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| Carrying firewood back to camp and the glass balls I found looking for driftwood! |
This year I found more glass balls than I have in years. I found 4 on the East Aliulik Peninsula survey in early May (click here) and then in late May on Sitkinak Island I found 22! I have often posted on beach combing and glass balls (Japanese net floats) in the past - (click here, and here for some older posts), and going through the old posts I think my all time high for glass balls was on Chirikof Island in 2005 when we found 120 total (I found around 65). In 2013 when I returned to Chirikof Island I found less than 10.
So this year on Sitkinak I was shocked when on the first day of hiking I found 13 glass balls. I even found 3 all at once. It was like a return to the 1990's and beach combing at its best. 13 glass balls in one day may well be my all time one day high. And during the survey I continued to find them - I even had another double of 2 right next to each other. Hard to believe the Japanese have not been making glass balls and using them for net floats for almost 60 years!
Ironically, we found more archaeological sites because we were looking for glass balls. One evening we hiked far up into a tidal lagoon - far further than I would have ordinarily - and then hiked over to the other side of the island to check the back side of a lake for glass balls. Except we found 6 archaeological sites and only one glass ball! We probably would not have checked those areas unless we were looking for glass balls.
At the museum we have sort of a tradition that when we travel we bring back a present for all the other museum employees. Like if you go to France or Wisconsin you bring back cheese. On my return back to Kodiak I brought back a glass ball for every single one of my co-workers. Sitkinak glass balls! Maybe I should have brought them all Sitkinak beef?
Patrick
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| I found this glass ball right next to camp after we had already set up the teepee |
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| Haul from the first 2 days |
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| Haul from the first day! |
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| Glass ball in situ |
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| No nearby sites - this looks like a whale vert that someone recently hacked into a face (intentional?) |
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