Got green quick

 

It was a slow spring. The cottonwoods did not even leaf out until we got back from Aiaktalik Island. But once we did get back it got GREEN in a hurry. All the hillsides went from a dead and brown (with dots of pushki green) to a vibrant light green in seemingly the blink of an eye.  Stuey mowed the lawn less than a week ago and it already needs another mow!

Patrick

Aiaktalik Archaeology

 

Documenting an old village

This is my final Aiaktalik survey post - the archaeology of Aiaktalik Island. As I posted earlier we found 9 new sites and documented another 4 already know sites. But what stands out, particularly as compared to my inner Uyak Bay survey back in May (click here for post), is how many of the sites were large 'winter' villages. Five of the 13 sites represented substantial villages where maybe 100 or more people lived in the past. At Russian contact Aiaktalik village was the largest village on the archipelago and 450 people lived there. It seems that maybe it has always been the location of a big village. Three of the big villages we found were over 1000 years old.

Another surprise is that the big villages are all in fairly good condition - none of them are eroding into the sea. Fully a third or more of the coastline on Aiaktalik Island - most of the south and east side - is getting cut back dramatically by coastal erosion. It is clear that a great many sites have probably completely eroded away, but where all the big villages are located the coastline is stable. 

We only found 5 small sites - sites that lacked a lot of house depressions. These were seasonal camps or places people where went to catch and process some sort of subsistence food. These are the sorts of sites I mostly found on the Inner Uyak Bay survey, and I have a feeling that these are the types of sites that have been dis-proportionally lost to coastal erosion on Aiaktalik Island. The other 3 sites we documented are the Russian Orthodox Church, a rock cairn, and a 20th century shack.

One of the cool survey finds was the church foundation at the end of Old Aiaktalik village. The church was still standing in the 1950's. The village had been abandoned immediately prior to WWII. We carefully matched up a photo of the church from the 1950s with the modern landscape (But I should have backed up just a bit and moved a little to the west!). In the 1950s the photographer was probably using a 50 mm lens while I was using a 28 mm lens. You can see that in his/her photo that the cliffs in the background seem a lot closer.

We also found a large village on top of a high cliff. In an 18th century account about the first Russian expedition to winter over on Kodiak Island they parked their boat in Russian Harbor just to the North of Aiaktalik Island. This account mentions visiting a big Alutiiq village on top of a high cliff. I think we found and mapped that very village!

Patrick

Same view as below 70 years later (but needed to be a bit more to the right)

Aiaktalik Village

House depression at Aiaktalik Village

An 'earth oven' - pit filled with heated rocks

a shell midden - remains of past meals

incised ulu

net sinker

another shell midden

mid 19th century ceramic from Aiaktalik Village

Cooking in the field

Cooking breakfast on the big stove

 To save weight and space we used titanium wood stoves for cooking. They roll up into packages the size of a book and weigh less than 2 pounds. Our small teepee and woodstove weighs 3-4 pounds combined. The pots and pans and other stuff weigh more than the wood stoves. Woodstoves also provide heat and comfort. They serve the purpose of a campfire that we can gather around. The afternoon we had a rain and windstorm - it was nasty outside - cooking quesadillas on the woodstove saved the day.

Woodstoves are great to cook on - you can cook things a little slower without fearing of burning the food on the 'hot spot' typical of camp propane burner stoves. We typically cook red beans and rice and pasta type meals. We do use a jet boil type stove to boil water that we add to the dishes to save time. We do not eat the freeze dried meals that a lot of lightweight campers use in the field. Our food is far, far better. We eat real food and even add fresh vegetables like nettles to them. 

Our trick to cooking pasta in the field is to add just enough water that the pasta can absorb it all. I typically pour the boiling water in to just below the tops of the pasta - and only to pasta with 'structure' like bowties etc. Then there is no need to pour off the water at the end and create a bear attracting mess near camp.

Patrick

Little stove in action

Quesadillas on the small stove

Pasta with nettles

reducing the nettles into the pasta

adding the nettles to the pasta

dinner onion, garlic and sausage prep

On Survey

 

Our main 'big' camp at the west end of the island

Our Ayaktalik survey entailed a lot of hiking. Also, going in we knew that the bulk of our work was going to be concentrated at either end of the island. Big villages to map and all the beach ridges to survey at the northeast end, and then Old Aiaktalik village and all the other sites by the lagoon at the west end of the island. So rather than doing long day hikes back and forth from camp to document one of these areas; we set up two camps instead. This way we had a camp at either end of the island.

We arrived by helicopter and dropped a small camp with food and an electric fence at the northeast corner of the island. Then we set up our main camp near the village of Aiaktalik at the west end of the island. 

This worked out well. After we mapped all the sites on the west end of the island we split up and hiked, surveying for new sites, on both the north and south shores to the east end of the island. There we stayed in our small 'drop camp'. And we had enough to document there to keep us busy for 2 days. And no need to hike 4-5 miles back to camp at the end of every day!

When the helicopter came back we packed up both camps and squeezed it all into the helicopter. And that was the toughest part - we had to fit 3 people, food and gear for 2 camps into a tiny R66 helicopter. That's where light weight camping gear comes in handy. Hurray for DFC teepees and compact titanium wood stoves! 

Note in the photos that we are all wearing 'hi vis' vests. This is because part of the survey was done from the helicopter and it helps the pilot see us on the ground. But even surveying without the helicopter we still wore the  brightly visible clothing. It helped us see each other! We would separate and communicate by VHF radios, and it was amazing how far off we could see each other when wearing the neon colored vests. It's hard to lose someone when they are wearing bright orange clothing.

Patrick

Marsh Marigold

Aleutian Violets

Eschscholtz buttercup

Riding the flood

 

This weekend we got a lot of rain. Stuey and his friend Paxson have been learning to whitewater kayak and convinced me to join them. Buskin River actually got so much water that it had flooded the banks and the upper section got too dangerous to raft - all the sweepers and trees are too hard to avoid. And so we decided to just run the very bottom section of the river and check out the surf at the beach. 

The river itself was so flooded that there was not much to it (no flooded trees near bottom either). So it was a little boring and short too. But then the surf at the mouth was a serious hoot. It took us a few tries to figure out how to surf waves without rolling our kayaks. And then we rode the waves for an hour or so. The sun even made an appearance.

Patrick