Chirikof Mega Fauna

Sunset at the lupin camp

Next week Community Archaeology begins at the Kashevaroff site and so it is time to put Chirikof archaeology to bed.  But first a few final pictures of the Chirikof mega fauna.  The cows (all 900 or so of them), the ground squirrels, the foxes, and, of course, the humans.  Until the 20th century it was just humans, dogs and ground squirrels living on Chirikof Island.  We have found lots of dog and squirrel bones in the prehistoric middens.  In the 20th century there were goats and horses (both now gone).  Today there are just foxes, ground squirrels and cows living there.  And except for the occasional visit the humans and dogs are all gone.  Patrick

An encounter with an inquisitive Bull

Visiting mega fauna - the crew on departure

Ground squirrel a.k.a whistle pig (When I saw one I always thought of the gopher from 'Caddyshack' - "I'm all right and nobody worry 'bout me")

Arctic Fox - introduced species that has decimated the nesting birds

Chirikof Archaeology

A tiny point from a 2000 year old site that looks exactly like the ones we found at a site on the Alaska Peninsula (and you don't find these on Kodiak)

The purpose of our visit out to Chirikof was to collect samples of animal bones from various sites of different ages, and to conduct a bird survey to see what birds are available out there today. Catherine will be identifying all the animals in the samples we collected and it will be interesting to see if different birds and animals lived on or near the island in the past.  I strongly suspect that the cows and foxes have  dramatically changed Chirikof's landscape.  The foxes have decimated the birds that nest on the ground while the cows have trampled everything and grazed the grass short.

Catherine was in charge of the expedition - I was only along as an archaeological resource (I know the sites) and for taking care of field logistics.  Basically I ended up carrying gear from one end of the island to the other and re found all the sites I first found in 2005.  It was really nice not to have the pressure of being in charge.  I got to relax and examine the archaeological sites.

For the most part, the sites are in better condition than they were in 2005.  Fewer cows around and the sites are eroding less.  Also since I last visited Chirikof in 2005 I have excavated a Norton site from the Alaska Peninsula (click here).  I now realize that there is a lot of similar looking material on Chirikof.

Unlike Kodiak, Chirikof has not been continuously occupied.  Periodically it has been abandoned and then new peoples have colonized it.  Early on - maybe until 4000 years or so ago - I think people from Kodiak lived there.  Then around 2000 years ago it looks like the people were more oriented towards the Alaska Peninsula.  Then for the last 700 years or so it was again people from Kodiak out there.

On this trip I have to secretively admit that I wanted to find a REALLY old site.  It appears that the south half of Chirikof was not glaciated and I talked with some geologists who found 12,000 year old tsunami deposits out there. So relative sea level had to have been relatively close to what it is today.  But no luck this time - and finding a really old site was sort of like looking for a needle in a hay stack.  Sites on Chirikof tend to be completely deflated with no charcoal to collect for radiocarbon dating or to be deeply buried by sand and weathered volcanic ash.  To find the really old sites one would need to visit with a team of geologists to pin point the old beaches etc and be prepared to dig a lot of deep test pits.

Patrick

This could be old - a blade from a totally deflated site

Kodiak style pottery from a late prehistoric site

An ochre grinder - a common find in early Kodiak sites

Catherine screens out the dirt and collects all the bones 

A deflated site on the west side - we still found undisturbed deposits

Chirikof Logistics

Our arrival at Chirikof - unfortunately at the wrong lake

While on Chirikof we established 5 different camps.  Our original intention had been to establish one camp at a lake on the Southwest corner of the island and then to do day trips to all the sites we intended to visit and sample.  However, on arrival it was too foggy to land at our intended lake.  We were forced to land at a lake at the other end of the island 6 or 7 miles away, and at least 3 or 4 miles away from any of the sites we wanted to visit.  We almost returned to Kodiak to try for the correct lake on another day. But, in the end, we decided to stay and try and do the project from the North end lake.  The pilot explained that he needed to return anyway, and he could move all our gear at that time.

Good thing we did decide to stay because the weather got even uglier and we would not have been able to get back for another 4 days. We would have been stuck in Kodiak.  This also meant all our gear was stuck at the North end lake.  The hike to the first site 3 or 4 miles away convinced us that the north end lake would not work as a base camp.  It was just too far away.  So we opted to move our camp on foot with just the bare minimum of gear closer to the area where the sites we wanted to test are located.

Jack and I returned to the North end lake and got what we would need to spend 3 days in a minimalist camp.  It is amazing what one can do without!  We dumped the Coleman stove and fuel, camp chairs, hatchet for splitting wood, all but one of the tents, coffee percolator and cream, water filtration system, and all but one change of clothes.  We brought one tent for Catherine and Sam, and Jack and I shared the big cook tent teepee with woodstove.  We found it very easy to set up such a stripped down camp, and we did all our cooking and water boiling on the woodstove.

The heaviest stuff  we had to carry was the samples we collected and the food.  And after 2 days and still no plane we moved on to camp 3 next to another site we intended to sample.  By this point we were almost out of food, and if the plane had not returned on the 4rth day and ferried our gear, Jack and I had intended to return back to our gear cache at the North end lake for food.  The round trip journey would have taken a full day.  Finally after four days we had our camp and all our gear at the correct lake!

Jack and I later did a 2 day bird survey from camp 4.  I also had to collect a faunal sample from a distant midden on the other side of the island.  And so we took gear for 2 days and carried it on our backs.  The weather was spectacular for our hike and it was so hot that we did not want to cook on the woodstove inside the tent.  So we set it up outside the tent on the beach!  It worked great.  This was our 5th and final camp.  Our packs got very heavy when filled up with faunal samples for the hike back to the main camp.

Patrick

Our first camp in a swamp

Jack negotiating cows on the way back to the North end lake to get gear and food

A minimalist Camp 2 in the dunes 

Camp 2 almost packed up - note 'coffee filter' and buoy 'spatula'

The haul down the beach to camp 3

Camp 3 at West Point

Camp 4 at SW Anchorage - finally at the correct lake with all our gear

Minimalist survey with Jack - too hot to cook in a teepee

Walking the cliffs and looking for birds

Back from Chirikof

Camp 3 and lupin from our recent trip to Chirikof Island

It's hard to believe but we are back from our archaeological project on Chirikof Island.  During our last 24 hours on the island it rained so hard I thought we'd see all the animals lining up two by two on the beach to board an ark.  Our teepee had a pond in it.  We just barely beat the fog on departure.  And now we are in Kodiak and it is sunny and warm with not a cloud in the sky.  There are lots of people and cars - even a Safeway where you can buy food.  We came from a remote uninhabited island and have arrived at the urban metropolis of Kodiak City - severe culture shock.

Above is a photo of our third camp on the island.  We only had 2 1/2 sunny days.  The island is severely overgrazed by cows and lupin is taking over the island.  It's poisonous so the cows will not eat it.  And so the beautiful purple flowers are taking over the landscape.

More to come. ... .

Patrick

Off to Chirikof

2000 year old faunal midden with ground squirrel bones

Tomorrow I am off to Chirikof Island with Sam, Catherine and Jack to test archaeological sites and conduct a bird survey.  I last visited the island back in 2005 when we surveyed the entire island for archaeological sites and assessed site conditions.  The whole island was badly over-grazed by feral cows and the archaeological sites were getting trampled by the cows and eroding away due to the lack of vegetation to hold the soil together.  The cows have totally changed the island's ecosystem and the archaeological sites are getting destroyed.

Catherine is in charge for this trip - I'm just the camp logistics guru - and the goal is to test the old faunal  middens and see what birds the prehistoric inhabitants ate (and discarded in their middens).  Then we will compare what we find to what's out there today.  Hence the bird survey aspect.  How exactly has the ecosystem changed?  For instance, did the prehistoric inhabitants have access to puffin colonies or other ground nesting species that the introduced foxes and cows have since eradicated?

After our first survey we determined that ground squirrels have lived out on Chirikof for at least 2000 years.  The United States Fish and Wildlife Service had planned on eradicating them because they believed that Russian fur traders had introduced them to the island and wanted to return the island to its 'natural state'.  Our work proved that the ground squirrels pre-dated the Russians, and, hence, the USFWS did not have to eradicate them.

Anyway, it'll be good to get back and see how things have changed.  It'll be REALLY nice not to be in charge, and the beachcombing will be GREAT.  Patrick

Mark collects charcoal to date a midden that turned out to be about 500 years old

White-fronted geese near our camp - probably migrating through on their way to summer nesting grounds

Awesome beach combing - a day's haul of glass balls

Chirikof Village 1869 & 2005

This blog entry features two images of Chirikof Village. One from 2005 and one from 1869. The watercolor is by Vincent Colyer - one of the first 'Indian Affairs' agents to visit Alaska after its purchase from Russia in 1867. Today the original watercolor can be found at the Bienecke Library at Yale University. Vincent Colyer later went on to become a curator at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but in 1869 he was painting native villages in Alaska. The panoramic photo on top shows what the site of the village looked like when I visited Chirikof Island two years ago.

Chirikof Village was on Chirikof Island - way out in the Gulf of Alaska - 50 miles South of Kodiak Island, and one of the most remote places in Alaska. It took almost three hours to fly there from the City of Kodiak, and while crossing the ocean to get to Chirikof we could not see land in any direction - a most unsettling feeling in a small float plane. It's really hard to believe that people have lived out there for at least 5000 years. Not only lived out there, but made frequent visits back and forth to Kodiak Island. We know this because we found a great many tools made out of rocks only found on the Kodiak Archipelago. Travel would have been by kayak and not floatplane. It must have been an extremely unsettling feeling half way between Chirikof and Kodiak in a kayak!

A long-standing myth is that chirikof was a penal colony when the Russians ran Alaska. As you can see in the watercolor it was actually a pretty prosperous village. This 'myth' used to drive the late Lydia Black, a well-known Russian America scholar, nuts. Her research has demonstrated that it was a prosperous village whose main export product was ground squirrel skins for parkas and NOT a penal colony. She even determined that Henry Elliot (an early US government agent - famous for his reports on the fur seal industry and his sketches) started the rumor. Another myth about Chirikof that used to drive Lydia nuts is that the cows out there are some special hardy 'Russian stock'. As she put it, 'there were no cows out there until the Americans put them there'.

Today the cows are wreaking havoc on the island's ecosystem (and the archaeological sites). The island is so overgrazed that parts of the island are literally blowing away. And the cow population is at its 'Malthusian Limit'. In the Spring of 2005 there were dead and dying cows everywhere. It really is an ecological disaster. The worst of it is that the US Fish and Wildlife Service who owns the island wants to get rid of the cows, but a great many people, including our last Governor, Frank Murkowski, believe the cows are special and should be saved. So nothing has happenned and the island continues to blow away. Check out how green the place was in 1869 in comparison to 2005! Patrick