited all that often!
We would kayak along the coastline and I would go ashore anywhere that looked like a good spot for someone to camp or build a village. This meant I had to get in and out of the kayak a lot. At times my companion Philip would tow my kayak while I walked long sections of the coastline.
When I found a site I would create a sketch map in my notebook, and describe the site conditions. The survey was for the USF&WS and they are not only interested in where the sites on their land are located but most importantly their condition. Are they eroding, are people digging into them, getting damaged by animals? These are just some of the answers I need to check off for every site I checked on.
It is a glorious place and I took over 1000 photographs - so definitely more to come here on the blog.
Patrick
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| A severely eroding site - those are smoke processing pits in profile (probably for drying cod) |
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