Cove site unearths a glimpse of the past Martin Millerchip Sunday Focus Editor mimillerchip@nsnews.com ALICE Storey and Mary-Lou Lafleur are sitting in the mud of Strathcona Park in Deep Cove. It’s raining. They don’t seem to mind. Also getting wet and muddy are a dozen or so other archeology students, ‘Tsleil-Waututh (Burrard) band members and a Simon Fraser University professor as they dig, kneel and peer into, holes and trenches that are partially covered by tarps. None of them mind either. Only the neighbourhood cat that has adopt- ed the strangers in her park is making a conscious effort to stay under the tarps and out of the rain. Storey and Lafieur are clutching notebooks and sketch pads and recording what has been exposed by the vertical excavation of the shallow trench theyre working in. Close to the top, a series of wavy white lines stand out in’ relief against the black soil. Imagine a chocolate cake with several thin layers of cream filling that has been crushed a bit. ff vou were to cut that cake in half and look at the cream layers, they would no longer run through the cake in clean hori- zontal fines but would be compressed together in places, separated bur wiggly in others. The students’ painstaking work is called stratigraphy. They have a base line and are map- ping the strata above and below. The white lines indicate historical use of the site by the people of the Inlet. They are layers of crushed clam shells that likely represent the floors of huts, rebuilt in the same spot in: successive’ ages. Over time, as plants die and things like houses fall down, the soil builds up. The house floor that is closest to the surface of the ground is the newest and che deepest layer in the trench is the oldest. How old? Nobody knows yet at this dig. Similar sites around Burrard Inler and the Fraser River have been dated as older than 3,000 years. . The litte dig has a big name: The Tsleil- Waututh First Nation Community _Archacological Project. .The collaboration berween the Tsleil- Waututh and this year’s field school from the Archeology Deparument at Simon Fraser University is a far ery from the days of colonial appropriation, which saw native artifacts being, dug, out of the ground and removed with a vagucly scientific “finders keepers” attitude. ~’f Tie project's stated objectives are B® ‘To increase knowledge of traditional Tsleil- Wav cuth life and culture through archeological reseacch of Indian Arm and Burrard Inlet; @ To build 2 partnership beoween the Tslcil- Waututh Nation and Simon Fraser University; @ To train SFU students and Tsteil-Wauruth community members in archacological ficid ‘techniques: @ To educate the public about archaeology and the importance of protecting archacoloyical sites; @ Te educate the public abour TsleiJ-Wauruth history and traditional use activities. CHRONICLING and contemplating the puzzie of the pit are (left to right) SFU stu- dents Jared Obermeyer, Jesse Morin and archeology professor Dana Lepofsky. The horizontat white lines near the top are finely crushed clam shells. Professor Dana Lepofsky is responsible for the university’s end of the partnership. She became the North West Coast archeologist at Simon Fraser ir 1996. Part of her job is to run the yearly field school that crains students in archeological field techniques. In previous years she has worked on the Fraser River’s Scowlits site. Although that site has been revisited over a number of years and continues to yield important information, it’s an expensive location for the university. Access is only possible by boar and logistically that PETER Locher and Alice Storey quickly screen soil from an area of the dig that was previously disturbed by an unregistered excavation. requires the students to camp out five days 2 week with swarms of hungry mosquitoes. Lepofsky knew the potential of the Strathcona site because she lives in the Cove with her husband and young son. She brought stu- dents to the park last year on a mapping exercise. Bur she says the decision to talk to the Tsleil- Waututh about the possibility of an organized dig was strictly spur of the moment -—— made as she was driving home along Dol!larton one after- noon and found herself turning left “to intro- duce myselfat the Band office.” “The site has turned out to be fabulous,” says Lepotsky. “We get the lawn mowed, there’s no mosquitoes or cougars and the students have dis- covered The Raven and Honey’s doughnuts.” But Lepotiky is enthused about the project for better reasons than its convenience. Because of the site’s urban location, public access and education is possible and, because of the Tsleil- Waututh partnership, visitors learn about the way First Nation oral tradition and archeology com- plement cach other in unravelling the mysteries of the past. School groups are first welcomed to Tsleil- Waucuth traditional territory by band members like Leah George or Carleen Thomas and given a brief overview of First Nation traditional lite around the Inlet. “It’s important for non-aboriginal people to decument what we know —- that we have been here for time out of mind,” says George. “We know how our people lived, what they ate. Our grandmothers told us that they would lay the clams down and cover them with kelp. But to see it being revealed in the ground is something new to me and reaffirms what my grandmother told me,” echoes Thomas. She adds with undisguised intensity: “It feels really great. [t affirms everything that our elders told us to be true. For non-aboriginals it gives our elders credit.” ~ THIS toggle harpoon was found on site. The breakaway three-piece design was used to hunt seais. The ‘TMeil-Waututh are Coast Salish people who speak the down-river dialect. of the Hatkomelem language. The most heavily used part of their traditional territory is the water and jand area around Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm, Prior to contact with Europeans, oral history tells us the Tsleil-Waututh numbered over 10,000 people. Their “seasonal round” involved a complex evcle of food gathering, hunting, and spiritual and cultural activities that formed the heart of Teleil-Waututh culture. In the winter, community members would congregate in jarge villages, typically located in sheltered bays. Shed-roofed houses up to several hundred feet in length were divided into individ- ual family apartments. During the winter, people subsisted largely on stored dried foods gathered and processed throughout the rest of the year. Winter activities included wood carving, blanket weaving and participating in spiritual ceremonies. In the late spring, families would disperse to set up basecamps on virtually every beach and protected cove in Tsteil-Waututh territory. Planks from the winter houses were transported by canoe and used to construct the smaller summer structures. Using these camps as a base of opera- tions, the Tsleil-Waututh made excursions to hunting, fishing, and gathering locations as resources became seasonally available. Sor: of these resources were used immediately, while others were processed and stored for use during the winter. We're standing on the site of one of those satellite camps that, in larze part, was built to harvest clams. One of the shallow pits on the site exposes the side of a shell midden that likely stretches under another 15 lots around the bay. In mid-July or carly August, most of the Tslei!-Waututh, as well as other Coast Salish groups, travelled to the Fraser River to catch and dry the most favoured type of salmon: sockeye. - During this time, people wourd visit, exchange news of relatives, and form alliances. Large vol- umes of many kinds of berries were also harvest- ed and dried during the summer months. After the Fraser River run finished in the fall, Tsleil-Waututh families would congregate in camps on the Indian, Capilano, Seymour and other rivers co fish for pink and chum salmon, Most of the catch was dried for winter use. By December, families returned to their winter vil- lages with the provisions collected throughout the year, and the yearly evele began again. First Nations oral traditions and archeology are distinct but complementary ways of learning about the past. Oral tradition documents past events that have been caretidiy passed down through the spoken word. Oral traditions pro- vide the human dimension to the past which can not often be gleaned from the archeological record. Archeology records the past by excavating archeological sites and the careful note-taking of the exact relationship of features and artifacts to one another. Features are things like hearths or holes where posts used to be. They are often no more than stains in the soil only recognizable to the trained eye. Archeology can provide details about chronology which help to more precisely See More page § Coming in Sunday Focus NEXT week in Sunday Focus Katharine Hamer looks at the need to protect children from Internet predators. To suggest a feature story that deserves to be “in Focus” write to Martin Millerchip, North Shore News, 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, V7M 2H4, fax 985-2104 or e-mail .