Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/375259
f a l l 2 0 1 4 | w e s t w o r l d 13 before the archaeologists arrived. e deeper they dug, the more mysteries and inconsisten- cies they found. First, there are traces here of not one but two buildings, 45 metres apart, and this sort of matches with documented evidence. According to HBC journals, the origi- nal South Branch House, having fallen into dis- repair, was replaced by a new one a short (unrecorded) distance away, some time before the attack. Around the southern remains – cellar depressions and tumbled chimney stones – charred posts of a wooden stockade were found. Was this the newly built house? The northern site where the field school is working sits outside the stockade. Is this the old original post? And was the stockade moved? Is this even South Branch House at all? e journals describe the house as being "too far from the river" (the site is right on it) and the latitude provided by Peter Fidler, an HBC employee, falls quite a bit south. en there are the numbers of chimneys and cellars – less than recorded. Also, the artifacts and general leavings are far fewer than a nine-year occupation would suggest. ere are many unanswered, perhaps unanswerable, questions here. We have been digging all morning with our tiny trowels, each in a separate pit, scanning for anything, anything at all, and sweeping up the surface soil into pails that we tip out onto a swinging sieve to be mined for treasure. Trea- sure? Hah! All I find this long hot day are a few snippets of burnt bone, some of the stony mate- rial used as chinking between the logs and a solitary snail shell. is was no Tutankhamun's tomb. My knees are sore and the mosquito bites itch like crazy. Just yesterday, several small trade beads and some buckshot were found right here. I work harder, squinting down, looking for any- thing different from the dust. "Hey, we've found something!" In one of the metre-square pits, Tomasin Playford, executive director of the archaeologi- cal society and in charge of the field school, is keeping a close eye on the dig when one of the young volunteers pulls an object from the earth. "It's a metal arrowhead," breathes Toma- sin reverently. We drop tools and crowd around to look. e arrowhead is small and corroded, the very first to be found here. e youth holds it up for us to see, his face jubilant. "Beginner's luck," I say enviously and watch as he's shown how to record its exact location before slipping the artifact into a marked plastic evidence bag. Tomasin fills out the site report herself, explaining that metal points were common HBC trade items. At first they were made in England, but then local blacksmiths began cutting them from scrap metal. Specialists back at the lab will be able to tell the difference. Henry Dyck, a tool and dye maker from nearby Hague and an avid avocational archaeologist, takes a closer look. "It was made locally," he says. "See, the base is uneven." Henry is an old hand at this; he's attended the field school dig here for several years. After the excitement of the arrowhead find, the rest of the crew ease back into our cramped dusty quarters and work with renewed enthu- siasm. And then Jennifer Rychlo, one of the summer archaeology crew, finds another metal point, this one smaller and finer, in the same level as the first, and only a metre away. On this high note, the group decides to celebrate by having an early lunch, sitting in the long grass under the poplars. (above) On a high bank above the South Saskatchewan River, the fort site has remained largely intact since 1795; (left) Jennifer Rychlo ensures that every pail of soil scraped from the dig is carefully screened; (below) a corroded arrowhead is unearthed at the site; (bottom) a common HBC trade item, the metal arrowheads are tagged and bagged.