The guns on Signal Hill

The Queen's Battery, Signal Hill

The rain, fog, and warm temperatures demolished the snow, so we weren't able to get out snowshoeing this weekend.  Still, we met friends for brunch on Saturday and went for a cold hike around Signal Hill, here in St. John's.  We stopped at the Queen's Battery on the way back to the car to check out the big guns.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

Lori and I went out for breakfast downtown on Sunday and took a drive up Signal Hill.

Panoramas always look better if you click to enlarge them

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Snowshoeing the East Coast Trail

Silver Head Mine Path

Lori and I used some Christmas money to buy snow-shoes this year and we finally hit on the perfect weekend to test them out on the East Coast Trail.  The weather cooperated with fresh snow falling on Friday and Saturday nights, but with crisp blue skies during the day on both Saturday and Sunday. Breaking through new snow on even the best marked path makes you feel like a proper explorer.

The Blackhead Path - Cape Spear to Blackhead

View of the Cape Spear Lighthouse
from along the Blackhead Path

On Saturday, I drove out to Cape Spear and hiked along the Blackhead Path to the top of Blackhead, back towards St. John's.  The road to Cape Spear starts at the bottom of our street, so I really don't have an excuse to not visit more often.  I parked at the main lot and walked back along the barrens towards the small parking lot along the road where the trail head is marked and the path to Blackhead technically begins.  The trail goes through coastal barrens, woods, and up to the top of Blackhead.  It continues on to the community of Blackhead and ultimately Fort Amherst in St. John's, but I turned around at the summit.  The hike was a little less than 3 hours at a pretty leisurely pace (I took over 200 photos).  There was some thigh high drifting at the top of Blackhead, but for the most part it was a pretty comfortable hike.

The view back towards Cape Spear from Blackhead. 

Returning to Cape Spear

On a clear day, you can easily see Signal Hill from Cape Spear and Blackhead.

Cape Spear

Silver Head Mine Path - Middle Cove to Torbay

Mouth of Motion River/North Pond River 

On Sunday, we headed to Middle Cove and hiked the Silver Head Mine Path north towards Torbay.  People had hiked and snowshoed the trail on Saturday, but we had a few centimetres of new fresh powder all to ourselves.  The path starts at Middle Cove beach, quickly ascends a steep wooded cliff with a vertical drop into the Atlantic and continues along the cliff edge towards Torbay.  There are two areas of running water along the trail - the first we met was Houlihan's River, which was small enough to jump over, but a few hundred metres from the path end at Torbay there is a larger river, called either Motion River or North Pond River.  We turned around at this river and made our way back to Middle Cove.  The hike took around two hours.

Heading back towards Middle Cove. (Click to Enlarge)

Looking down into Middle Cove

The mouth of Houlihans River.  The trail skirts through the woods along the the top of the cliff in the background.

There was no way to get across the river in snowshoes, so we turned around at this point.  Its was definitely worth the trip.

Motion River/North Pond Rive enters the Atlantic in this cove.

Photo Credits:
1-10,12,13: Tim Rast
11: Lori White

Future and Current Archaeology Students

Shad Valley Flintknapping Demonstration

Yesterday, I had a chance to work with a dozen high school students from across Canada who are visiting Memorial University of Newfoundland for 4 weeks as part of the Shad Valley summer enrichment program.  The students will spend the month of July living and learning on the campus, getting immersive introductions to many of the departments and opportunities offered at each of the participating universities.  It seems like a pretty cool way to give students in Grade 10,11, and 12 a jump start on planning their academic path..

Tossing darts with an Atlatl (in the rain)

Some of the students participating in the program at MUN were given an introduction to Archaeology yesterday afternoon.  Joy Hopley organized a pretty fun programme for them which included a 45 minute talk introducing archaeology, a flintknapping demonstration and atlatl toss.  Joy gave the introductory talk, I brought in a bunch of reproductions and did the flintknapping demo and two grad students in the Archaeology Department, Josh and Eric, provided the atlatls and instruction.  I think the students had a good time, I know I certainly enjoyed it.

A classroom introduction to archaeology

Maybe some of those students will catch the bug and make their way onto an archaeology field school in a few years.  Not all archaeology is done in the field, but almost everything that we study was originally excavated and collected by a field archaeologist.  A practical understanding of fieldwork is a big benefit to any archaeology student, regardless of their intended career path. Whether or not a field school is required by your school to graduate, it will certainly give you an advantage when employers are deciding who to hire.  (In fact, on my way in to set up yesterday, there was literally an archaeologist roaming the hallways in the department looking for someone with field experience to hire for a week.)

Amanda Crompton is currently leading Memorial University of Newfoundland's archaeology field school on an historic military site at the top of Signal Hill in St. John's.  You can tune in for her updates from the field on the project blog; Archaeology at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, Canada.  This is the third year that the field school has been on Signal Hill and its the second year that Amanda, her students, and staff have been keeping the blog, so there is already a lot of fascinating content online from their previous work.  And, of course, if you visit Signal Hill this month you can check out their progress in person.

Photo Credits:
1: Joy Hopley
2-3: Tim Rast
4: Screen capture from Archaeology at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, Canada

Site-seeing and Sightseeing with Family

My Uncle Gary and Aunt Marlene are visiting St. John's this week from Regina, Saskatchewan. Marlene is here for the Catholic Women's League National Convention and Gary came along to make a little vacation out of it. They are hoping to spend a few days travelling around the Avalon Peninsula later this week, but the car rental situation in Newfoundland is pretty dire. There aren't enough cars to go around and so far they only have a car booked for a little more than half the time they want to spend on the road.

On Friday we all popped up to the Signal Hill archaeology dig. It was their backfilling day, but Danielle gave us a behind the scenes peek of the artifacts in the lab. They've found a tonne of stuff. Lots and lots of food bones, ceramics, coins, copper ornaments from uniforms, marbles, and buttons. Amanda and her team have a lot of work ahead of them cataloguing the artifacts and preparing the report on the summer. With the close of the excavation for the season, the work is really just beginning.

Marlene is at the Convention for the next few days and Gary is enjoying strolling around the city. Gary and I drove out to Cape Spear last night and watched the whales for a while. The conditions were perfect for whale spotting.

I have my artifact visit scheduled for this afternoon at The Rooms. I'll need to pick up some more odds and ends at the hardware store afterwards. My first attempt at steam bending wasn't successful - among other things, I need more clamps. More on that in future posts.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top, Gary and Marlene in the Archaeology Lab at Signal Hill
Middle, Artifacts drying after cleaning in the lab
Bottom, Gary at the Eastern Most point in North America - Cape Spear, Newfoundland and Labrador

Field Trip Day

After some last minute cutting and sanding in the workshop yesterday I went down to The Rooms for my weekly visit. A couple pieces are getting close to the antiquing and finishing stages. I always take lots of photos of the artifacts, so that I can print them out and use them to take notes. As I get more engulfed in the project and familiar with the artifacts I can rely on my memory a bit more, but at this point, I have so many reproductions on the go that if I don't write it down, or mark the cuts directly on the reproductions I'll forget what needs to be done. That's part of the reason for the frequent visits as well, I need to get familiar with the artifacts.

After the trip to The Rooms I swung by the house and picked up Lori and we went for a quick visit to the Signal Hill archaeology dig. Our friend Amanda is the Field School instructor and we didn't want to miss our chance to visit the site. This is the last week that they are digging at the site and everything is exposed. Today and Thursday are the last days to see the pits uncovered - Friday is a backfilling day.

At this point the digging is pretty much over, but the mapping, profiling, and photography are in full swing. Archaeology is a destructive process - once you excavate an area you can't go back and re-excavate it, so its very important that you record everything the first time. I love mapping. Its probably the thing I miss most about fieldwork. Finding the stuff is cool, but its a little passive. If its in the ground and you are digging carefully, you'll spot the artifacts. Mapping is a little more interactive.

The Signal Hill dig is an early 19th Century barracks. One of the most striking features that they have exposed is the large footing for a fireplace. If you have a chance to visit Signal Hill over the next day or two, the dig is definitely worth seeing in person. If not, check out their blog - its been hopping this summer and has tonnes of stories and photos from the summer. There are lots of artifact pictures as well.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top, Parks Reproductions and paperwork in progress
Second, Lori and Amanda at Amanda's Signal Hill Archaeology Field School
Third, Paperwork under the watchfull eye of Cabot Tower
Fourth, Drawing a Stratigraphic Profile.

Local Archaeology Blogs

Here are a few spots that I'm going to get my armchair archaeology fix from this summer. Check out these Newfoundland and Labrador archaeology blogs.

Signal Hill Archaeology: From the first week in July until the first week in August, the 2009 Memorial University Archaeology Field School will be taking place on the top of Signal Hill in St. John's. This blog will be written by students, staff, and the instructor; Amanda Crompton. Amanda and I started grad school at MUN at the same time in 1996 - Look at her now, Man! Now she DRIVES the school bus! You can read about their adventures online or pop by the dig the next time you climb the hill. Be sure to bring your uncle who'll ask them if someone lost a contact.

Burnside Archaeology: Another brand new archaeology blog. 2009 marks Laurie McLean's 20th season in the Burnside area, north of Terra Nova National Park. There's an Interpretation Centre to visit and boat tours to some of the province's oldest and most spectacular archaeological sites. This is the home of the iconic Beaches site and the Bloody Bay Cove Rhyolite Quarry. I love the Burnside Heritage Foundation's logo: I think its the cleverest archaeology logo I've ever seen.

Live Like Dirt: This is one of my favourite local blogs, written by Andrew Holmes, an undergraduate archaeology student at MUN. Incidentally, Andrew is taking the field school on Signal Hill this summer and he participated in my flintknapping workshop last Sunday. You can see his beer bottle point here. For a rational good time, rock and roll and weekly quizzes, Live Like Dirt is a great read.

Photo Credits & Captions: Screen grabs from the linked sites.