Buskin Float

 

Over the weekend the kids and I joined Uncle Dicky and cousin Zeke for a float trip down Buskin River to the sea.  The river was surprisingly high and even a little scary in places where trees had fallen into the river and created 'sweepers'.  Nora had her own small raft while Stuey and I shared a double.  Uncle Dicky and Zeke used paddle boards.

We did some exploring as we went and stopped frequently to get out and explore beyond the banks of the river.  And then when we reached the sea we went out and tried to surf on the waves.  Stuey and I did manage to catch a wave and for a while there it looked like the wave was going to catch and roll us over. It was certainly a thrill, but we managed to keep the raft upright.

Patrick

Simple Hunting Camp

 

All last week we excavated at a small site on the shores of Womens Bay.  It is an incredibly ephemeral site - just a hearth with an area of imported beach gravel next to it with a scatter of rocks around them.  There are no built up walls, post holes or dug in foundation.  It looks like a simple hearth that may or may not have been covered with a skin roof where Alutiiq people stayed while they hunted sea mammals.  And it is old - based on the style of hunting implements it looks to be around 5000 years old.

For tools all we have found are broken hunting lances, a whetstone for sharpening them and a pumice abrader for smoothing the lance shaft.  Nothing else.  No chipped stone, no scrapers, no tool manufacturing debris.  This was a place where hunters brought their weapons to hunt sea mammals, replaced broken tips, and maybe put on a finer edge to their points and smoothed the shafts.  They did not spend a lot of time here.

The site is actually a lot like a couple of other nearby sites (the Amak and Kashevaroff sites - click here and here) except those sites were used more frequently, and at various times other activities also took place there.  The site where we are digging now was only used for one season (later in time people did frequently camp there but the lower component represents just one season or so).  The story is much more straight forward and un cluttered by the noise of multiple visits.  

Patrick

whetstone for sharpening slate

pumice abrader - this rock floats!

Nora's bayonet mid section

The 5000 year old hearth

Hearth with scattered gravel beyond it - the square hole is from our 2019 test pit

Another view from the other side

Best of all my daughter Nora joined me for a morning at the dig, and she found a ground slate bayonet mid section.  She enjoyed her visit, and did not want to leave.  This made me very happy.  Later she told me that she enjoyed the banter of all the other archaeologists talking as they excavated.  It also helped that we were finding cool stuff.

Patrick

Nora excavating her square

Dig Begins

 

Yesterday we embarked on a small excavation on the shores of Womens Bay.  We'll be excavating for 8 days and hope to uncover a 4-5 thousand year old structure of some sort, and learn what people were doing there in the distant past.

We found the site on a survey of the area a couple of years ago when we dug a number of exploratory holes in the area looking for archaeological sites.  In one of those holes we found a layer of charcoal-stained gravel at the bottom right above the glacial till, an old post hole dug into the till, and both were capped by a layer of 4000-year-old volcanic ash.  We also found nothing in the other holes that we dug nearby.  So we know that there is a small site, probably where people only lived a short while, and that it is older than 4000 years.

That's not much to know!  So yesterday when we started the excavation I was very happy when Alex found a ground slate lance fragment.  This type of artifact typically was used to hunt sea mammals 4-6 thousand years ago.  An auspicious start!

Patrick

The charcoal-stained gravel that we found at the bottom of the 2019 test pit

Spring Flowers

 

Chocolate Lily

For the last few days I've been sick and mostly bed bound with a summer cold.  For some reason the cold struck me far harder than it did either Stuey or Nora.  So I've mostly been in bed reading with the dogs.  Still every afternoon I have forced myself up and about and have taken the dogs on short walks.  And on the walks I've been taking pictures of the wildflowers.  Right now it is peak wildflower season.  These are pictures of the wildflowers found at sea level.  When I feel better I'll climb up the mountains again and get the alpine wildflowers.  

Patrick

Lupin

Salmonberry

Highbush Cranberry

Willow

Elderberry

Wild Geranium

Sitkinak Archaeology

 

Chase standing by a 2-3 thousand year old house depression

We have been back from the Sitkinak survey for over 2 weeks and I am only now posting the final post.  The one about the archaeology.  We ended up finding 31 new archaeological sites and checking on an additional 7 sites that were already known.  

Of interest we found a great many small sites in the 2-3 thousand year old range, and not all that many of the huge late prehistoric whaling villages that we had expected to find.  Most of the big whaling villages were on the outer coast and have eroded away.  On the outer coasts we observed severe ongoing erosion and at least 3 of the previously reported large whaling villages are now almost entirely gone.  This discovery was somewhat shocking.

Not all the sites are eroding, and we even found a few of the big late prehistoric villages that were not eroding.  But it is clear that outer coast sites are under-represented in our overall sample of sites.

Most of the 2-3 thousand year old sites were fishing camps where the inhabitants used nets to catch fish.  A number of these sites were situated along a creek and lake that we think once had a sizable red salmon run.  Here we found small village sites a long ways away from the current coastline, and the net sinkers and ulus found at the sites indicate that they were catching fish and processing them.

A final observation is that the cows have not damaged the sites very much.  On the nearby island of Chirikof an unmanaged herd of feral cows has over-grazed the landscape and caused severe erosion.  But on Sitkinak the cows are managed and the population kept low, and there are barbed wire fences to keep the cows out of sensitive areas.  The landscape is not over-grazed and trampled.  The cows have caused some erosion but nothing like I saw on Chirikof (click here for some old posts on Chirikof).  

Patrick

Severe erosion - According to old reports there once was a site at this location but it is gone now

house depression truncated by erosion - this one had coal on the house floor

close-up of the coal mixed with the floor deposits of a house (see above)

If you find charcoal in an exposure it's a site

This is a big village site that is just starting to erode into the sea

Netsinkers and an ulu (we did not collect any artifacts)

Prehistoric ceramics and an ulu

One site just had a lot of net sinkers on the beach and nothing else

Severely eroding village site on the outer coast

an adze for planing wood

We found this site almost a 1/2 mile from the sea in a very unlikely spot

Evenings up Behind Cope Mountain

Nora empties her boots after crossing the river on way home

 Both Friday and Sunday evenings Nora and I took the dogs and joined our friends Brent and Vonn for evening skis up behind Bells Flats.  It's a long hike and climb, and there is a river to cross.  But once you get up there the skiing is excellent and the view stunning.  And then on the way home you get to ski 2 miles back towards the car in one long, swooping run.  Up on top it is all snow and then at the bottom of the run full on summer and very green.

Patrick

Brewster just wants to chase

North side run towards Sharatin - note snowboarder in center for scale

Last of the snow on the run back to car

Nora and the backside of Cope

Friday evening's backside of Cope run

Nora enters the 'Grand Canyon' on the run home

Getting ready to head home

North side run towards Sharatin at the top of the 'Halfpipe'

Backside of Cope mountain and the sea