On into the midden

Not only has Community Archaeology begun, but it is already 1/3 complete! This year, due to all the other Museum fieldwork commitments (Alitak and Penguk) the Community Archaeology dig is only 2 weeks long. So after just 3 days of digging we are already 1/3 of the way through the dig. Like last year we are excavating at the Miktsqaaq Angayuk site out on Cliff Point. Leisnoi Inc., the landowner, has kindly given us a special permit to work out there.

Last year we excavated an entire house from circa 1820, but with only a 2 week field season our goals for this year are much more contained. Rather than digging a whole house we are testing the other house pits in the area to see if they are also from the early Russian era, or if they are late prehistoric. We are also digging into the back of the mound looking for older midden deposits. Molly Odell is studying how people used shellfish through time at the site, and she already has analyzed the shellfish from the 1820 house and from the Late Kachemak midden (AD 1000). Now we want to find her some 3000 year old midden, and, hopefully, if the other houses turn out to be late prehistoric we will excavate a test in front of them to get some late prehistoric midden (AD 1600 or so). Then Molly would have samples from all the time periods to analyze.

So far so good, we have found a midden with excellent faunal preservation. Yesterday Leslie found a harpoon and I am hopeful that the midden is Early Kachemak. It was capped by a thick layer of rocks, gravel and charcoal stained soil and full of Kachemak style artifacts. Since the midden is below it - it is older. Now we got to find some charcoal to radiocarbon date or find an artifact diagnostic of the Early Kachemak era. As you can see from the bottom photo the faunal preservation is excellent. It is practically pure blue mussel shell.

Finally, we have just opened up one of our tests into the large housepits and have not yet found any historic artifacts. So I am hopeful that it is late prehistoric because last year we immediately found metal, glass and russian ceramics right on top of the floor of the house from 1820. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Patrick

My Tenderhearted Guy

A DEEP END MOMENT
Stuey is such a little tenderhearted guy.

I just returned from the pool, and we hadn't been for several weeks because of schedule and pool repairs. The last time we were there, Stuey jumped off the diving board. Since it has been some time, Stuey was nervous. He would walk out the length of the diving board VERY slowly, get to the very end, then back off the board. Even with me swimming in the water encouraging him, he got a little too scared.

Today Stuey was on his 3rd or 4th attempt--walking out to the end and turning around. One of my favorite lifegaurds, Ashley, slowly walked out towards Stuey.
I asked her, "Should I go out and get him?".
She said, "I"ll get him". After she stepped out to get closer to him, little Stuey looked so sad and his he was saying something over and over.

"What is he saying?" I asked Ashley.

"Hes saying 'I'm a big boy'" over and over again" she replied. It was such a sweet moment. Stuey wanted so badly to be a "Big kid" by jumping off the board, but he was just a little scard. So Ashley lowered him down to me as I swam in the water underneath. When Stuey surfaced, he said, " I did it mamma! I want to jump off the side". From then on, he was perfectly content jumping off the side of the pool and kicking back to the side. He just had to show himself that he could do it--even if just once.

Another funny pool moment was there was a little group of young guys going off the diving board repeatedly. They were watching as Stuey did his "gangplank" walk.
One of the times I said, "Come on, Stuey--you can do it!". One of the boys said, "Stuey!!?? IS that his name?" I said "yeah, its Stuey". He laughed and said, "thats funny! Thats from the Family Guy". I have yet to see an episode of the family guy...and I remember my friend Mary Jane encouraging me not to call Stuart "Stuey" because of the TV show. But I must admit...Stuey fits his name perfectly.


TENDERHEARTED STUEY
Last night we had friends over to the house, as Patrick and Mike were canning a bunch of silver, king and pink salmon. Nora and one of her friends ran around the house and Nora was teasing Stuey a bit. Stuey retreated to behind my legs and started crying. It really surprised me how sensitive he was to Nora's teasing. I think I was expecting that he would lash back somehow more at Nora and her friend, but he just kept retreating to behind me and wanting me to hold him. It was so sweet and tenderhearted of him.

Today with one of my physical therapy clients, I brought this up, as we always have great conversations and she has 3 boys so I figured she might have some insight on Stuey's sensitive side.

"I'm worried that him going to pre-school 3 days a week will ruin or take away that tenderhearted side of him" I said. She was very re-assuring that boys are who they are...and her 3 boys were very different from eachother, some more sensitive or aggressive than others. And that the sensitive one remained sensitive with time and it wasn't something that was "shaken" out of him with his 2 more aggressive brothers. this was re-assuring for me to hear. As I really love the caring, more soft spoken side of Stuey and I don't want the group boy preschool behavior to impact him negatively.

ZOYA

PHoto: As we returned home tonight from swimming, we were greeted by a beautiful rainbow over mill bay!

Fogged Out

Community archaeology has begun (more on this in another post) and I was shut out on the opening day of deer season. Gregg and I climbed up into the mountains on Saturday night with high hopes. It was pretty clear and the weather looked good (bottom photo). Just has as we were picking a spot to camp a bear wandered by which was a little disconcerting. But he avoided us and we had our miso soup and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and the stars were all out - all was looking good.

In the morning the mountain tops were socked in with fog. It cleared a bit and got our hopes up a few times (second photo). But for the most part it stayed fogged in. We sat in one place for 4 hours waiting for it to clear off (top photo). We even re set up our tarp tent and waited out some rain and had some more coffee. But no luck - it never really cleared off until pretty late by which time all the deer had bedded down. We got fogged out. The second opening day in a row too!

Weirdly enough we did see 6 bears - a sow and 2 cubs and 3 singles. The cubs heads barely stuck up above the brush. We saw more bears than bucks! We did see a spike, but we do have some standards. And we spent more time looking at the does we saw than the bears. We wanted them to sprout horns. Patrick

Susannah's Wedding

This has been a summer of beautiful weddings...today Nora and I attended the last one at the local Russian Orthodox Church.(the one with the big blue onion domes downtown).
Susannah, who works at the local Monks Rock Cafe, invited me to her wedding and I've been looking forward to going all year. Susannah and Innocent were engaged at the beginning of last summer and I have heard about the wedding plans since then. I know Susannah from going to Monks Rock, as she is always upbeat and fun to talk to. She manages the restaurant/icon shop. Over the past 2+ years, I've had the chance to get to know others in the local Russian Orthodox community, primarily through my birth work. Several moms and husbands have taken my classes and for 2 of the couples, I was their doula.

So today at the wedding service, I looked around and saw many faces I know in the crowd. Many wonderful, caring people all celebrating the wedding of Susannah and Innocent. The service was in the Russian Orthodox Church downtown and just about everyone stood, as is the Russian Orthodox tradition. There was beautiful singing, in fact, most of the service was done in song/verse which was goregous. There wasn't the traditional, "I take you to be my wedded..." parts to the service-rather there was candle and incense rituals as well as a crowning ritual where the bride and groom both wore classy crowns. At the very end after Susannah and Innocent were pronounced husband and wife, they went to the front of the church and everyone was cheering and singing and the church bells started ringing outside. Quite a beautiful moment. A goose bump moment.

Nora came with me to the service and did well. I thought the service was going to be 45 minutes, but it was an hour and a half and I was glad I brought her. She had her moments of "I want to go home now" but all in all she did great. I picked her up and held her so she could see things better for parts of it. THe last time I was in the Russian Orthodox church was about 25+ years ago. I vaguely remember going to a wedding there when I was 7 or 8.

Recently I"ve felt the need to "force" Nora a little bit with longer public services like this. Its good for kids to get practice with waiting, observing and being patient. A great feature about the service today was that there were lots of kids of all ages, and parents were taking them in/out as needed.

The reception was held at the Ft. Abercrombie recreation site, and St. Innocents Academy did a fabulous job with a castle theme at the site. Complete with fake stone walls, covered tables, an incredible buffet with crab dip, halibut, gorgeous cake. And live music--fiddle and violin to top it off. There was a sound system and music going the entire time.

Congrats to Susannah and Innocent on a beautiful wedding!

Zoya

Photos:
-Susannah and Innocent shortly after being pronounced husband and wife
-the bridemaids in their hand-sewn dresses! Several of them finished theirs up the night before.
-the "getaway" vehicle--complete with the local ice cream truck pulling it! They were driven from the church to Ft. Abercrombie in it!
-Overview of the Ft. Abercrombie Reception site
-THe gorgeous cake. I'm not sure who made it, but I believe someone in the Russian Orthodox community did.

Final Penguk Pics

This is it - the last pictures I'll post from Penguk - I promise. Deer season starts tomorrow and the Community Archaeology dig starts on Monday, and so the continuing events of summer put the mosquitos of Penguk into the past. It already seems like it was all a really long time ago. But before we put it to rest I thought I'd post these last few photos of our life in camp.

The top photo is of Ryan wearing his grass skirt about to swim across the King Salmon River. Note the pepper spray on his hip if you dare look that close. While at Penguk we tried to escape camp a few times and go for hikes. These hikes became known as 'Escape from Penguk' and were numbered in order with roman numerals like bad horror movies serials. The third photo is a group shot escaping across the tundra from 'Escape from Penguk II'. By the time Ryan came to camp we had sort of given up on the hikes. With flat tundra all around there really was no place to go - no destinations. So we sent the raft home on the resupply plane that brought Ryan to camp. If there was no place to hike to, then we did not need the raft to cross the river.

But after we had backfilled the site and had a day in hand until the plane came to pick us up, Ryan and I decided to give a good hike one more try. Our goal was a low hill about three miles downriver that had another Norton Village on top. It is on the other side of the river. No problem, we thought, we will swim across! The river is actually pretty wide and we ended up crossing it in segments - swimming from island to island. The hike ended up as a slog with the wind at our back and a cloud of mosquitos in our faces. Stripping down to swim the river was painful because of the mosquitos. And the water was very cold. Our dry bag backpacks acted like life jackets and kept us afloat. Escape from 'Penguk IV' lived up to its billing.

About the best thing about our camp was our teepee cook tent with wood stove (see second photo). Nothing like a woodstove to keep up camp moral. In the evening we would all sit around it and heat up water on top and drink tea, talk and read. It was our communal experience.

We also had a banya for bathing (see fourth photo). My brother designed it and had it custom sewed up for him by sailmaker he knows. It ended up working extremely well, and we could get it almost as hot as the banya here at home. Getting good and clean every few days was also good for camp moral.

Finally, we did have good fishing at Penguk. There is a reason the river we stayed on is called the King Salmon. But I must admit I was amazed at the size of the king salmon we caught - they were tiny for kings. But just about the perfect size to feed a crew of six with one vegetarian. Patrick

Penguk Wildlife

I thought about adding a picture here of Ryan in his 'grass skirt' about to swim across the mighty King Salmon River, but decided that I'll stick to the non-human wildlife at Penguk. And Ryan technically is human. I'll leave the Ryan 'in his grass skirt' photo for my next (and last) post about Penguk - the camplife post. I promise it'll be my last Penguk post.

Anyway - what post about Penguk wildlife would be complete without something on the mosquitos. So check out the video I posted to YouTube at the bottom. Originally it was about 2 minutes long of a mosquito engorging herself on my blood (and yes, it is female and NOT male mosquitos that suck blood), but I sped it up and all the people talking sound like gerbils. It's worth watching if you don't like mosquitos.

Penguk did have great wildlife. Amazing flowers (top photo is of Lupin), and astounding amounts of waterfowl. Every lake had a few swans nesting on it, sandhill cranes were literally everywhere, and we had both red throated and common loons flying over camp. Red throated (we called them 'red necked') loons make the most amazing honking noise as they flew up and down the river. Early on it was all godwits - HUGE flocks of the squawkers flying overhead and walking about the exposed tidal flats in the river. Later on during the project they disappeared and I wondered if they migrated on to somewhere or just finished nesting.

We also had visits from moose, wolves, caribou, foxes and bears. We never saw the wolves but did find their tracks (fourth photo) and heard them howling at night. Early on we found the tracks of just about every species of animal mentioned above in the mud by the river below camp every morning. But by the end of our stay all the animals were avoiding our camp. I only know this because on the second to last day I did cross the river and I was amazed by the amount of tracks on the other side. I suddenly realized that all the animals had been swimming the river on their way up or downstream to avoid us!

Finally, what post about wildlife in Alaska is complete without the requisite bear photo (second from top)? We did have our bears, and this little guy did hang out near the latrine for a few days. You can tell in the photo that he's 'a bad boy'. We never did drive him away, and the girls had some exciting moments on the way to the latrine. Eventually he just faded away and we never saw him again. But the girls DID continue to go 'hey bear, hey bear' everytime they went to the bathroom. Patrick

Quesadillas on a woodstove

Today Stuey, Nora and myself got a small taste of what camp life is in the field...without having to endure killer mosquitos on the Alaska Peninsula! Patrick set up the tee-pee cooktent and he made dinner for us on the little stove inside. Outside, the temperatures hovered in the mid 50's. Inside, the tent was warm and filled with the scents of freshly cooking bean and pepper quesadillas.
I said to Patrick, "Now I see how you survived out in the field for so long. This is quite nice and warm!". Patrick talked about how the woodstove and fire really provided a mood boost for the crew in the evenings and that it was better than everyone going to their own tent right after dinner. If the winds were strong or if it was raining, they were able to find solace in the tee-pee. This tee-pee is a much smaller version of the one they use in the field, however.

Nora is looking forward to camping on the lawn in the next few days, so Patrick will set up the sleeping tent for her and Stuey to camp in. He said he'd sleep with the kids, which I was thrilled with--as much as I love camping, I don't sleep as well as when I'm in my own bed.

Zoya

Going, Going. ... .. .

The snow is disappearing quickly up on Pyramid, but I'm surprised at how long it has lasted. I thought my ski season was done for the year back in early June when we left for Maine. I knew then that It would be another 6 weeks before I returned from my archaeological excavation on the Alaska Peninsula and could go skiing again. I sort of assumed that there would be no snow on Pyramid when I returned. And I was wrong!

I've been skiing after work every day, and it is almost August. And not a bad run either - about 350 feet vertical. Last week there was just a short patch of grass to cross and you could ski another 400 vertical or so. But as you can see it is almost gone (those are hikers sliding down on top for scale). The left (skiier's right) part of the run melted out yesterday and the other side has only a few days left. But with Community Archaeology and the beginning of hunting season starting next week, the ski season would be ending for me anyway. I know that if I really wanted to I could go a bit further into the backcountry and ski all year round. This year there is lots of snow back there. Patrick

Full Moon Goddess Party

Yesterday was July's full moon, which signifies the monthly goddess gathering. On the full moon, women get together, share in food and drinks and they get their "goddess card", which they keep for the full month. The goddess card comes from a pack of cards, and each woman draws one card randomly and the person next to them reads about the meaning of the card from a book.
There are cards relating to various goddesses and the various meaning of the cards include topics such as taking risks, nurturing, prosperity, education, etc...
The party brings a fun, diverse group of ladies together every month and the goddess party on the full moon day, even if it is in the middle of the work week. The location rotates every month and last night was the first time I have hosted it. The banya was lit and 4 of us took a banya at the end of the party (it was quite hot...150 deg! Wow!!) I joked that it was a "full moon" goddess party...he, he.

This tradition was brought here by Genevieve C. who moved here from Dutch Harbor over a year ago. During the party we talked about how it was neat to think of ladies together in Dutch Harbor having their goddess gathering at the same time as ours.

The Goddess cards and full-moon timing of the gathering give it a different feel than other parties...as well as the fact that it is a ladies only event. People hold onto their cards between parties and put them on their fridge, or in their car. "Abundantia" is my goddess card this month and it hangs on my fridge until the next full moon on August 24th. At that goddess gathering, I'll add it back to the stack to be shuffled in for the next draw of a goddess card.

Zoya

What we found at Penguk

At Penguk, the most important discovery was the enormous variety in structure types that we uncovered. We excavated parts of at least 10 structures and almost all of them were built differently or contained different types of features from each other. Seven of the structures are about the same age and from the late Norton era (around AD 500). Another 2 might be early Norton and we also tested a late prehistoric multiroom house (Kodiak style house). The variety of contemporary structure types indicates that the Late Norton people were doing a lot at the site. They were building HUGE houses, banyas (saunas), different types of processing structures (perhaps for smoking fish and processing caribou?), and even little special use structures. Judging by the number, size and variety of structures I would guess that at around AD 500 up to 300 people lived at the site for all of fall, winter and spring. This was not a seasonal camp, but a full on village.

Previous excavations at Norton Tradition sites have tended to be small in scale and have consisted of trenches through structures. They focused on 1 or perhaps 2 of the structures found at a particular site. I am proud to say that our excavation was HUGE. We opened up 97 square meters and probably moved around 100 cubic meters of dirt. That's a lot of digging for 6 people! And yet I'd still say we did not dig enough. I like to excavate enough structures at a particular site so that I can start to recognize house and structure types. What's a typical house at a particular site look like? We found at least 7 different types of structures and only excavated 2 types that seem to duplicate each other. Basically we learned there is a HUGE variety of structure types in the late Norton, but we did not dig enough to learn all about them. We will, however, learn more when we analyze what types of artifacts we found in each structure. We will learn what they did in each structure.

The top photo is a collage of drawings from my notes. The top 2 parts of it show how I interpret the 'banya' that we found (third photo) and 'Mary's house' (second photo). Mary is sitting on the bench at about the same place where I put a stick person in my schematic view of how I interpret her structure. The fourth picture is of a HUGE bermed house (walls of stacked sod over 6 feet high and 10 feet wide) with benches all around and a tunnel entrance in the corner (where jill is squatting for scale). And finally the bottom photo is of Molly with a bell-shaped, clay-lined pit that she found in the corner of a structure we believe dates to the early Norton. The clay pit was 70 centimeters deep, 120 centimeters wide at the bottom and only 40 wide at the top! We also found a thatched roof processing structure where the Norton people had used gravel as part of the processing process, another structure that had a flat roof capped with dirt and grass that burned down and I believe was for smoke processing, and finally another that had a 'peaked' sod roof.

Wow! Now I guess we got to dig a bunch more at a Norton Tradition site to begin to understand this huge variety. But I'll leave that to the archaeologists who usually work on the Alaska Peninsula. I think that in the future I'll stick with mosquito-free Alutiiq Tradition sites on the Kodiak Archipelago! Patrick

Beauty on the other side of the peninsula

After describing my month at Penguk as a sojourn on an island in a mosquito infested swamp I feel compelled to add that when the sun came out it was often very beautiful. Snow capped volcanos loomed over us, wildlife was all around and the clouds often seemed too too close. We could hear the constant croaking of sandhill cranes, the honks of red-throated loons, wolves passed by the site, and we were visited by the occasional bear. All the while the green green plains stretched far out into the distance, and the river flowed to the sea.

Photos: Top photo is of some weird clouds and the volcanos that lay between us and home on Kodiak. Second photo is of Catherine contemplating a sunset over the King Salmon river. Third photo is of Ryan in a grove of cottonwoods at the end of a 'destination hike' - we had hiked 3 miles across the swamp to visit another hill that had trees on top. Fourth photo is of Molly, Mary and Catherine at 6 AM on their way to the top of Penguk to watch for wolves before breakfast (they did not see any). Bottom photo is of camp with the teepee woodstove running - ready for a warm breakfast.
Patrick

Buskin Staycation

Last night we went camping at the Buskin Beach. Nora and Stuey have been wanting to go all summer and we figured it was best to go before hunting starts and Patrick disappears to the mountains to chase deer!
I loved the addition of the blow-up mattress. THe only bummer was that the little blow up motor thing that came with it required batteries (which we didn't have) so we had to blow it up over the course of 1/2 hour. Bless Patricks heart...I think he almost hyperventilated. The sacrifices he makes for his wife... :) I slept so much better than on camping trips last year. I woke up only moderately tired as opposed to extremely tired.

After setting up the tent and eating dinner, we went to Buskin Beach and Nora did some fishing. Didn't catch anything, but Nora loved the whole scene of casting and reeling in. I love seeing the smile on her face and enthusiasm about fishing with Patrick. Stuey wants his own fishing rod now....may have to get him a little kid one this fall sometime.

We did "plug-in parenting" after the beach walk and dinner. The kids got to watch a movie on the little DVD player in the tent. They were EXTREMELY excited at the prospect of this, as they don't use the mini dvd player unless they are traveling. THis gave Patrick and I a couple of hours around the warm camp fire enjoying the evening and talking. It was a nice few shared moments together after a very busy past month.

ZOYA

Quick Trip to Ivor Cove

Today I woke up with Zoya and the kiddos in a tent at the Buskin River campground, ate breakfast at King's Diner and then was at the floatplane dock by 9:30 AM for a floatplane trip to the south end of Kodiak. Molly, Ryan and Catherine accompanied me on a quick archaeological survey of a BIA alotment at Ivor Cove. The weather was a tad ugly, but what a place. Beautiful white sand beaches and granite bedrock outcrops. So beautiful that you would have thought that there just had to be archaeological sites everywhere. But funnily enough we found nothing. It just goes to show that natural beauty is not necessarily a predictor for archaeological sites. Not like places where you can find lots of stuff to eat, or good places to land a kayak - those ARE places where you find archaeological sites. Patrick

Penguk Artifacts

Not all was bad at Penguk. The archaeology was fantastic! Huge houses and many different types of structures (more to come on this in a later post). But what I particularly liked to find was all the chipped stone tools. On Kodiak we don't usually find much in the way of chipped stone tools - it's usually all ground slate and cobble tools. So it was pretty cool to find chipped stone lances, knives and sideblades on a fairly routine basis. A great many of the chipped points were tiny (see top photo with wild geranium blossom for scale) - some were the size of my finger nail. I think these points might have tipped arrow shafts. We also found large lances, and the sideblades that would have been inset into the shafts of spears. Another common find was pottery (that's what Molly's holding up in the 4rth photo down).

For the most part we found the standard artifacts one would expect to find in a 1500 year old Norton culture village. The artifacts are typical Norton. However, we did not find any ground slate. Why no slate? Late Norton sites usually have some ground slate. Also the houses we excavated our much larger than the typical houses associated with Norton - more on this in the next post! Patrick