Team Power Smart

Fall 2013

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DueWest culture Bricks of time S Image D-8494 Royal BC Museum, BC Archives set on five hectares of land, was soon moke from coal-burning kilns once dismantled. Half of the village's 35 engulfed the tiny Fraser Valley village buildings followed. of Clayburn as trains shuttled down clay Today, Clayburn, population 150, from Sumas Mountain. In its heyday, has re-emerged thanks to the restoration Clayburn's 60 factory workers formed, work of locals. In 1996, the residential dried, and burned 40,000 bricks a day, community just five kilometres north of destined for export to places as far flung Abbotsford was granted municipal as Hawaii. heritage status. The general store, once the Charles Maclure, son of a Royal heart of the village, is a specialty foods, tea Engineer, started the enterprise in 1905 room, and candy shop known as the after discovering the Sumas clay. His Clayburn Village Store and Tea Shop. brother Samuel, a notable architect, Children still eagerly browse the jars full designed the town's brick company homes, • The Clayburn Church, built in 1912. of old-fashioned sweets. Visitors can stroll which still stand. Besides the standard red the serene neighbourhood lined with modest homes on a walking tour. One of brick, Clayburn made specialized products, such as durable buff-coloured five "foreman's cottages" now operates as a handmade soap works. The bricks desired by architects for creating distinct building façades. Clayburn Church, built in 1912, still hosts occasional Sunday services and the Despite the abundance of lumber in the province, dozens of buildings 1907 schoolhouse serves as a museum and community centre. For the full throughout the Lower Mainland and Victoria were made with Clayburn historic experience, consider a night's stay at the Clayburn Village Bed and bricks in a style fondly reminiscent for many British immigrants of the "old Breakfast. country." The Marine Building in Vancouver and the tower wing of the Empress Hotel in Victoria are among the prominent structures made of Info: Brick by Brick: The Story of Clayburn (Clayburn Village Community Clayburn bricks. Society, 2001), is available at libraries and in village shops In 1930, at the dawn of the Great Depression, British Columbia's first (clayburnvillage.com). company town and largest producer of bricks all but disappeared. The plant, — Janet Nicol Ancient bowls in the bedrock here's a cultural legacy set in stone along coastal British Columbia. Beth Weathers, a professional archaeologist, is wrapping up a four-year study of bowls carved into the rock along Willows Beach in Oak Bay, a Victoria suburb. Created by people hammering and then grinding the rock, the bowls—each about the size of a spaghetti platter—show sharp, angular marks visible to the naked eye. How they were used, however, is more opaque. "Too much knowledge has been lost for anyone to know what the bowls were for," says Weathers. "What I'm trying to do is make a best guess, so you start by ruling out things." Found worldwide, embedded carved bowls probably had a variety of uses: grinding food, water collection, or even rituals. British Columbia currently has 32 intertidal bowl sites, mostly documented by anthropologist Beth Hill who studied the area from Venn Passage to the Columbia River in the 1970s and '80s. The 27 bowls at Willows Beach are situated in a granitic rock outcrop in the intertidal zone and are usually underwater, surfacing fully only during the lowest tides of the year. These 10 • An intertidal bowl site at Willows Beach in Oak Bay. particular bowls were likely used for ceremonial purposes, says Weathers. At least 3,000 years ago this was the site of a large Songhees First Nation village called Sitchanalth. It's possible the bowls are from that time period, or even older. Divers recently searched the underwater area next to the bowls— the subtidal zone that was last dry about 5,000 B rit is h C olumbia Magazi ne • fall 2013 years ago—but did not locate any additional artifacts. Whatever the outcome of Weathers's research, awareness about the mysterious depressions is growing amongst B.C. archaeologists. "Everyone's looking," she says. "We're going to see a lot more bowls in the future." —Jude Isabella beth weathers T

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