Kenow wild fire uncovers ancient history in Water ton National Park
ARCHEOLOGISTS STUDYING SITES USED BY PEOPLE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS
A team of archeologists in Waterton Lakes National Park are in a race against time as vegetation growth on the scorched landscape of last year’s Kenow wildfire begins to re-cover the sites used by the peoples who have lived and travelled through the area for hundreds of years.
More than 250 known archeological sites are within the park’s burn zone. The fire has opened up the landscape making it possible to reassess and learn much more about them, as well as discover over a dozen new sites among the ashes.
“It truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Parks Canada archeologist Bill Perry.
Field work wraps up at the end of August and the team is using a triage system, focusing on the most important sites, along with constantly recording newly discovered sites at the same time.
“It’s like it’s Christmas every day,” said Perry.
The sites vary in what artifacts are found there, and by whom, how and when they were used.
One of the discoveries made by the team was a group of two dozen fire hearths near Red Rock Canyon.
Another site, near Crandell campground is what is known as a protohistoric site, characterized by a number of traded European materials, such as glass beads and metal arrow heads, which were in turn used in traditional ways by Indigenous peoples in the 1700s to 1800s.
Protohistorical sites are a rare look at a brief time period before a shift into a more European style of hunting and gathering, says archeologist Rachel Lindemann.
“Some of these sites, you know that they were just occupied for that little glimpse of time and then moved on. And so to capture that little picture of what’s going on, I find it really cool,” said Lindemann.
Still, before European contact, the area was used for hundreds of years by Indigenous peoples coming from the plains, from the south in Montana, as well as from across the continental divide.
“It’s not what we thought, it’s not a destination unto itself. It’s a travel node amongst a whole network of trade networks and movement of peoples,” said Perry.
The archeology team began work this season moving from sites near the town and up into the valleys as the snow receded and the vegetation growth “nipped at their heels.”
Perry says that once the field work wraps at the end of the month, they will look through all of what they have discovered and pinpoint specific sites that will help answer research questions before moving into excavation mode, testing for environmental information, past fire history and clues to how Indigenous peoples may have impacted the environment.
“This is a sacred landscape, so that we’re also quite privileged to be doing this work at this time,” said Perry.
For Kevin Black Plume, a recently graduated archeologist who grew up in nearby Moses Lake on the Blood Reserve, there is a personal element for the summer’s work on the fire-revealed landscape.
“No one has probably walked on this soil for 500 years now, so it’s kinda cool to walk on it. It feels good, too. For me it feels like being at home,” said Black Plume.
“Not too many First Nation/Indigenous archeologists are out there right now and I feel very blessed to do it. I feel good to be here. I feel like I’m meant to be here. I want to honour them, to bring more of awareness for our history, for Indigenous history.”
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