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I’ve Been Working On The Railroad: The Deconstruction of the National Dream

“Now of course, the great thing about the solar system as a frontier is that there are no Indians, so you can have all the glory of the myth of the American [Canadian] westward expansion without any of the guilt. (Sarah Zettel, brackets mine)

https://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/1/5/6/1156.1191207600.jpg

The Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, 1868

A small group of very powerful men sat in the room, on chairs pulled closely together, bent over talking quietly. Almost in whispers as if not wanting to be overheard. On seeing this meeting one would wonder. Why? Why are they whispering? There’s no one else in the room.

One of the more prominent members of the group was speaking. “We must act soon if we are to join the Territories to the rest of Canada. The Americans just bought Alaska and are beginning to look north at our North-WestTerritories, now mostly run by the Company. Soon their greed will overcome them and they will find an excuse to move north. First, we have to buy Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company. We must acquire those territories at all costs.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

“And, I think if we promise British Columbia a railway, linking them to the east, they may join the Confederation.

The speaker sighed as he mentally went through the long list of things that needed doing. “We can’t build it until the Indians are removed from those territories. We need to deal with that issue as well.” He looked over at the others. Again, they nodded their heads in agreement.

“Then our course of action is clear, gentlemen. If we are to unite this Country we must face these, shall we say, somewhat distasteful realities.” At those words, the speaker’s mouth twisted into a shape suggesting he had just sucked on a lemon.

He wasn’t finished. “First we buy Rupert’s Land from the Company. Then we remove the Indians and Metis from the territories and settle for treaties and reserves. Next, we search for capital to build this blasted thing. It won’t be cheap.” He hesitated, scratching his head, as if there was something he had missed. The others looked on expectantly waiting for him to continue.

Finally, after some pause, he spoke. “Oh yes, there is one more small problem. We need cheap labour to build the railroad. Many hands will be needed which will increase costs. The work will be dangerous and there may be fatalities.”

Those present waited for him to continue. As if expecting a solution. “At this moment I don’t have a solution, but will start looking into the matter.” Again, heads bobbed in unison all around. As if this last statement was merely another one of many obstacles to overcome in their eventual quest. Nothing, it seemed, could get in the way of the national dream.

Kisikawasan (Flash in the Sky), 1882

Kisikawasan/Piapot, Cree Chief. Courtesy Glenbow Archives.

The Cree leader and his band, the Young Dogs, were tired from their long ride. His one name was Piapot or Payipwat (One Who Knows the Secrets of the Sioux). The other Kisikawasan. In his hands he held his Winchester repeating rifle. He sat on his horse, looking out onto the rippling prairie grasses at the territory he had chosen for his people, just north of the Cypress Hills. And smack in the way of the proposed new CPR mainline.

He turned to one of his men. “First the Blue Coats humiliate us, escorting us back like children to our lands. Now this man closes the fort of the Red Coats and stops feeding us unless we move to another territory. The buffalo are gone. Our people are starving. Gather them. We must move. Or many will die.”

Edgar Dewdney, recently appointed Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories as well as Indian Commissioner, which brought him an additional stipend of $2,000, looked on as the bands began to move north and east to other territories.

One of his subordinates, also looking on, turned his way. “Well, I guess your plan worked, Sir. You sure showed them. They go willingly enough when starving. And, finally we have removed them from the railway right-of-way. That defiant one, they call Piapot, would have put his tipi in the way of the proposed railway line if we hadn’t interfered.”

Dewdney only grunted and shook his head, in a noncommittal manner. He had just closed Fort Walsh to the Natives and stopped giving the Cree rations, unless they cooperated and moved off these lands. It was a grim business this railroad building but that was what Macdonald wanted. Even if it meant breaking the treaties, which they were already doing.

Some of the other men in Dewdney’s party overheard his assistant’s comments. And soon the rumors and stories spread. ‘The great lieutenant governor stood up to Piapot and his Young Dogs, and along with the NWMP, kicked them off their lands.’

Truth was soon twisted. And the new truth became myth.

………………….

Piapot, Saskatchewan today.

The Saskatchewan family were driving down the newly built Trans Canada Highway on the Canadian Prairies alongside the Canadian Pacific mainline. A young Harry Reed peered out the window in the back seat of his father’s car. As they passed the little village and the road sign bearing its name, Harry asked, “Piapot? What does that name mean, dad?”

“I don’t know, Harry. Makes no sense, this word, Piapot. Maybe something to do with a pot.” Harry shrugged. His parents didn’t know much about Canadian history. He would ask his teachers.

“Well, according to the stories I heard, Harry, that is the name of a prominent Cree Chief who at this very place put his tipi in the way of the new CPR line. He claimed these lands as his and was going to battle the Canadian Government for them. The NWMP came and kicked over his tipi and dragged him off the line. He was then moved to other lands.”

Harry thought about the teacher’s answer. He shook his head, imagining that past. Thinking to himself. ‘But, if he was so bad, why did they then name a village after him? To mock him?’

Myth is embedded in history. So, how can it not be true.

Put A Tax on Their Heads, 1884

“It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you can’t have the railway.” (John A. Macdonald, 1882, Canadian Parliament, speaking in defense of bringing in cheap Chinese labor, against the wishes of many Canadians, to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad)

Chinese workers on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Given poor food, no medical help, the lowest pay, the hardest, most dangerous work, and then abandoned to fend for themselves when the railway was completed. (Image D-07548 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives)

Williams, one of the CPR herders of the Chinese work crews, opened the door and entered the crowded Chinese living barracks beside the CPR track, deep in the Canadian Rockies. The crews were building the Canadian Pacific Railway through one of its toughest stretches. The Fraser Canyon, British Columbia.

A large plume of blue tobacco smoke, and the smell of sweat of fifty men, passed him on its way out. Williams looked at the scene. They were gambling again. Hands thrust in the air with money frantically trying to place their bets.

Williams leaned over to one the of Chinese workers who spoke broken, but decent English. And yelled at the top of his voice. “What are they doing, Li Qiang?”

Li Qiang only shook his head. “You must speak louder.”

“Are they placing bets?,” roared Williams almost losing his tonsils in the process.

“Yes, Mr. Williams. New game.” Winner makes lots of money.”

“What new game, Li Qiang? How do you fellas have enough energy for games considering how hard you work?”

“We bet on everything. Even how many railroad ties needed for certain section of track. Or, maybe how many spikes bent laying that track. You want play? Cost you your four dollars a day wages, not my one dollar a day wages.”

“That’s rather sad, Li Qiang! Why do you bet on such trivial things?”

“Why sad, Williams? Everyone count, then bet. Might as well gamble. It keeps our minds off the hard, dangerous work.”

“But why do you gamble away your hard-earned money? You should be saving to go home or bring your families to Canada.”

“We not save enough to go home. Or bring families. Only way is to gamble. This way at least some get rich.”

“Maybe we even gamble when you have accident herder, or that pig, Oderbunk.” With those words, Li Qiang spat on the floor as if trying to remove a bad taste from his mouth. Oderbunk was the Chinese contractor who brought the Chinese to work on the railway. The mere mention of his name raised the hackles of these men.

A now somewhat worried Williams noticed the room had gone silent, with the mention of Oderbunk’s name. Many of the workers were looking at him. And in a not too kindly way. He only shook his head and left, opening the door and taking more smoke and smell with him on the way out. Behind him he heard the shouting and betting start again.

‘That stupid, greedy Andrew Oderbunk is behind a lot of this madness. Treating them like animals. No wonder they almost killed him in that strike in 1881. Given their work and future, what have they got to lose? Besides their lives.’

…………………

Construction of tunnel 49, Canadian Pacific Railway, Fraser Canyon, British Columbia. https://yl.sd53.bc.ca/mod/book/view.php?id=4987&chapterid=2966

The railroad work crews were having lunch outside one on the many tunnels in the Fraser Canyon, below the majestic peaks of the Rockies. Suddenly the blast came, followed by the concussion of air knocking them off the rail cars and onto the shaking ground. Then silence as the large plume of dust enveloped them.

Eventually out of the silence and debris, a dust-covered Chinese worker staggered, barely coherent screaming in Cantonese. Most of his clothes had been torn off, his hair and eyebrows singed, still smoldering.

“The tunnel entrance. Cheap explosives go off too soon. Everything smashed, everyone gone…” His last words failed him as he collapsed in a heap on the ground, blood now coming out of his ears.

…………………..

Chinese barracks for construction crews along the Canadian Pacific Railway. Image I-30869, Accession Number: 198401-006, 1883, courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC Archives.

At the end of the month Williams walked into the Chinese workers’ barracks again to the same commotion and racket that had greeted him before. On the bench beside the booky stood a rather forlorn looking young Chinese man. The booky had propped his hands in the air as if in victory.

Williams looked for Li Qiang, finally seeing him among the men. “Are they betting again, Li Qiang?”

“No. First announcing winner.”

“So, I take it that’s the winner standing on the bench. He guessed how many rail ties it took to build that stretch this month? Or, whether I would die? If he won, why is he looking so gloomy? He probably won a month’s wages, or more.”

“Won bet, but lost brother in explosion.”

“But why are you betting on these things ? Surely, without betting, you can save enough money to go back to China.”

Li Qiang cocked his head to one side considering Williams. “We save little. That swine, Oderbunk take much money. We hear head tax coming. Must pay head tax to bring our families from China.”

Then Li Qiang walked off getting ready to place another bet, leaving a gaping Williams only shaking his head. Head tax? So the rumors really were true.

Chinese men gambling in railway camp, British Columbia. Image B-09758, Accession Number: 193501-001, 1886, courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC Archives.

…………………….

Victoria, British Columbia, 1884

Telegram from John Alexander Galt, High Commissioner, London to John A. Macdonald inquiring about all the Chinese deaths building the CPR railroad. Library and Archives Canada, MG26-A, Volume 220, Page 93790, From London to Sir John A. Macdonald, “Correspondence, June 11, 1883.”

“So just how many Chinese workers died, Oderbunk? I’m getting writing cramps trying to keep up with the Prime Minister’s telegrams.” The chief commissioner was not a happy man. And he sensed this man was not being forthright with him.

The nervous Oderbunk fidgeted in his chair, licking his lips. Beside him sat Williams, one of his chief foremen to help with the details. Finally Oderbunk answered. “Well. We’re not quite sure, Commissioner, how many we’ve lost.”

The now fuming Commissioner next asked like what seemed a series of very sensible questions. “What do you mean you’re not sure? Don’t you record the deaths? You’re responsible for compensation to their families and returning their remains back home, are you not?” You pay them. When they don’t show up, well, they must be dead?”

“Well, Sir. Often we can’t recover the bodies. They fall into the canyon or the river and are swept away. And, many of these men desert to find work elsewhere. So, when they don’t show up, we’re not always sure what happened.” Oderbunk hoped this answer might appease the Commissioner. And avoid that nasty little business about not recovering the bodies or compensating the families. It did not.

After the meeting a rather shaken Williams walked away thinking some nasty, nasty things about Oderbunk. Almost ready to return to the camps where the Chinese were betting. ‘No, no, I can’t do that. Put that thought out of your mind, Williams.’

Later Immigrants and the CPR

A friend of mine gave this galvanized spike to my father, made into a bottle opener, on his retirement from the CPR. Whenever I crack a beer with it I think back to both my father and the CPR extra gangs, summer 1973.

Harry Reed sat in the living room listening to his father and uncle talk about their days with the CPR. Occasionally the conversation became quite animated. In fact, almost hostile.

“Why don’t you agree, Walter. The Company was good to us. We made a living, fed our families. Yes, we had to work a little, but at least we had work.”

‘That’s an understatement,’ thought Harry. ‘Work a little?’ But then that’s what Uncle Bob thought because Harry, in his short years on earth, had never met a harder worker. While others grumbled, Uncle Bob thrived. He loved the work.

Walter did not. Unable to listen any longer, Walter got mad. “The CPR, Robert, was SCHEISSE! They treated us worse than animals. Vie Verschissende Hunde, Robert. “While Walter’s English was a little rough, his vocabulary in swear words seemed well rounded. In English. German. Even a few Polish and Ukrainian gems occasionally thrown in there.

Walter picked up the silver railroad spike opener from the table and cracked a few beer. Red-faced he needed a drink when talking about the CPR with Robert. He looked down at the silver opener.

“See this spike, Robert. This was given to me by my son’s friend. That’s more than that God………… CPR ever gave me. One-hundred and sixty dollars pension a month after thirty years of working for them. And a piece of paper thanking me. That’s all I got. You know what I’d like to do with this spike. Shove it up some big-shot CPR’s as….” Della, also listening cut Walter off before his words landed him in the abyss.

“Now Walter. I don’t think swearing at the CPR is going to help anything.”

“Cripe-No-Mighty,” grumbled a still steaming Walter. He had designed a unique series of cuss words all his own.

Then he touched the permanent reddened part of his ear, which always itched, remembering what else he got while sitting on the little open railroad scooter inspecting the tracks on a breezy winter Saskatchewan day with windchill of minus forty degrees Fahrenheit.

But Robert, ever the optimist, continued. “Well, if you had joined the CPR extra gangs, you would have made more money and been promoted. And now your pension would be much better. Like mine.”

“Those were nothing but slave camps, Robert. What kind of life is that? Being months away from your family with little time off. How could you like that life? Nothing but a sweat house for dumb, uneducated immigrants like us. Who couldn’t find any other work.” Words that perhaps were a little over-exaggerated, but Walter didn’t care anymore. Finally he stopped and drained half his beer, hoping to drown the memories of the CPR and all it stood for.

Uncle Bob continued, but Walter had tuned out thinking about one of the many dark times he had on that cursed railroad.

Harry kept quiet and just listened. When Walter and Bob talked railroad, it was best to just stay of out of the way. Pretend he wasn’t even there.

Harry was suddenly jolted out of his referee, realizing that Uncle Bob was talking to him. “See Walter, even your son got along with the CPR extra gangs. He liked it. Even got promoted. Right, Harry?”

Harry, out of respect for his uncle, simply nodded and said nothing. ‘Wrong, Uncle Bob. I love and respect you. But on that count you are wrong. That was an awful job.’

Then Harry thought back to the CPR extra gangs. Glorious times indeed. He’d hoped those memories had disappeared into the past. But, some of them were hard to erase.

Myth, if repeated long enough, becomes the new reality.

These are the tracks that my dad and my uncle worked on, making sure the trains went through safely. Cabri, Saskatchewan, Canada on the horizon.

College Boy Meets the CPR Extra Gangs, Spring, 1973

CPR extra gang machinery on the move. When the railroad tracks finally reached a certain point of disrepair, these gangs were brought in to completely refurbish them. https://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/3/6/4936.1131861600.jpg

Harry had just been interviewed by Parks Canada for a summer job as an interpreter at the historic National Site, Fort Walsh, Saskatchewan. It would have been the perfect job. It was close to home, paid well, and was the kind of work he was studying at the University of Alberta. But it didn’t happen.

“I need a job, Uncle Bob. I have to pay my university tuition and board. There’s little work out there.”

“Well, maybe I can get you on the CPR extra gangs. It’s good, steady work and I think you can handle it.”

“When can I start, Uncle”, asked the somewhat forlorn looking Harry? Walter was standing by, shaking his head. He said little, thinking. Maybe this was a good thing. His son needed some harsh lessons in reality. He was treating university like a training ground for the fine art of partying.

“O.K. Harry, give me a few days, and then I’ll phone you. We’re working on the main line near Medicine Hat. Not too far from home with your one day off.”

Harry gulped. Did he hear right? ‘One day off.’ That of course meant working six days a week. But, the worst was yet to come.

……………………

It was still dark outside. Pitch black in fact. Suddenly someone was walking through the rail sleeping car, shouting. “Time to get up boys. Breakfast is on the table. The cook grumbles when you’re late.”

Harry and others groaned trying to wake up. Sleeping was tough on the mainline. When every two hours another freight train raced by them at fifty miles an hour, eight feet away.

That voice almost had a cheerful ring to it, which made it even harder to listen to at four AM in the morning. His friend Phil, bunking next to him finally sat up. “One of these mornings I’ll strangle that cheery bastard.”

“They’ll just replace him with another one. I think they get paid extra for that voice.”

Harry finally got up and dressed. Ready for the day. After three weeks working on the gangs, his muscles were no longer screaming in agony. The blisters on his university hands had finally healed and hardened up. “Well let’s get something to eat and see what cookie burned this morning.”

As they neared the rail cook car, the noise and hubbub grew louder. Suddenly one of the the windows of the cook car blew out, closely followed by what looked like a platter of cold meat.

Then there was a lot of yelling inside the cook car. Harry heard one of his other friends, Jim’s voice, screaming. “How can you put that shit on a plate and serve it to us? Look at it. It’s green. Meat isn’t supposed to be green. I’m going to kick your ass all the way to Medicine Hat…” Then Harry heard running as cookie, fearing for his life, quickly existed the cook car. Never to return.

Well, another day starts on the gangs. What will happen next? There was still twelve hours of back-breaking work ahead. The day was young. A lot could happen.

…………………….

The ballast crew was running beside the ballast cars, on the sloped, rocky rail track trying to open the bottom doors with their hand cranks. To pour out the crushed rock around and between the new ties and track. It was a smoldering hot prairie afternoon, the air was choked with dust from the ballast.

This was one of the toughest jobs on the gangs. But, you got a little extra time off at the end of day because of the hard work. And if you wanted to get promoted to a machine, this was one way of doing it.

The train had to go at just the right speed so that the ballast could be poured evenly onto the rail bed and tracks. Too slow and too much ballast came out, derailing the cars. Too fast, and there wasn’t enough ballast to fill the tracks.

As the train reached the slope heading into Medicine Hat, it sped up. Harry’s lungs were about to burst as he ran along his rail car, trying to keep up. Someone screamed. “We’re going too fast. Tell that engineer to slow down or this will be a disaster.” In the distance Harry heard foremen screaming into their radios.

But the engineer didn’t slow down. And soon Harry’s buddies started to abandon ship. He saw John, bent over puking up the ballast dust he ingested. Then out of the corner of his other eye, he saw Amos desperately trying to hang onto his crank, sent tumbling off the grade disappearing into the rail ditch. Finally the rest of crew, including Harry, had stopped cranking.

Another day, another dollar on the extra gangs. Well, not quite that bad. Thirty-nine dollars to be fair.

………………….

The work crews stood in line for their midday lunch beside the tracks. Which was brought out to them by the cooks. One half-hour to eat and then it was back to work.

The prairie sun was blazing down on the exposed track sending heat waves into the air. The shimmering railroad track looked like a mirage in the distance. It was exposed, lying naked on the rail bed with no ballast to keep it in place.

Someone in the lunch line started pushing. And the yelling and cursing started. “Out of the way, turban-head. We need to eat and get back to work.” One of the crew, who seemed to have a particular dislike for the East Indian workers, was trying to butt in line and get his lunch before disaster struck.

Then the fighting in the lunch line broke out in earnest. Pushing, shoving. Kicking and punches thrown before the foremen stepped in and broke it up.

“Stop it, Kenny. They don’t understand English very well and you’re not exactly Mr. articulate either. They think you’re butting in. Here, step aside and I’ll sort this out.”

Uncle Bob was patiently trying to explain Kenny’s rudeness to the East Indians. “These men have to eat first. There’s no ballast on the tracks…”

His words were cut off by a loud SNAP. Followed by another SNAP. And then it happened. The Canadian Pacific railway, which had lain on this track for nearly one-hundred years, decided to take a walk. Off the rail bed towards the ditch.

Men scrambled in every direction, fully knowing what was taking place. Karl, roadmaster of the extra gang, ran up, breathless. “Hurry up. Let’s get out there before it…”

Everyone stared as the entire mile of rail turned into a writhing steel snake and began moving toward the ditch, as the now hot steel rails expanded in the noonday heat.

“Or what Karl, before the tracks go in the ditch.”

The CPR mainline was shut down for many hours. Backing up freight trains in both directions. Because of one overzealous gang boss who was trying to repair too much track at once and not paying attention to the weather. Or the laws of physics.

Harry watched with fascination. How could a mile of steel rail suddenly look like a wet noodle? And then he realized what this meant. Overtime. The men wouldn’t leave here until eight or nine tonight. Maybe midnight. That mainline had to be opened or heads would roll.

And another day on the extra gangs was finished.

………………….

“See Walter. Your son could do it. He worked on the gangs and made some good money.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Hardly. He’d managed to get on one of the machines for three weeks and did make twice as much money as before. And then they all went on strike because of the poor working conditions and wages, and Harry went back to school.

“Those were good boys, Walter and Della. They worked hard and sometimes they got into a little trouble. Some were a little rough around the edges. Like the time they got into a fight in a bar and spent the night in the Calgary jai…”

Harry, having taken lessons from his mother, cut off his uncle’s words. “Uncle Bob, I’m sure mom and dad don’t want to hear that story.” Harry anxiously looked at his mother who now had that knowing look on her face.

“Come Harry, tell your mother the rest of that story. I like stories. I can hardly wait to hear it.

……………………

EndNote:

I am not a great fan of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Or other similar corporations. I’m not anti-capitalist. I just don’t like it when large corporations become greedy. Yes, a transcontinental railway was sorely needed to tie together an enormous country and its shareholders and owners had to pay off the $100,000,000 it cost to build it. But throughout its history the CPR made considerable profits off the backs of immigrant labourers, treating them poorly, or worse. There was a lot of labour unrest and discrimination against some minorities even in the 1970s when I worked there. And today the Company still makes tremendous profits. In 2016, the CPR had a $6.2 billion revenue and $1.6 billion dollars in profit and held assets valued at $19.2 billion dollars. Its top CEO made close to twenty million dollars a year, with perks and shares in the Company.

When I was a kid, we learned that the Cree Chief Piapot tried to stop the building of the CPR mainline by pitching his tent in the way. Presumably somewhere near today’s Piapot, Saskatchewan. The story goes that he was forcefully removed by the North West Mounted Police. Historians have pored through the documents and there is not a shred of evidence to support that story. But it somehow seems to resonate better among Canadians than: ‘First Nations people were starved to force them off the lands, so that the railway could be built.’

The story of the Chinese immigrants brought over by the CPR to help build the railroad is equally sad. Their struggle and sacrifice is finally being told and recognized. In this story, I mentioned the Head Tax put on Chinese immigrants to prevent them from coming to Canada. Many Chinese workers could not save enough to either return to China or pay it to bring over their families. In the story I have deliberately changed the name of the chief contractor, responsible for bringing in Chinese workers and the horrendous conditions they had to put up with. With a little research you can easily find out his real name. Because of the poor records kept, even to this day no one knows for certain how many Chinese workers died building the railway (everywhere from 600 – 2,000).

Although I try not to judge history, and instead document and research it, I can’t help but have some deep emotional feelings for the many many ethnic minorities who toiled to build the intercontinental railway and then maintain it. My parents, relatives and some of our friends were among them.

As was I for what seemed like one of the longest summers of my life. I saw firsthand the poor working conditions and continued racism even in the 1970s. The East Indian workers were now the new Chinese. After that summer of ’73’, my university career outlook became more focused as I realized that I didn’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps. I ended up shoveling dirt anyway, but had way more fun doing it.

…………………..

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Small Things That Bind A Nation

Whenever I think of everyday objects that bind, I think of duct tape first. And one Red Green show in particular where Steve Smith tries to prevent Quebec from separating by duct taping it to Ontario.

“A museum should not just be a place for fancy paintings but should be a place where we can communicate our lives through our everyday objects.”

Orhan Pamu

(Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.)

In a recent news article an Edmonton reporter trashed the 1966 Mercury pickup truck display at the new Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Canada. It was too ordinary and boring and really was not museum worthy. I can’t imagine what she would have said about my choice of the first image for this post.

This 1966 Mercury M-100, on display at the new Royal Alberta Museum, talks to Albertans’ love for the pickup truck in the 1960s. It represents the many people who owned one for either travel or work in our province. In has meaning and a connection to our society.

The dilemma we often face when dealing with material culture, be it thousands of years or a few years old, is choice and selection. Museum staff are faced with the often impossible challenge of meeting the many expectations of many people. As formidable an experience as I have ever faced, either when curating a museum collection, or writing about human history using material culture as the medium.

We are expected to conserve and curate, inform and educate, entertain and stimulate, with the objects we choose to display or write about. Therein lies a problem. Many of those unique, precious, or rare artifacts certainly stimulate and entertain. They catch our attention. But, often they don’t inform a lot about the majority of society, past or present.

The rare bone toothbrush I posted on in an earlier blog has a certain WOW! factor to it. But, it says little about most of the people of the fur trade who didn’t use these articles. The more common duct tape however, informs more about Canadian culture than the toothbrush. I’m almost certain we have no duct tape in our Royal Alberta Museum collections. Perhaps had the Red Green show continued, duct tape would have reached museum status.

The more common folk artifact is often is underrepresented in displays or literature. While informative, it’s boring. Is there a solution?

Not be deterred or ignore the common artifact, I have chosen to write about the most mundane artifact I could think of (there are many to choose from). The common nail and that clunky railroad spike.

Even everyday things often have a complex history and perform an important role in society. And as one of my mentors, historical archaeologist James Deetz, in his book, In Small Things Forgotten once said, all material things, regardless of their size, value, or context have meaning and a story to tell. It’s up to those of us studying them to tease out that meaning and those stories.

We are all familiar with the common wire nail. Nails, like many objects, have a complex history and changed over time.

Nails and Spikes Through History

I won’t bother you with the entire history of nails or spikes. For those of you interested for a more in-depth look, here are a few websites to check out: https://www.harpgallery.com/library/nails.htm. And, go to good old Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener). Some of the first nails however date back over 5,000 years.

Nails, of every shape, size and material, were used for boat building, furniture making, attaching horseshoes to horses’ hooves, and of course the construction of log and wood-framed buildings. They occur in just about every society in the world that had some sort of metal forging technology. And they change in form and method of manufacture in time and space. The common wire nail you are most familiar with has had a shorter history than many of those before it.

In Canada we used hand-forged nails until about the middle of the 19th century (other dates, depending on where you live). To fashion a hand-forged nail a blacksmith heated a piece of square nail rod, then tapered it to a point. Then he put it into a nail heading jig and fashioned various types of heads depending on its function. In cross section, a hand-forged nail is tapered on all four sides from the head down to the tip.

These corroded ferrous hand-forged nails were relatively rare at the Fort Vermilion I (c.1798 – 1830) site, Alberta, Canada. Heavy iron nail rod had to be shipped inland for thousands of miles to these forts, so nails were used sparingly. Because the fort did not have a blacksmith, these nails were likely made at Fort Chipewyan and shipped upriver. This was the major nail type in western Canada until approximately the middle of the 19th century.
This rare artifact which we think is a nail heading jig was recovered from the blacksmith’s shop at the NWC Fort George (1792-1800), Alberta, Canada.

The machine-cut nail was already invented in the 1780’s (perhaps even earlier) but not present in western Canada until the mid nineteenth century. In this process a tapered nail shank is cut from sheet metal of uniform thickness (usually iron), and then a head shaped on it. In cross-section this nail is tapered on two opposite sides but the other two opposite sides are parallel to each other. This more mechanized process produced more nails faster, probably with fewer people required to make them. It was cheaper.

Machine-cut nails, from the HBC Fort Edmonton V (c.1830-1915) site. Because this site spans such a long period of time, we found hand-forged, machine-cut and common wire nails in the archaeological record.

The modern wire nail was developed in about 1880 in America and Europe. Pieces of steel wire were cut at an angle to make a point on one end, and a flat round head was fashioned on the other end. These nails were much cheaper to produce than square nails. The common wire nail began to appear by the turn of the 20th century in western Canada (likely earlier in the east).

A variety of common wire nails found at the HBC Fort Edmonton V site, Alberta, Canada.

Whenever I look at buildings of unknown age, I check out the nails. If they’re wire, the building likely dates after the turn of the 20th century. Even the common wire nail was superseded by the spiral shank nail in the early 1970s. Many different varieties followed.

This priest’s log house, at the St. Louis Mission, Fort Vermilion, Alberta was built in c.1909. Wire spikes were driven into the dovetailed log corners to better secure them. No square nails were present. Mind you, those spikes could have been driven in thirty years later.
If I were to only display this spiral wire nail there’s not much of a WOW factor here. But if I added that Gilbert Laughton, blacksmith at Buckingham House (c.1782-1800) was experimenting with some spiral square-shanked nails already 220 years ago, the story becomes more interesting (sorry, I don’t have good photo). I’m sure it didn’t leave you speechless, but more interesting nevertheless.

Many of these different nail types were gradually replaced by the newer types. However, some nails, such as the horseshoe nail and common railway spike maintained their square or rectangular shanks.

Common horseshoe nail has been around for a long time. Head shapes changed but the tapered square/rectangular shank remained.

Nails were made from various materials, depending on their function and method of manufacture. Probably one of the earliest type of fastener, performing the same function as a nail, was a wooden dowel. Dowels are still used today. And in the western Canadian fur trade, and early settlement period, where the transport of heavy finished nails or nail rod was costly, they often replaced nails in log building construction.

The logs in this building in northern Alberta were held together by wooden dowels between the logs.
The log corner of this cellar cribbing under the trader’s shop at the HBC Fort Victoria (c.1864-1898) contained a well preserved wood dowel to keep the corners together.

Other materials for nail-making include the more rust-resistant copper alloy nails used to build the first York boats in the western fur trade. However, for centuries the most common nail material was iron.

These copper alloy nails come from the HBC Fort Edmonton V (c.1830-1915). York boat building was an important industry at this fort. Boat nails had to be rust-resistant.

Both hand-forged and machine-cut nails had different head types either for decoration or better holding power. T-heads, L-heads, Rose-heads, and Gable-heads are just some of the head types found at our historic sites in Canada.

Different types of nail head types found at the HBC Fort Victoria site, Alberta, Canada. From Archaeological Investigations: Fort Victoria, 1974. Losey, Timothy, et. al. Occasional Paper No. 2, 1977. Alberta Culture, Historical Resources.

Square-shaped nails were superior to round wire nails for holding power. According to some research, the holding power of the square shank is almost double that of the round shank nail.

So, why change from a square to a round shank? Round-shank nails were easier and more economical to make despite not being as effective. However, once spiral or galvanized nails were introduced, they likely came close or were superior in holding power to the square shank nails.

So after that brief exposition on the common nail, can we now elevate it to national status, placing it beside the equally common maple leaf of national significance? Alas, despite its importance in Canadian history (what has maple leaf ever accomplished?), I just can’t visualize an image like the one below.

The Canadian flag with the common nail as the symbol of a Canadian identity. The following source seems to read a lot into a leaf: “Maple trees symbolize balance, offering, practical magic, promise, longevity, generosity, and intelligence. One reason behind these meanings is that maple trees have the ability to adapt to many different soil types and climates.” https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+meaniing+of+the+canadian+maple+leaf

Well, I tried. Alas, the poor common nail can’t compete with all the ideological baggage the maple leaf carries. There are few national flags that have an object(s) as a symbol. Angola, Mozambique, Portugal. The hammer and sickle of the former Soviet Union, representing contribution of the common people, is probably the best known.

Railroad Spikes

The common railroad spike. Does it have greater potential for national significance than the lowly common nail?

The 19th century railroad spike, used to build the Canadian Pacific Railway had a square or rectangular shank. As I was trying to drive these damn things into the railroad ties in the summer of 1973, I wondered (between curses) if the square hole on the rail tie plates and the square shank prevented the spike from turning (resulting in failure to hold down the rail), either during attachment or the constant pounding and vibration as the trains passed over them.

Typical rail, wood tie, tie plate and spike used to fasten rails and tie plate to the wood tie. http://www.railway-fasteners.com/news/tie-plates-overview.html

Tremendous holding strength was required from a rail road spike to make sure the rails stayed in place with the hundreds of tons of trains moving over them every day. The common spike was made from a softer iron, usually with 9/16 inch thick stock, approximately 5 1/2 to 6 inches long. The point was tapered so the spike would cut across the the grain of the wood tie to prevent it from splitting.

It cost over one-hundred million dollars to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad which was completed in 1885 at Craigellachie, British Columbia. Thirty-thousand workers labored four-and-one-half years to build the 3,200km (1,939 miles) long track across Canada. A ribbon of steel finally bound the country in which the lowly railroad spike played a huge part.

I’ve done a bit of math. Wood ties are about nineteen inches apart. There 3,250 wooden ties per mile. It would require 26,000 spikes for each mile of track laid. That number multiplied by 1,939 miles comes to a staggering 50,414,000 spikes (some claim only a mere 30 million were used) required for the job. Just for the CPR mainline. Clearly the common railway spike is one of the most important artifacts ever made and used in Canadian nation-building.

Perhaps one of the most iconic photographs in Canadian history. The driving of the last spike by Donald Smith at Craigellachie, British Columbia, 1885.

Yet this very important artifact receives little recognition. There are a few exceptions, mind you. The last spike driven at Craigellachie by Donald Smith in 1885, should be famous. It represents the completion of a national dream. Made of gold or silver perhaps. But no, it was just plain iron. And there wasn’t just one, but four.

The first one, made of silver, never reached Craigellachie in time to be used. The second one was bent by Donal Smith, when trying to hammer it home, and kept, eventually made into jewelry. The third one was pulled and mysteriously disappeared and has only recently surfaced. And the fourth one is still in the tracks at Craigellachie.

The silver spike that was to be driven at the last spike driving ceremony at Craigellachie, British Columbia by Donald Smith in 1885. But it never made it in time. Good thing. He probably would have bent it. Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History.

What a mess. The first one doesn’t get there in time. Smith bends the second spike and makes it into jewelry. And the third one mysteriously disappears and is now a knife. How could you lose the last spike that symbolized one of the greatest engineering achievements of the time and the coming together of a nation?

The third last spike used in the ceremony ended up in private hands, and was repurposed. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/legendary-railway-spike-thought-lost-to-history-until-now/article4365698/#c-image-0https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/legendary-railway-spike-thought-lost-to-history-until-now/article4365698/#c-image-0

We celebrate and revere the sensational, often at the expense of the common and mundane. Granted, the last spike, or the silver one on display, symbolize and solidify a great moment in Canadian history. But it’s not the only spike of significance in this story.

On that same November day, in 1885, workers who built the railway near Donald, British Columbia. This may be their version of the iconic photo of the Last Spike. Courtesy of BC Archives/D-02469. Story from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-other-last-spike-feature#

The above photo and the common spike in contrast to the silver one bring up an important point. There is always an alternate story or narrative about any given object. Like the photograph above we should also revere the common railway spike as it symbolizes the sweat, work and deaths of thousands of men who built the ribbon of steel. It represents men like my father and uncle, who maintained it after it was built. Their contribution are as important and meaningful as the completion of the railway and that silver spike.

Perhaps the best way to tell these stories is to display both the silver spike symbolizing one of Canada’s greatest accomplishments alongside the common railroad spike symbolizing the work of those who built it. As close to a solution to entertaining and informing as can be expected from this particular artifact.

Working on the Railroad

I’ll end on a personal note which also partially reveals my choice of content for this post. My father and uncle worked on the CPR for many years. As did my cousin and I. We lasted one summer on the ‘extra gangs.’ I have seen way too many railroad spikes up close on certain sections of the CPR mainline. One summer was more than enough, thank you.

Our family owns a last spike of sorts. In recognition of my father’s contribution to the CPR. He received this galvanized spike from a friend of mine when he retired from the CPR in 1983. This one was repurposed for an equally great cause. Perhaps it could serve as our national emblem.

This galvanized spike sits in my kitchen drawer. As I get older it takes on more meaning than I ever would have imagined.

This modified version of the common spike reminds me of dad. And my uncle. However, whenever I open a refreshment with it, I reflect back to much tougher times working between the rails. That story is still being written.

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A Few Blog Notes

  1. I’ve been thinking of setting up a membership list for my website. I would divide my posts into those that are free to read and a ‘silver’ category, which only paid subscribers could access. Subscribers would be charged a fee of perhaps $20.00 CAN per year to access this category. It would contain all my short stories, novelettes, etc. My rationale is quite simple – to cover costs of running this website. I have no illusions about getting rich, but feel that paying to inform and entertain you just doesn’t seem right.
  2. Lately more visitors from the rest of the world are checking my website. Those of you looking in from the USA (some of you whom I know), Ireland, Brazil, or any other country, let me know why you dropped into my site.
  3. In the last few years the phrase ‘cultural appropriation‘ has popped up increasingly in just about every context imaginable. One definition of the phrase is: The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society. Literature is no exception. Including mine. Many publishers are more cautious in what they publish. I think the two words I underlined in the definition are key. But they are widely interpreted. I’d like your opinions on the subject. Especially those of you who are of Indigenous background.

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Peering Beneath The Ground: A Few Non-Invasive Archaeological Search Techniques

Archaeologists conducting a magnetic survey at Chavin de Huantar, Peru. https://www.hgiworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Mag-Survey-Peru1.jpg

In my last post I used historic documentary records to search for lost early Euro-Canadian fur trade establishments in the remote, dense northern forests of Alberta, Canada. In this post I discuss other ways we might be able to find archaeological remains hidden beneath our feet.

Infrared Photography, Magnetometer Survey, Ground Penetrating Radar, LIDAR. Archaeologists use these non-invasive techniques to find archaeological remains hidden in remote parts of the world or where any archaeological surface evidence has been obscured by construction or other ground surface disturbance. Some methods work better than others in certain conditions. They, however, can also be misleading and potentially destructive if not used properly.

First Some Extreme Examples of Non-Invasive Search Methods

While most of the above techniques have merit, others are a little more far-fetched. In 1975 I attended my first CAA (Canadian Archaeological Association) Conference in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was pretty cool meeting and listening to all these learned people so passionate about archaeology.

As the liquor flowed freely so were the more outlandish ideas on how to find archaeological sites without, you know, all that work (walking and stumbling around in the bush, digging endless test pits). At one of the evening receptions I noticed a bunch of people gathered around a table intently watching as two archaeologists were dangling a string with something attached to the end over the map.

I casually walked over, curious to see what they were doing. Maybe they were demonstrating some new archaeological technique that I should know about. What I saw however, surprised me. One of the archaeologist was dangling an arrowhead tied to a string over a map of southern Ontario, while the other was taking notes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Dousing for archaeological sites or remains using an arrowhead on a string. Apparently the arrowhead would point to a place on the map suggesting archaeological remains were buried there.

I couldn’t resist. So I tried this method at home. The arrowhead pointed to the Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta. Maybe there’s something to this method after all.

Welcome to the world of some of the more outlandish methods ever used in archaeological detection, Heinz. You might have just hit an all time low. Wow! Could these learned people be serious? It seemed so. And some of those gathered around the table also seemed convinced this method might work.

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I should not have been surprised that people would use the paranormal in archaeology to help them in their investigations. Throughout the history of archaeology paranormal examples abound. Google it and you will see. Often referred to as psychic archaeology, or Psychometry, most of its claims are of a dubious nature.

In fact, it was earlier in 1974, while at my first archaeological dig at the HBC Fort Victoria, Alberta, that I was introduced to another somewhat unorthodox method of archaeological detection. Dowsing.

Dowsing (Divining, Witching) is a method whereby a person holds and forked branch or coat hangers and walks over the ground surface to detect features objects hidden beneath. Originally it was mainly used to find water (and still is) but is also applied to many other fields of detection. Including archaeology.

https://revaseybolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Dowsing-1040×400.jpg

So we tried walking over the fort cellar depressions and palisade footer trenches holding two bent coat hangers. They were supposed to cross when you hit a buried feature. Some of the students believed it worked. Others did not. I was amongst the latter.

Even to this day, one of my colleagues (who shall remain anonymous) and I have had a 40-year debate about the merits of this technique. I’m a skeptic of any method not based in science. Others, like my colleague, are more liberal thinkers I guess. Apparently this method is supposed detect magnetic anomalies under the ground surface. That supposedly is the scientific connection. As you will read shortly not even sophisticated equipment capable of accurately measuring the earth’s magnetism are able to make that connection.

My strangest encounter (so far), while excavating at the last HBC Fort Edmonton, was with a woman who claimed, once she had held a piece of jewelry we found, it belonged to her distant relative who worked at the fort. We thanked her for her insights but did not pursue the matter any further. With this Psychometric method one holds an ancient artifact which will then send messages about its history. This method too has not gained much traction over the years among my colleagues. Nor among thieves.

Although I must admit the use of psychic archaeology is tempting when things are not going as they should in the field. My future wife and I, while at Fort Victoria in 1974, tried channeling (of sorts) one night. We tried calling up the ghost of the Clerk in charge of the fort, a Mr. Tait, I believe. We entered the old clerk’s quarters (built in 1864 and still standing on the site) at midnight. After a lot of shouting and pleading for answers we only managed to wake up a few people and totally scared ourselves in the process. I think there was liquor involved in that episode as well.

https://hermis.alberta.ca/ARHP/GetImageDetails.aspx?ObjectID=4665-0022&MediaID=129133. In 1974 when we excavated at the Fort Victoria site, the Clerk’s Quarters was in rough shape. Historic Sites Service, Government of Alberta, has done a admirable job restoring it and interpreting the site. The ghosts have probably fled by now. Either from our shouting or restoration activities.

Metal Detecting. Night hawking, as it is often referred to which, as one archaeologist put it, has had a love-hate relationship with archaeology. Yes, you can find ferric objects with this method, if that’s all you wanted to find. Even major treasures as have been recently found in England with this method. And then you rip those objects out of the ground without any proper context or worse not even recording their location. Unless palisade and building walls are made of iron, finding major archaeological features with this equipment is also problematic.

Recently, some incredible archaeological finds have been identified using metal detection. But, unless this method is used in the same controlled way as excavation, then we end up with artifacts with no context, dissociated both from other nonferrous artifacts and possible archaeological features they occur in. http://www.pastperfect.org.uk/archaeology/lo/metaldetecting.jpg
In one of here posts, archaeologist Rachel Smith has captured rather nicely what archaeology is NOT about, in this image. http://iblog.iup.edu/trowelsandtribulations/2020/04/05/dowsing-to-see/

Some Slightly More Refined Non-Invasive Search Techniques

Some non-invasive search methods have proven better than the aforementioned. But nearly all have their limitations which, if not recognized, could create more problems than solve.

When I search for historic archaeological sites, I observe the surface of the ground carefully when looking for either features on a site or the site. While some features, such as large depressions or mounds are pretty obvious, more subtle features still leave surface evidence even after hundreds of years. After clearing the vegetation off the Fort Vermilion I site, in some places the fort’s original palisade trenches were still evident on the ground surface. At Fort Edmonton, where the ground had been totally landscaped and scrubbed clean of any surface fort evidence, the north palisade was evident as a slightly depressed line where the grass grew better.

Outline of the west palisade footer trench visible in the wall and on the unit floor. These ditches are dug in the soil and then vertical poles placed in them, then filled in to form the palisade wall. Even after 200 years and numerous flooding events, this trench had slumped enough to still be visible on the ground surface.

Not only does the ground continue to slump in these trenches, the soil chemistry and water regime may also change, affecting vegetation. I have seen shell middens representing prehistoric First Nations settlements on the Northwest Coast of Canada that are totally devoid of trees (in a rain forest) because both the soil chemistry and moisture regimes have changed.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eCc8DP7IMVw/maxresdefault.jpg. This photograph of a buried shell midden along the Oregon coast shows the different vegetation on the top probably resulting from a change in soil chemistry and moisture.

Even normal aerial photography can produce some surprising results. For example, for years Parks Canada archaeologists could not find one of the missing Rocky Mountain House forts in central Alberta, Canada. Until one day, quite by accident, and luck, it appeared in a photograph.

Archaeologist Donald Steer, working for Parks Canada in the 1970s, was missing a fort. At least according to the historic records. One day while flying over the area someone took black and white photographs of a grain field along the North Saskatchewan River. Later when looking through them Steer noticed the outlines of what looked like a fort in the field. The outlines and cellar features of the fort were captured in the different growth rates of the wheat and shot just at the right light and angle to reveal the fort.

The use of infrared and other types of photography sensitive to different wavelengths of light are also proving useful in archaeological discovery.

During the late 1970s while excavating at the NWC Fort George (c.1792-1800) archaeologists were testing a new non-invasive technique. Ground Penetrating Radar.

The earth is surrounded by varying amounts of magnetism. Physicists found that subsurface features, such as extensive burning, or buried materials, give off different rates of magnetism often associated with human activities. If such a technique proved effective, it could help detect features at an archaeological site, saving countless hours in searching with subsurface testing.

The method has proven moderately effective but the anomalies are sometimes very difficult to interpret and can be affected by modern intrusions giving off what we call false positives – an anomaly which turns out to be nothing or created by some modern intrusion.

Nestled behind the Alberta Legislative building, stands the HBC Fort Edmonton V, c.1912. Courtesy of the Provincial Archives of Alberta.

While excavating Fort Edmonton V, we tried magnetometer survey, seismic testing, ground penetrating radar (GPR), and soil resistivity, to help find and better understand the subsurface archaeological remains. Some methods worked better than others.

Today’s Alberta legislature grounds. The lawn bowling green on the left and the skating rink (old lawn bowling green) on the right. Somewhere under there lie the remains of Fort Edmonton V.
Students, under the guidance of Dr. Edo Nyland, Department of Physics, University of Alberta, conducting a magnetometer survey on the skating rink, Alberta Legislature grounds, 1993.
This image represents a magnetometer survey done on the lawn bowling green on the left and the skating rink on the right, Department of Physics, University of Alberta. The different shaded areas represent different intensities of magnetism. According to our historic maps the remains of then Chief Factor, John’s Rowand’ Big House, should lie near the southwest corner of the lawn bowling green. Yet no magnetic anomaly is present. Either our maps are wrong, the method is too insensitive to pick up building remains (including large cellars), or, any former archaeological features were destroyed when the fort was torn down.
This is a 3D image of the lawn bowling green and skating rink, capturing nicely a recent concrete tunnel (raised area in center) running underneath the sidewalk between the lawn and rink, and the electric light posts (raised spikes) around the lawn bowling green and skating rink. And very little else. Modern disturbance is a real problem when using these techniques. And then there’s always the problem of suggesting to the lawn bowlers that we would like to dig up their lawn to check these anomalies. This didn’t go over very well. Instead we joined them for some lawn bowling.
Another method, GPR, produced some good results, showing Fort Edmonton palisade footer trench (which was first ground-proofed and evident on the surface) and the many water lines running everywhere on the site (figure on the right). We were warned by the grounds keepers not to cut the water lines because it would set off the entire sprinkling system. Of course, we accidentally cut a water line on a fine June Saturday afternoon sending numerous brides and grooms, there for their photographs, scrambling for drier grounds.

GPR has its uses but is sometimes unreliable. Not only does it create false positives (finding little or nothing of consequence) but worse, false negatives (missing things of great consequence). Imagine if you will, using this method to detect all historic graves in an area, only to miss a few before the land is developed and built on. I have seen this method miss entire cellars big enough to hide a Volkswagon in. Whether the fault of the operator, or the method, caution must be taken. However, these methods are constantly improving, becoming more reliable for archaeological work.

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Light Imagery Detection and Ranging (LIDAR). This method was developed in the 1960s by the US Space Agency and then used in the Apollo 12 missions in 1971 to map the surface of the moon. The results were spectacular.

This method uses an optical remote sensing technique that can measure the distance to a target (in this case, the ground) by illuminating the target with light using pulses from a laser. It is sensitive enough to measure ground surface elevations even under dense forests. Here are a few examples of its use at archaeological sites and features having considerable vertical depth.

LIDAR strips away all the vegetation leaving stark ground contours and relief. This is a great technique for finding mapping large features such as houses, cities and effigies such as the one you see on the right. An archaeological illusion of sorts. Sometimes when standing on the ground the objects are so big you miss or cannot identify them. Only at a distance do they become distinguishable or form a pattern.
The latest LIDAR imagery called Titan Technology has a very high resolution as this image shows. The vegetation has been stripped off Tikal, revealing the archaeological remains beneath. https://lidarmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/COVERTikal2x2km_St.png

The problem with this technique, even today, is its cost. Presently in Canada there is little LIDAR coverage of the ground surface. Fortunately for us, Alberta Forestry Service had flown parts of northern Alberta with LIDAR, including the Fort Vermilion I area.

Here was an opportunity to test just how sensitive this method was in the thick northern boreal forests of Canada. We knew where the site was located. Also some of the surface features were fairly significant. They paled in comparison to the Mesoamerican settlements, but nevertheless this was an opportunity to carry out some controlled experimentation.

Fort Vermilion I in 2014, cleared of trees and brush, revealing an uneven surface. Near the left-center of the photograph is a very large cellar depression. The largest on the site.
On the left is what our site area looks like with normal aerial photography. Only major features, such as dried up river channels manage to peak out of the dense bush. The top right circle represents the Fort Vermilion I site. On the right is the LIDAR image of the same area, now with the trees stripped off leaving all major ground surface contours exposed. One of the large cellars at the site (in the above site photograph) shows up. Just below and left are possible raised mounds (which we did not know of before). On the bottom left (circled) are two more large depressions (which we also did not know of before the LIDAR imagery results). Even in this dense bush the method worked at least on the larger surface features. It might work even better if higher resolution imagery were used. But that would be very costly.
This is a close-up of the lower left depressions on the image. We had no idea they were there or whether they were cultural. Only one way to find out.
In 2014 we found the depression and finally tested near it in 2016. We weren’t disappointed. We found animal bones, hand-wrought nails and mud chinking from cabin construction all occurring at similar depths as the archaeological remains at Fort Vermilion I (the two sites are on the same floodplain). And then we got really lucky and found this wonderful tubular glass bead along with the other materials. Currently we don’t know if this site is an extension of Fort Vermilion I, a contemporary or even earlier unknown occupation or fur trade Company, or a habitation for the local Metis freemen who might have built near Fort Vermilion I.

A Few Concluding Remarks

Inspiration for this post came when one of my readers casually asked about one of these non-invasive techniques. I replied that it was best not to get me started on that topic. Obviously, it got me started… I’ve had some good luck and some bad luck using these methods. And I firmly believe that with more experimentation and refinement they will become more reliable in the future.

We have come a long way from dangling an arrowhead over a map of Canada in hopes of finding archaeological remains. Or using coat hangers to dowse for buried archaeological remains. Some of the non-invasive search techniques are becoming more sophisticated and reliable, allowing us to detect archaeological history on a scale never imagined before.

But, occasionally I revert back to the old ways. I hoped for inspiration by sleeping in a tent on the old Fort Vermilion I site. Maybe I would receive a sign. To help me find things. And one night I received it when a pack of wolves accidentally walked onto the site sending off the most blood-curdling howling I have ever heard in my life. A message?

Beware the hazards of sleeping in remote places in Canada’s northern forests!

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THE STARGAZER(S) – Koo-Koo-Sint

This Canadian commemorative stamp for David Thompson was issued one-hundred years after his death, in recognition as a surveyor and cartographer of the then territories of Canada.

He was known as Koo-Koo-Sint (the man who looks at stars) by First Nations. David Thompson, trader, explorer, surveyor and mapmaker, became a highly renowned land geographer. Some say the best in the world. After studying his maps and how he managed to carry out his work, I tend to agree.

I’ve had the opportunity to apply Thompson’s work to furthering our history. In particular finding a few of the many fur trade posts in western Canada still lost in the wilderness. Or beneath our very noses.

This is my story of following in the shadows of these great ones. In this post I’ll focus on David Thompson. Perhaps in another post, Peter Fidler.

The sextant, one of the instruments David Thompson used to shoot angles to determine latitude and longitude.

David Thompson

Born in Westminster, Middlesex, England, in 1770, to Welsh immigrants, Thompson joined the Hudson’s Bay Company at the age of 14. He studied surveying with the Company and was soon exploring uncharted territory in the Canadian Northwest. At age seventeen, he penetrated west as far as the present-day Calgary.

In 1798 Thompson joined the North West Company and devoted all his time mapping and exploring. He comes by his reputation as a great land surveyor and cartographer honestly. His maps were accurate, and his exploits covered over 80,000 kilometers by foot, horseback, or canoe. All previous maps of western America paled in comparison to his maps.

This map of western North America drawn by Joseph La France in 1740, shows how little was known about the Canadian west. Try to find your home on this map.

In 1804, David Thompson visited Fort Vermilion, then called LaFleur’s Post, by the North West Company. We know this from his daily journal. Here is an excerpt from his journal and arrival at the post. Good luck reading it. It may strain your eyes.

A page of David Thompson’s original journal, 1804. Thompson’s script requires some getting used to. As a historical archaeologist, one of the hardest things I have had to do, is read journals, such as Thompson’s. And then, when I felt comfortable with his script, I went on to someone else’s journal and had to start learning all over.

In Search of LaFleur’s Post (Fort Vermilion I)

Before 1998 Fort Vermilion was still lost in the northern Alberta wilderness. In 1968 John Nicks (Provincial Museum of Alberta) and Karlis Karklins (Parks Canada) searched for the post but did not find it.

In 1998 a few members of the community of Fort Vermilion asked me if I would try to find the first Fort Vermilion. It was important to them because 1998 marked its 200 birthday.

I accepted their invitation. I’d found Boyer’s Post a decade ago. A post which too had been swallowed up by the northern boreal forest and lost for 200 years. This I believed would be much easier than finding Boyer’s post whose location was only vaguely alluded to by the occasional passing explorer.

One of the problems with finding old abandoned fur trade sites with vague references to their locations is the formidable bush along the lower terraces of the Peace River. For example, in 1792 Alexander Mackenzie passed the Boyer River Post on his way upriver near the Boyer River. He wrote: “In the summer of 1788 a small spot was cleared at the Old Establishment which is situated on a bank thirty feet above the level of the river and was sown with turnips, carrots and parsnips.” After finding Boyer’s Post in 1987, it took us over an hour to relocate the site in 2018. It’s in here somewhere…. The only fact we could come away with from this quote was that the fort was located on a bank near the Peace River where the Boyer River flowed into it.
Not only does the dense northern bush hide any signs of human settlement, so does urbanization. If you were to visit today’s Alberta legislature grounds in Edmonton, Alberta, you would be hard-pressed to see any signs of what was one of the most important 19th century forts in western Canada. When we interviewed people visiting our excavations in the early 1990s, the majority did not know this was the original location of Fort Edmonton. The fort was hiding in plain view.

The search for these long forgotten places is often difficult. The first problem with the Fort Vermilion site was its remoteness. There were no roads near where we thought it might be, and the bush was dense along the lower terraces of the Peace River. Ground surface visibility was bad.

Long stretches of the Peace River in northern Alberta are remote and very difficult to travel along. Any signs of settlement gets swallowed up immediately in the lower terrace forests. This is the stretch of river where we eventually found Fort Vermilion. It looks good from the air. Until you get on the ground and have to walk through the bush.

So, where was LaFleur’s post? Were there any records that talked about it? Did the Hudson’s Bay Company rebuild the post when the two companies amalgamated, or, did they move it in 1821?

The earliest known record of the location of LaFleur’s post comes from David Thompson’s 1804 journals. Thompson stated the post was on the left bank of the river 17 miles downriver from the mouth of the Keg River. Those seem like pretty good details until you begin to think about them a little more. For instance, what does left bank mean? As you travel upriver, or downriver? Thompson didn’t elaborate. And then, was the Keg River the same one as today’s Keg River? Finally, what did 17 miles downriver mean? Were those river miles, or, were those a direct line to the fort from the mouth of the Keg River?

There was no way of determining on which side of the river bank the fort was located from Thompson’s left bank remark. Best to check both banks. In fact Nicks and Karklins had already checked the east bank in the general vicinity, and found nothing. Then there was the Keg River. I assumed that the historic and present names were the same. The reason for this was that Thompson noted other important landmarks in his journals, such as Wolverine Point (Carcajou) which still exists today on the Peace River.

Next was the distance of 17 miles. I examined both Thompson’s journals and other documents and found that these were river miles. Thompson used river track surveys, where he took a compass bearing and a distance to a point in the river where it turned and then repeated it as he traveled on the river. But, how accurate were these readings?

“Co. N12 E1m NE3/4m” (David Thompson’s notebook, May 3, 1804, Fort Vermilion)

David Thompson used a 32 point compass rose to estimate directions, such as those above. Each point represented 11.25 degrees. In the above quote from Thompson’s 1804 journal, he traveled 12 miles north, then one mile east, then 4 miles northeast. Reckoning speed and distance was entirely another matter. He would have needed to estimate how fast his canoes were moving and then time the distance with a watch (which he did have). One way (and not the only one) would be to pace off an accurate distance on shore and then time how fast the canoes traveled that distance, giving him some idea of baseline speed.

Whatever methods Thompson used, his maps for the period were very accurate.

David Thompson’s line track survey of the North Saskatchewan River in the 1790s, compared to the river’s actual course today. Thompson wisely made several surveys and then averaged his distances and orientation, much like that of a carpenter taking the same measurement a number of times and averaging the distance.

When I saw Thompson’s North Saskatchewan River map I realized there might be a similar Peace River map, marking all the forts along it. I quickly found Thompson’s Peace River map published in his narrative (1916). Much to my dismay this is what it looked like.

This map is a reproduction of Thompson’s original map, accurately showing the Peace River. But alas, not a fort to be seen. When I looked closely, there was a note on the bottom of the map that said: “…reduced from a tracing of photostat of the original Thompson map in the Royal Ontario Archives, which is now too dark for successful reproduction.” (Tyrrell 1916).

At the Royal Alberta museum we had a full sized reproduction of David Thompson’s original ‘territories’ map, including the Peace River. When I looked at that map, this is what I saw.

On this map all the major forts and landmarks are clearly marked. The publisher decided to remove the names and locations of these places in the 1916 publication.

And, low and behold, there was Fort Vermilion on the west bank roughly where Thompson described it in his journals.

The lesson to be learned from this was to always go back to the original documents whenever possible. One of the rules of doing history and dealing with historic documents.

………………………….

Next we needed a fine water craft to get near the location where we thought the fort might be located. Below is a photograph of the official research vessel, known locally as the Barge, owned and operated by Mike Mihaly, High Level Alberta.

Getting ready to depart from La Crete Ferry Landing on the barge on one of many expeditions to Fort Vermilion I. Captain Mike jokingly told me that the barge was first a bridge across a creek at home and then over the years morphed into this river boat. What the barge lacked in appearance was made up with both its practicality and the gear on board. Depth finders, solar array, phones and an ingenious anchoring system of poles for the constantly moving river which in a few short hours could change depth, either sinking you or leaving you dry on land if anchored too securely.
I may never excavate at this fur trade site again. But, over the course of 30 years I said that at least a half-dozen times and kept comping back. Never say ‘Never’. However, to remind me of the good days and productive research between trips, I have this image on my desktop. The Barge. To remind me of those good times.

In October, 1998, two-hundred years after it was built we (Al and Marilee Toews, Fort Vermilion, and Mike Mihaly, High Level, Alberta) anchored about 500 metres from where after an afternoon of walking and stumbling through the bush we eventually found the long lost Fort Vermilion I. It was truly a day to be remembered for everyone.

As I later reflected after examining Colin Campbell’s (clerk for the Hudson’s Bay Company) journals at Fort Vermilion, we were fortunate to have such an astute observer as David Thompson. Or this fort might still be lost to us. Campbell spent nearly ten years at Fort Vermilion, keeping a journal for most of those years. There is not a single entry that would help identify the location of this and other forts along the river.

A Few Final Comments on David Thompson’s Maps and Journals

I am always amazed and somewhat in awe of how one man, using very simple, rudimentary instruments could so accurately map the Canadian West. In a canoe undergoing tremendous hardships and obstacles. Surely he deserves more recognition than a five cent postage stamp. Even the Canadian loon gets more monetary recognition.

As it turned out Thompson’s latitude reckonings (obtained by measuring the angle of the sun to the horizon at midday, or taking angle of the north star to the horizon with a sextant) were 11 seconds, or 220 metres off for the location of Fort Vermilion I. His estimation of longitude at Fort Vermilion were over 35 kilometres off. Not surprising, since you needed extremely accurate watches (one set at mean Greenwich time and one set locally to estimate longitude accurately). It would be later when Captain James Cook circumnavigated the globe mapping it, that more accurate time-pieces were available, thus producing more accurate maps.

Highly accurate time pieces were necessary to determine longitude. And they had to be small enough to carry through the Canadian wilderness. That and over a dozen mathematical computations. David Thompson was off a little over one degree in estimating longitude at Fort Vermilion. But even one degree was a considerable distance.

“…brass Sextant of ten inches radius, an achromatic Telescope of high power for observing the Satellites of Jupiter and other phenomena, one of the same construction for common use, Parallel glasses and quiksilver horizon for double altitudes; Compass, Thermometer, and other requisite instruments, which I was in the constant practice of using in clear weather for observations on the Sun , Moon, Planets and Stars…” (David Thompson)

THE STARGAZER – Koo-Koo-Sint
This is one of the first artifacts we found at the long-lost Fort Vermilion I. Can you guess what it is? Perhaps in another post I’ll write more about this very unique object.

………………….

References

Thompson, David, 1916. David Thompson’s Narratives of His Explorations in Western America 1784 – 1812. The Champlain Society. Toronto.

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Back in the Saddle Again: A Note About an Old Toothbrush

Hello everyone. It’s been a while since I last posted here. However that does not mean I haven’t been writing. I have. Just to a different audience – my archeological colleagues. And when I tell you that I’ve been writing about how deep objects sink when stepped on, and what that means for the archeological record, I can already hear the sighs of relief. ‘Sure glad he didn’t share that gem with us.’

For me it doesn’t get much more exciting than that. At least during these Covid times when repeatedly stepping on marbles was the highlight of my day. In fact, when I carried out some of these experiments along the banks of the North Saskatchewan River near Devon, Alberta, this summer they drew a lot attention. As in, ‘What’s that weirdo doing?‘ People were obviously bored.

After explaining to one mother and her ten year old daughter, why I was stomping on marbles in a sandbox, the mom quickly whisked her daughter away, looking over her shoulder to make sure I wasn’t following. I guess I left quite an impression. That young girl will now have forever an image in her head of what an archaeologist looks like and does for a living. And it won’t be the Indiana Jones kind, but some old guy, with long white hair tied in a pony tail, trampling on marbles, then carefully recording those results. And that poor mother’s ‘Indi’ dream archaeologist was forever shattered as well.

Just setting up my archaeological experiment in the beautiful North Saskatchewan River Valley near Devon, Alberta. As archaeologists we are always concerned about time and stratigraphy. And whether objects from one layer get mixed up with objects from another lower layer representing a different time period. Only one way to find out. Stomp on them to see how deep they go.

There are times however when my profession is a little more exciting and the things we find are jaw droppers. One-of-a-kinds, such as this bone/ivory artifact found at the Fort Vermilion I (c.1798 – 1830) fur trade post in northern Alberta. We think it’s a toothbrush, perhaps one of the earliest ever to enter the province. This perfectly preserved object, with some of the bristles still intact at both ends, currently is the only one found in Alberta and I have only seen a fragment of one like it found at a NWT fort.

So what is an object like this doing at a frontier wilderness post in what was then the middle of nowhere (and in some respects still is)? My colleagues and I have been asking ourselves that question for some time now. Aside from idle speculation, we have few definitive answers. Dental hygiene was not at a very advanced stage at the turn of the 19th century anywhere in the world, let alone some Canadian frontier trading post. Especially among the lower income fort laborer’s.

Although the toothbrush was already invented in China sometime in the 7th – 8th century A. D. by the Dang Dynasty, it took a while for Europe to catch on.

https://www.thehealthsciencejournal.com/the-history-of-the-toothbrush/

Here’s what the toothbrush history experts have to say on the subject:

“At around 1780, the first toothbrush was made by William Addis of Clerkenald, England. Addis, and later, his descendants, manufactured the finest English brushes, where the handles were carved out of the bone of cattle and the heads of the natural bristles were placed in the bored holes made in the bone and kept in place by thin wire. The natural bristles were obtained from the necks and shoulders of swine, especially from pigs living in colder climates like Siberia and China.

By the early 1800s the bristled brushes were in general use in Europe and Japan. In 1857, H. N. Wadsworth was credited as the first American to receive a toothbrush patent as America entered the growing toothbrush market.” (https://mrs-o-c.com/computers/history/toothbrush/toothbrushHistory.htm

Here is sort of a similar-looking bone toothbrush from 1844:

19th century toothbrush
In 1844, the first toothbrush was manufactured by hand and patented as a 3-row brush of serrated bristles with larger tufts by Dr. Meyer L. Rhein.http://(https://mrs-o-c.com/computers/history/toothbrush/toothbrushHistory.htm

It’s not as if this was a common artifact in western Canada. No. It was essentially a ‘one-off.’ And how did this rather pristine, still functional object end up in the fort midden pile? We can only speculate, but it seems reasonable to assume it belonged to a person who did not linger long at this ‘silvan abode in the woods.’ (A tongue-in-cheek quote from Alexander Ross, 1825, describing the rather decrepit looking Fort Assiniboine, Alberta) Or we would have found more like it.

Let me assure you this find is unusual and not normal fur trade archaeology. But then trampling on marbles isn’t either. Both however do make for a good story. In my next post I’ll speculate even more about this object with a short story of historical fiction. I wish I could share this post with that mother and child to help restore their image of archaeology. Too late for that though.

Until then, stay safe everyone.

In the meantime, in order to fight Covid, I’m going to brush my teeth with the new toothpaste I just acquired. If they had this toothpaste in the fur trade, we would have found a lot more toothbrushes:

https://www.pinterest.ca/ultibrush/history-of-the-toothbrush/
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Life and Death: Human Mortality in the 18th and 19th Century Canadian Fur Trade

The grave of John Rowand (1787 – 1854), renowned fur trader and Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton.

In 1854, John Rowand, Chief Factor, Fort Edmonton, while trying to break up a fight among the men at Fort Pitt, suddenly clutched his chest and fell over, dead. Probably from a heart attack. But, we’ll never know for certain.

John Rowand, Chief Factor of the HBC Fort Edmonton, was sixty-seven when he died. Only a few years younger than the average life of a fur trader.

The Things That Eventually Kill Us

Researchers currently list nine major factors that affect human longevity: Gender, genetics, prenatal and childhood conditions, education, socio-economic status, marital status, ethnicity, lifestyle (diet, exercise, tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, etc.), and medical technology.

In my last post, I examined the dietary habits of 18th and 19th century fur trade employees in western Canada. Many Company men and women ate a heavy meat protein and fat diet. I ended my post asking: How did a diet rich in animal protein and fat affect the health and well-being of Company employees? Without detailed medical records, there really is only one way to investigate this question. I examined how long these people lived compared to the rest of Canadians. Or, among their peers who might have eaten a different diet.

Many of the above factors also dictated how long people lived in the fur trade. But it is not possible to research all of them. Among the easiest to investigate are: 1) socio-economic status (Company officers versus laborers); 2) ethnicity (English/Scottish, French Canadians, Metis/Native); and, 3) other lifestyle factors (diet, alcohol and tobacco consumption, degree of physical labor, etc.). I examine a few of these factors here with the available fur trade records.

Fur trade company employees differed in many ways, including their status (officers versus laborers), ethnicity (Indigenous, French Canadian, Orkney, etc.), degree and type of physical labor, and other lifestyle differences (including diet). The above painting and sketch depicts many of these differences. Officers were mostly of English/Scottish descent, were the best educated, ate the best and most foods, and did the least physical labor. Fort laborers were poorly educated, of mixed ethnic descent (French Canadian, Indigenous, Orkney, etc.) and did the hardest physical labor. (Upper left image, painting by Rex Woods for the Hudson’s Bay Company; lower right image, National Archives of Canada, C-2771)

The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA): Employee Records

We face many problems when researching immediate cause of death, or its more remote, major underlying causes, in 18th and 19th century Canada. First, there is the unreliability and absence of records and diagnosis of patients. So, for example, when I ask how a meat fat-protein rich diet in the fur trade may have affected human health, there are few ways to answer this question. It’s hard enough to answer in present-day society, let alone two-hundred years ago.

However, if lifestyle, inequality, ethnicity, or even place of work, were detrimental to the health of fur trade employees they may show up in their mortality rates, or age of death. But, where do we find these types of data?

Fortunately, the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, Manitoba contain a list of former employees. It often includes their ethnic background, birth and death dates, dates and years of service, position, post and fur trade district they worked in.

Example of Hudson’s Bay Company Archives lists of former employees, often (but not always) including their dates of birth and death.
Example of my HBCA data base. I selected employees with last names starting with A, B, and C. In some cases, when I needed a larger sample of certain type of data, I continued investigating the records further, beyond the letter C.

From the HBCA data base, I compiled a list of ninety-one men, with known birth and death dates, who worked in various regions and time periods. Sometimes the list also described their positions (e.g., officer, clerk, laborer), ethnic origins (English, Scottish, French Canadian, Metis, and Native, etc.) and years of service.

Unfortunately these data have their limitations. Many records don’t contain birth or death dates. Occasionally place of birth or ethnic background is not recorded. I included the Columbia District employees, although they likely had a different lifestyle than employees living further inland. I also included employees working at York Factory/Eastmain and Red River. Both areas and their forts would have been regularly supplied by ships from England or had well established agriculture by the early 19th century (Red River).

I only have data for men. While many women lived and worked at the Company posts, they were not officially recognized as Company employees. However, in almost every human population where statistics are available, women on average live longer than men. Finally, most of the HBCA records list no cause of death. So, I really can’t directly connect death to diet (heart disease leading to a heart attack) or tobacco consumption (lung cancer).

And until recently I didn’t have any basis for comparison of these mean ages of death to people in eastern Canada, or populations from other parts of the world. But that changed when I found a great data base on human mortality and life expectancy. It’s called Our World In Data. Check it out. I will use it here to compare to our fur trade mortality rates to Canada and the rest of the world.

What was the Average Age of Death of Fur Trade Employees?

The average age of death of the employees I sampled is an incredible seventy years (ranging between 1705 – 1963). The youngest man died at age thirty-five; the oldest at age ninety-nine. Let’s put that into a global perspective. Life expectancy at birth at the beginning of the 19th century in the Americas, was approximately thirty-five years. In the rest of the world it was less than thirty years. The chart below shows life expectancy of various countries and the world through time.

This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data. First, some definitions. Life expectancy means the length of time that a human being is expected to live (based on statistics). For those of you interested in knowing how life expectancy is calculated, go to this page. Mortality refers to the death of large numbers of people. Mean age of death refers to the average age of death of a population (or sub-group) at any given time or place.

However, this chart gives the life expectancy of people at birth. So, these data are really not directly comparable to our fur trade data. Instead, we have to make a comparison of life expectancy at a certain age. All the statistics show that as you get older your life expectancy increases. For example, in 1850 life expectancy in Wales and England was around forty years at birth. If you reached the age of twenty, then your life expectancy was sixty. And at forty, you would be expected to live to sixty-seven years. Through time these figures all increase, as the chart below shows.

This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data.

Unfortunately these data aren’t available for Canada. At least that I’m aware of. But they probably follow the English and Welsh data relatively closely. In the fur trade most Company employees were approximately the age of twenty or older when they entered the Company’s service. In Wales or England, during the 1840s, a person reaching twenty years of age could expect to live to age sixty. Our fur trade employees are living an average of seventy years.

Let’s look at the data another way. The chart below shows the percent of people who reach successive ages through time. So, for example, in 1850 approximately forty percent of the Welsh or English population reached the age of sixty. And only ten percent reached the age of eighty.

This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data. Keep in mind that these estimates include men and women. They would be somewhat lower for men only.

The men in the Canadian fur trade far surpassed these figures. Below is a breakdown of the percent of men reaching certain percentages.

This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data. The yellow line represents my fur trade data.

In the Canadian fur trade sample there is one death (drowning) listed under forty years of age recorded. (Remember, this is a sample. If I examined every record, more men likely died under the age of forty; but the sample data suggests, very few.) Over seventy percent of the men reached an age of sixty years. Twenty-four percent reach eighty, while nine percent reach the age of ninety or over. Quite remarkable, considering the living and working conditions and the somewhat high protein and fat diets of many of these people.

Is There a Difference in Life Expectancy Between the Officers and Laborers?

In my last post, I noted that the officers: 1) received more meat and fat rations; 2) were of different ethnic backgrounds; and, 3) did less physical work, than the laborers. Therefore, any/all of these factors (diet, type and degree of physical labor, and ethnicity) might account for possible differences in mean age of death.

Although this chart shows an approximately one year difference of mean age of death of the two groups, the difference is not statistically significant.

There is virtually no difference (statistically speaking) in the age of death of these two groups. None of the factors listed above was influential in shortening, or prolonging, the life of each group.

In this chart I calculated how many officers and laborers reach the age of sixty-five and over.

However, as the above chart shows, more officers are living at ages sixty-five and over than the laborer group. However, whatever is causing this difference, high meat protein and fat diet isn’t a significant factor in age of death. If it was, more laborers than officers would have lived over sixty-five years of age (because the officers consumed more meat protein and fat than laborers).

How Well did Company Employees Fare in Respective Fur Trade Districts?

The major fur trade districts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, c.1830. Borders and names occasionally changed over the years. Image from Richard Somerset Mackie. “Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793-1843. ”  (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997)

Company employees were often unwilling to work at the northern posts because of the extreme hardships they faced. Such as the Athabasca or Peace River Districts which takes up most of northern Alberta. Or the even further northern Mackenzie District in the Northwest Territories.

In the words of Chief Factor John Lee Lewes, at Fort Simpson, in 1840: “…for from it [lack of food] arises more than 9/10 of the anxiety we all have to suffer from it [lack of food] in this hardest of hard Districts. Provisions, provisions….” (Brackets mine) Times were often tough in the far north.

How tough? Tough enough to affect human health, and perhaps average age of death? I grouped the data into major fur trade districts and checked. The results are shown below.

The fur trade districts in western Canada are ranked from easiest (Saskatchewan, Red River, and York Factory/Eastmain ) to hardest (Athabasca/Peace River, Mackenzie District). Not only did the more southerly Saskatchewan District and Red River posts have access to more wild game, they also acquired domestic stock and started agriculture relatively earlier. In the Athabasca/Peace River and Mackenzie Districts, this was not always possible. Also, at York Factory and Eastmain there was a more constant supply of foods coming from Britain, reducing hardship considerably. The Columbia District results are a bit of an enigma. However, they certainly didn’t increase the mean age of death. Instead, they lowered it.

With the exception of the Columbia District (coastal), there is virtually no difference in the mean age of death among the men of the different fur trade districts. Despite the constant hardships and complaints of not having enough food and supplies, which may have been real enough, the men at the Mackenzie, Athabasca/Peace River District forts did not die at an earlier age than those further south. Periods of starvation can have detrimental health affects (fatigue, dizziness, constipation, drop in blood pressure, etc.). And if too severe or prolonged, even death.

I have not conducted any detailed research on how smoking and alcohol consumption might have affected age of death (although those data are certainly available in other fur trade documents). However, a preliminary check indicates that far more employees from the Saskatchewan District, smoked and drank alcohol, than in Districts further north. But there are no discernible differences in mean age of death in these districts.

Did the Average Age of Death Change Through Time?

In the chart below, I plotted the average age of death through time. As wild game populations declined, many fur trade posts began to produce more agricultural goods and import domestic stock to supplement their diet. Thus, dietary habits changed through time, but at different rates geographically.

In the last part of the 19th century, there was a more balanced food supply and likely better medical technology for the Company men. However, the results above show a similar age of death among Company employees through time.

Was There a Difference in the Mean Age of Death Among the Different Ethnic Groups in the Fur Trade?

Given their different types of work, access to food, and genetic makeup, did certain subgroups in the fur trade fare better than others? Did those French Canadians, for example, who did most of the back-breaking work in the fur trade, die at an earlier age than their Canadian counterparts? There are suggestions they did, but never backed by any hard data. The results are shown in the chart below.

Although there is a difference of over four years between the English/Scottish group and the Metis/First Nations group, the difference is not statistically significant. Even though they worked harder, and had significantly less access to food, both French Canadian and Metis or First Nations working for the Companies fared about the same as their English/Scottish counterparts.

But, where the real difference shows up, is how many men of each ethnic group lived past the age of sixty-five. The results are shown in the chart below.

There is a significant difference in the number of French Canadians who reach the age of sixty-five and over, compared to both Metis/Native and English/Scots categories. And, if you’ve ever read how hard some of these men worked, and played, this figure is not really that surprising. My research (Pyszczyk 1987, 1989, 2015) also suggests that on average French Canadians spent more money on tobacco and alcohol than their English and Scottish counterparts (laborers).

Were Metis and First Nations People Better or Worse off Than Today?

My last question concerns the well-being of our Indigenous populations in Canada. Did they fare better during the 18th and 19th centuries, than today? Historic population data for First Nations and Inuit peoples are very hard to find. I managed to only compare Metis populations over time.

The results are a bit of a shocker. The percent of Metis who reach an age over sixty-five years are significantly lower today than during the 18th and 19th centuries. They are also lower in the fur trade than non-aboriginal employees. Here are the latest present-day statistics for the three Indigenous groups.

While I don’t have the statistics for historic First Nations and Inuit, the present-day statistics certainly tell the tale of all three groups falling behind the non-aboriginal Canadian population as they age.

All three Indigenous groups have a lower percentage of people surviving sixty-five years and older than the Canadian non-aboriginal population. Studies indicate that death from disease, drugs and alcohol, suicides, etc. are significantly higher in today’s Indigenous populations than earlier, and in the contemporary Canadian non-Aboriginal population.

What Do These Results Tell Us About Fur Trade Society?

Firstly, that rather wicked high meat protein and fat diet didn’t reduce the average life span of these people significantly. Nor did the occasional bouts of near starvation and hunger, harder work and poorer living conditions significantly reduce their length of life. Some of these factors only become important as the population aged (e.g., percent living over sixty-five).

Secondly, why did this population of men, when compared to the rest of the world and other Canadians, fair significantly better? I have some ideas. But currently no real proof or definitive answers. The men chosen for the fur trade may have been selected for their superior fitness and general good health. They therefore don’t represent the norm in either White or Indigenous Canadian society, or other world populations at any given time.

Thirdly, this population of people was relatively isolated from the rest of Canadian society. Some of the men working on the canoe brigades traveled to Montreal or York Factory annually to resupply, thus having short contact with larger centers. But most of their time was spent at the remote inland fur trade forts. Was there less chance of catching some disease, getting sick, and dying? The men living at the most remote forts in Canada don’t seem to live any longer than those less isolated, such as at Red River settlement (with a much larger population).

Or, is it my data and bias in the records? Many of the laborer class had no documented history, and therefore no birth or death dates. This is a common problem for a people without a written record. Is this sample similar to the famous 1936 Literary Digest US telephone and car registration presidential polling fiasco? When not everyone had a phone or car, and thus the polls were very skewed when using only these data. And they got the winner of the presidential election wrong. I simply can’t answer that question right now.

My last concern is with the health and welfare of our Indigenous populations. Their state of well-being seems to be heading the other direction compared to the rest of Canadian society. The cries of concern and need for more help from these people is well grounded in some of the historic population statistics. And in particular the life expectancy data.

David Thompson’s grave marker, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. One of Canada’s greatest explorers and cartographers underwent considerable hardships in the wilds of western Canada. Impoverished and destitute in old age, he lived to a ripe old age of eighty-seven.

Note: There’s always a fine line between providing too much detail (yawn) and ‘dummying down’ in these posts. Because of my background, I tend to err on the former side. I believe everyone should know what my results and interpretations are based on. And, I also know that many of my regular subscribers would prefer more than less information and facts.

Let me know what you think. Too much? Not enough?

References:

Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 1987. Economic and Social Factors in the Consumption of Material Goods in the Fur Trade of Western Canada. Ph.D Thesis. Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia.

Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 1988. Consumption and Ethnicity: An Example from the Fur Trade in Western Canada. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8:213-49.

Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 2015. The Last Fort Standing. Fort Vermilion and the Peace River Fur Trade, 1798 – 1830. Occasional Papers of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. Number 14.

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A Look Back at Our Canadian Diet: A Time When Animal Fat was King

During most of human history, hominins (that’s us, and all prehistoric humans before us) selected animals, and parts of animals, containing the most fat. Or, the most calories packed into the least amount of meat. For purely survival reasons, before the advent of agriculture and domestication (which did not occur in many parts of the world) the name of the game was to consume the richest foods possible, whenever possible.

“We Eat Everything Except the Manure.”

(Explorer, Peter Fidler, 1801, describing eating wild game, while traveling with the Dene in northern Alberta and the North West Territories, Canada)

Our Present Canadian Diet

FOOD. As Canadians we often take it for granted. For most of us, there’s always something to eat. Just a matter of selecting from the hundreds of different foods and dishes available.

And when it comes to the Canadian diet and the role animal fat plays in it, warning bells go off. BE AWARE. We’re told to eat it in minimal amounts. Because it’s bad for you.

However, for most of human history, that was not always the case. For example, in traditional Inuit diets, approximately 50% of their calories came from fat, 30–35% from protein and 15–20% from carbohydrates. Animal fat also ruled in the Canadian fur trade.

The 18th and 19th Century Canadian Diet

During the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, in western Canada, a wide variety of wild game animals provided First Nations peoples and Euro-Canadians with most of their calories. In eastern Canada during this time, domestic animals and agriculture had largely replaced wild animals and plants in peoples’ diet.

In western Canada, animal fat was highly desirable and sought after. At the fur trade forts, wild game meat and fat was even doled out according to social class. Ironically, the hard working fort employees who needed it most, received the least amounts.

In 1832, at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vermilion, Northern Alberta, for example, Company employees received following meat rations:

Category Fresh Meat Dried Meat Pounded Meat Grease
Officers Mess (2 people) 2,250 lbs 57 lbs 57 lbs 105 lbs
Officers Families (6 adults) 4,283 159 6 108
Engages (8 people) 7,752 576 576 18
Engages Families (3 adults) 2,612 148 148 4

Note: From the above table, calories derived from animal fat versus animal protein is estimated to be ~4:1

At Fort Vermilion, each officer consumed about 1,125 pounds of fresh meat a year, or approximately three pounds (1.4 kilograms) per day. Each worker consumed 969 pounds per year. This figure does not include the dried and pounded meat, or fat. That’s about three bison per year, folks. Hard to imagine eating that much meat now. Every day.

Other historic references suggest that Company employees ate even more meat than listed above. For us these numbers are truly staggering. But also very difficult to verify:

“The ordinary ration, under these circumstances [no flour or vegetables] at any of the Hudson Bay Company posts is either three large white fish, or three rabbits, or two pounds of pemmican, or three pounds of dried meat, or eight pounds of fresh buffalo meat per day per man.” (Alexander Sutherland, 1888)

Along the Saskatchewan River, where forts had access to the vast herds of Plains Bison, an enormous amount of meat was needed to feed the fort occupants for a year:

“Daily requirements for the fort – approx. 20 men, 11 women, 19 children, 36 train dogs. Of fresh meat – the tongues, bosses, ribs and fore and hind quarters of 3 animals.” (From the journals of Issac Cowie in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1867 -74) Total bison/year = 1095.

At the North West Company’s Fort George in Alberta, Clerk Duncan M’Gillivray noted: “…we have finished a Glaciere containing 500 thighs & shoulders for the consumption of April & beginning of May…” (From the journal of Duncan M’Gillivray, at Fort George 1793-94)

Also, First Nations traded huge amounts of meat to this fort:

Article (lbs) Traded from Indians & C Supplied the Factory Expended Remains
Buffalo Meat 26,230 “ 19,673 6,557
Buffalo Fat 2,900 2,500 400 “
Pemmican 7,200 7,200 “ “
And over two hundred years later, this is what the archaeological record at these Fortes des Prairies looks like. Both photographs are from the North West Company Fort George (c.1792-1800), central Alberta. In the top image we found a cellar filled with animal bone. In the bottom image, this line of bone lies along the fort palisade wall. These early Saskatchewan River forts were ‘meat factories’, processing tens of thousands of pounds of meat to make pemmican for the Company canoe brigades. Imagine what this place must have smelled like in the spring and summer months. There are many theories why these forts were abandoned relatively shortly after being built. According to most documents, animal populations were soon decimated near the fort requiring a move. But the ‘Stink Factor’ must have played a role for an early exit as well.

The More Fat, the Better

Fort occupants ate a variety of game animals. Lynx, bear, dog, wolf, porcupine, squirrel, skunk, owls, muskrat, varying hare, raccoons, beaver, elk, caribou, moose and bison. Also a variety of fish (especially whitefish) and waterfowl.

“…a rich, agreeable, and very wholesome fish (whitefish), that never palls the appetite; and is preferable, and other fish of this country…” (from the journals of Sir John Richardson, surgeon and explorer)

“…ducks of various kinds, which having shed their feathers, are easily killed in the numerous lakes and ponds. The larger ducks are generally fat at this season, the young of the year are lean and insipid.” (from the journals of Alexander Henry (the younger), Fort White Earth, Saskatchewan River, central Alberta)

Sometimes the consumption of some rather unorthodox critters got just a little out of hand. Explorer Samuel Hearne describes one such incident: “…the warbles out of the deer’s backs, and the domestic lice, were the only two things I ever saw my companions eat, of which I could not, or did not, partake. I trust I shall not be reckoned over-delicate in my appetite.”  (from Samuel Hearne’s diaries)

While it’s hard to imagine eating something like this warble off an animal, hunger often trumps all. As Peter Fidler’s rather blunt words suggest, when people are driven to extremes of hunger they will eat almost anything. And, at some of the northern fur trade posts, near starvation situations occasionally occurred.

“Friday gave the men a parchment skin to eat – a Canadian that came home from the hunting tent informed me that the hunters was all starving as they could kill no cattle [bison].” (HBC trader, Thomas Swain, Mansfield House, 1802, near Fort Vermilion, Alberta)

On the other end of the extreme, Company employees often had considerable choice and selection of wild game. Whenever possible they chose the fattiest animals, and selected the parts of the animal that contained the most fat.

Fatty, and Fat Animals
The large plains and woodland bison provided First Nations and first Euro-Canadians with considerable amounts of meat. A two year old bison weighs approximately 850 pounds, yielding about 300 pounds of usable meat.

Some game animals were fatter during certain times of the year. The flesh of some animals contained more fat than others any time of the year. According to fur trade records, bison tasted best when fat:

“We killed a great many buffalo, which were all in good condition, and feasted…..luxuriously upon the delicate tongues, rich humps, fat roasts, and savory steaks of this noble and excellent species of game….We had found the meat of the poor buffalo the worst diet imaginable, and in fact grew meager and gaunt in the midst of plenty and profusion. But in proportion as they became fat, we grew strong and hearty…” (from S. Phillips 1940:42)

The fat of some animals were considered inferior to others:

“The Red Deer is next in size to the Moose, but it is not equal to it in its delicious flavor, on account of the peculiar quality of the fat, which turns cold so very fast, that a person must eat it the instant that it is taken from the fire, and even then the mouth is sometimes lined with a grease of the consistence of tallow.” (from the journals of Edward Umfreville, trader, 1790)

The Canadian Beaver, economic driver of 18th and 19th century Canada. Valued for both its fur and its meat. Sometimes the fort workers valued its meat far more than its fur.

Not only was the Canadian beaver valued for its fur but also for its flesh, and in particular, its fat. In its prime, beaver meat is composed of over thirty percent fat. The tail, considered a delicacy among fur traders and First Nations, was almost all fat.

“In summer, the beavers are lean, and their fur poor, for which reason they are usually not caught at this time.  But in winter they get fat and have thicker fur. Their meat is very palatable. The tails, which are fat all through, are especially regarded as delicacies.”  (from the journals of F. A Wislizenus 1839).

“The flesh of the Beaver is much prized by the Indians and Canadian Voyageurs, especially when it is roasted in the skin, after the hair has been singed off.  In some districts it requires all the influence of the Fur Trader to restrain the hunters from sacrificing a considerable quantity of beaver fur every year to secure the enjoyment of this luxury…” (from the journals of James Richardson 1819)

At many of the northern Peace River fur trade sites, beaver bones were the most common. Such as this beaver pelvis and ulna found near the NWC/HBC Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) site. And and most of this bone shows knife marks from butchering, not skinning. This evidence, and its occurrence with other domestic household refuse, suggests consumption of the highly sought after meat.

(Now that I look closely at this photograph I see the Canadian nickel used for scale. And the beaver on it. Believe me, this was not intentional. But fitting, I guess. Couldn’t find a loonie.)

Not only were certain animals with high fat content selected for, but the parts of the animal, such as bone marrow, tongues, nose, some organs, and the fattest portions on the carcass (hump of the buffalo, rib meat, etc.) were also preferred.

Moose nose, or ‘muffle’. A great Canadian delicacy. Image courtesy of Four Pounds Flour. For a great read, go to this post and read all about preparation of this dish. And the historic quotes about its delicacy and flavor.

Other parts of the animal, now rarely eaten, often were very high in fat content:

“…and, oh shade of Eude, the marrow bones!” (author, unknown)

“Marrow was held in such high esteem that the term “marrow” seems to have come to be applied to other parts of the animals which were considered good to eat.  As well as the frequently mentioned “marrow bones”, there are references to “marrow ribs”, “marrow fat”, and “marrow guts”…but the marrow guts were eaten by the Blackfoot and by the French Canadian voyageurs, who considered them a treat.”  (from Isobella Hurburt 1977:16)

“…rich cow [bison] tongues cooked with buffalo marrow, which had been preserved in the autumn when the animals were fat…” (from the journals of John Palliser, 1853)

Bison tongue was considered a delicacy by First Nations and Canadian fur traders alike.
Animal bone marrow contains approximately eighty-five percent fat. It was highly sought after in the fur trade. We find animal long bones that have been spirally fractured (green bone fracture) by a heavy implement to extract the marrow inside.
The shaft of this large ungulate femur, found near the NWC/HBC Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) was deliberately smashed open to extract the marrow inside.

Fort personnel even boiled animal bones to extract every ounce of fat. The evidence? We often find hundreds of thousands of crushed pieces of animal bone at fur trade archaeological sites.

“…bones were also crushed, and all the marrow fat extracted from them. This was done by boiling the bones in sufficient water to cover them, and as the marrow or grease rose to the surface it was carefully skimmed off….This fat was eaten with “pounded meat”, and was also used in making pemmican.” (Amelia M. Paget, 1909, at HBC Fort Qu’appelle in Saskatchewan)

Crushed animal bones from a historic site near Fort Vermilion. Evidence of possible bone boiling for the extraction of grease.

In the words of Paul Kane, one of Canada’s earliest artists, while visiting Fort Edmonton in 1847, Christmas dinner contained many of these dishes:

“At the head, before Mr. Harriot, was a large of boiled buffalo hump; at the foot smoked a boiled buffalo calf. Start not, gentle reader, the calf is very small, and is taken Caesarean operation long before it attains full growth. This, boiled whole, is one of the most esteemed dishes amongst the epicures of the interior. My pleasing was to help a dish of mouffle, or dried moose nose; the gentleman on my left distributed, with graceful impartiality, the white fish, delicately browned in buffalo marrow. The worthy priest helped the buffalo tongue, whilst Mr. Rundell cut up the beaver’s tail. Nor was the other gentleman left unemployed, as all his spare time was occupied in dissecting a roast wild goose….Such was our jolly Christmas dinner at Edmonton; and long will it remain in my memory…”

In Times of Scarcity

At the other end of the spectrum, when times were tough, people would eat other, leaner types of animals, such as varying hare, or greater portions of lean meat containing higher amounts of protein. When humans ingest large amounts of protein or lean meat, and less fat, some severe health issues may occur. This malady is described below by one of Canada’s greatest arctic explorers, Vilhjalmur Stephanson:

“If you are transferred suddenly from a diet normal in fat to one consisting wholly of rabbit you eat bigger and bigger meals for the first few days until at the end of about a week you are eating in pounds three or four times as much as you were at the beginning of the week. By that time you are showing both signs of starvation and of protein poisoning. You eat numerous meals:  you feel hungry at the end of each:  you are in discomfort through distention of the stomach with much food and you begin to feel a vague restlessness. Diarrhea will start in from a week to 10 days and will no t be relieved unless you secure fat. Death will result after several weeks.” (Vilhjalmur Stephanson, Arctic Explorer)

Protein poisoning is also commonly known as ‘Rabbit Starvation.’ Rabbit, or varying hare, meat is very lean. Fat comprises about six percent of the meat on a domestic rabbit and about two percent on a wild rabbit, or varying hare. In comparison, bison meat contains approximately sixteen percent fat. Explorer, David Thomson, while in Alberta, got sick from eating too much lean fresh meat from very thin game animals in the early spring.

Rabbit starvation is best explained by how much energy humans use to digest and metabolize certain types of macronutrients. Here is the SDA (specific dynamic action), or metabolism of macronutrients:

  1. Carbohydrates = 6%
  2. Fats = 14%
  3. Animal protein = 30%

This may explain why high lean meat diets result in weight loss. But these diets could potentially also be extremely dangerous. Also some studies (the China Study by C. Campbell, 2005) suggest there might be a relationship between high animal protein consumption and high heart disease rates. This study, however, is not without its critics.

The fur trade archaeological record

Whenever we excavate a fur trade site, we collect and identify all animal bone to animal taxa and element whenever possible. We can then reconstruct diet. So, what do the bones we find say about human diet during times of plenty versus times of scarcity? A lot. Here are a few examples:

FORT/NISP
(# of Identifiable specimens) 		Bison Moose Elk Beaver Varying Hare
Rocky Mt. Fort (1794 -1804) 181 678 12 748 143
Fort St. John’s (1806 -1823) 313 720 1595 136 639

In the above table, animal bones are listed from two fur trade forts in eastern British Columbia along the Peace River (from Burley et al, 1996). Rocky Mountain Fort was occupied when game animal populations were still very abundant. Fort St. John’s was occupied after nearly thirty years of fur trade activities in the region. When you do the math, at the latter fort, as game animal populations dwindled, the use of varying hare nearly tripled. Why? Fewer large game animals? Or, the cyclical population patterns of varying hare?

Region % Varying Hare
Lower Peace River Posts 14.2
Upper Peace River Posts 15.7
Fortes des Prairies Posts 2.2

The above table shows the percent of varying hare that made up the faunal assemblages of forts of various regions along the Peace River and along the Saskatchewan River. At the Saskatchewan River posts, large game animals were much more plentiful than at the Peace River posts. And consequently, there was a considerably less amount of varying hare animal bone present in those assemblages.

At Dunvegan, located along the Peace River, north of Grande Prairie, Alberta, for example:

“The men all hunting and fishing, but very unlucky….We are now in a very alarming situation, not having a mouthful to eat. The children are always going about the fort crying for something to eat.” (Dunvegan journals, 1805, one year after the fort was opened)

When the hunters brought in 855 pounds of moose meat in on June 11, 1854, it was, “…welcome enough as we were at our last gasp for Grub.” (Dunvegan journals, 1854)

Animal Grease/Fat Selection

Archaeologists have devised ways to determine whether there is a deliberate selection of those parts of the animal containing the highest amounts of fat. On the Y-axis the anatomical parts of large mammals are ranked according to the amount of fat in that part or anatomical unit(e.g., bison hump). The X-axis represents the relative number of bone elements from each unit (e.g., thoracic vertebrae for the hump of the bison) found in the archaeological record (adjusted for number of elements). If there was a deliberate selection of units with the most grease/fat, then bone elements with the lowest grease/fat content will occur in the lowest numbers and bone elements with the highest grease content would occur in the highest numbers.
At Fort George, where dietary stress was almost non-existent and large game was plentiful, there is a relatively good fit in the selection of animal parts containing the largest amounts of grease. Because people had more choice in meat selection, they choose parts of animals with the highest amount of fat, or grease.
At Fort Vermilion, northern Alberta, where game animals were often scarce, there was no deliberate selection of only animal units containing high amounts of grease. In other words, nearly every part of the animal was eaten.

How Did This Diet Affect the Health of People in the Fur Trade?

Well, that’s the interesting question, isn’t it. What does a diet in high meat protein and fat do to you over your lifetime? Currently, according to everything we’re told by experts, it could shorten your lifespan. Or causes other major health issues.

But these statements seem to fly in the face of other evidence in our human history. Humans for hundreds of thousands of years, when given a choice, selected meats with the highest fat content. And what about those Inuit? Reportedly very healthy before they started eating a North American diet.

I’ll try to answer that question in my next post. Read about the interesting approach I took to answer it with the available fur trade data.

And no, I am not secretly working for any Canadian bacon brands. Maybe they’ll approach me with advertising when they see this post. Not even promoting a greater use of fat in the Canadian diet.

A Few Key References

Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 2015. The Last Fort Standing. Fort Vermilion and the Peace River Fur Trade, 1798 – 1830. Occasional Papers of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. Number 14, April 2015. (In particular, Chapter 7 discusses the faunal remains found at the site in detail).

Hurlburt, Isobella. 1977. Faunal Remains from Fort White Earth N.W.Co. (1810-1813). Human History Occasional Paper No. 1. Provincial Museum of Alberta. Alberta Culture, Edmonton.

Brink, John W. 2001. Carcass Utility Inidces and Bison Bones from the Wardell Kill and Butchering Sites. In People and Wildlife in North America. S. Craig Gerlach and Maribeth S. Murray (eds), pp. 235-273. BAR International Series 944. (Jack Brink, formerly at the Royal Alberta Museum, has done extensive research on animal fats and their use by Plains First Nations in western Canada and the United States.)

Burley, David V. 1996. Prophecy of the Swan. The Upper Peace River Fur Trade of 1794 – 1823. UBC Press, Vancouver.

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Fort La Jonquierre: The French Fort That Never Was? Or, Just Never Found?

By current estimates, there were over three-hundred fur trade posts built in Alberta alone (there are many more in the other prairie provinces). The location of over fifty-percent of the Alberta posts is unknown. Many, like the legendary Fort La Jonquierre, built in 1751, remain a mystery. Even for the folks (that’s all of us) at Wikipedia. Here’s what I know about this mysterious French fort (parts of which are remarkably similar in the Wiki version). If it was real, and had continued as a western settlement, it might have changed the course of western Canadian history.

This enigmatic fur trade post was once on my archaeological ‘bucket list‘. Long rumored to exist, but never searched for, it has baffled historians and archaeologists for over a century. For more details, you can read my online article in the Alberta Archaeological Review. Here is a slightly shorter version of my research.

Early 18th Century Exploration of Western Canada

The struggle for control of the western fur trade, and search for a route to the Pacific Ocean, between the French and English periodically ended with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Soon after, however, the French again pursued their dream – to be the first to find an inland route to the Pacific Ocean. They began to establish Postes de la Mer de l’ouest west (posts of the western Sea) to search for that route. They were ambitious, unlike their British counterparts who, as one trader later wrote, were “…content to remain asleep by the frozen sea (Hudson Bay).“

There was one major obstacle in this noble undertaking: No one really knew where exactly they were heading. Even by the 1740s, the Pacific Ocean was a mere blur, somewhere thousands of miles west, as the best available maps of the period show.

An 1740s map of the interior of western Canada and the Pacific Ocean drawn by the French Canadian Metis, Joseph La France for the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Arthur Dobbs. Not only was distance and major geographic features of the Canadian west inaccurate, no one knew which river or pass led to the Pacific Ocean from the east side of the Rocky Mountains.

Most of La France’s information, and that of other French explorers such as Pierre Gualtier de La Verendrye, was collected from First Nations’ accounts of routes to the Pacific Ocean:

“It was there [forks of the Saskatchewan Rivers] that he [La Verendrye’s son] was in the spring at the meeting of all the Cree, and where he inquired minutely, according to his father’s orders, where the source of this great river was. They all replied with one voice that it came from very far, from a height of land where there were very lofty mountains; that they knew of a great lake on the other side of the mountains, the water of which was undrinkable.” (a French memoir, in Dugas 1905:487: brackets mine)

[Note: One historian thinks that the ‘lofty mountains’ in this account was the Missouri Coteau, and the great lake was Chaplin Lake (very salty), Saskatchewan. Even that chain of hills between Moose Jaw and Swift Current, is hardly ‘lofty’. And Chaplin Lake was not really that big.]

The Mysterious Fort La Jonquierre

In order to reach the Pacific, the French wanted to build a line of forts along the Saskatchewan River, including one at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. This was no easy undertaking. However, by 1751 they had established a fort (La Corne) at the forks of the Saskatchewan Rivers. According to Legardeur de St. Pierre, one of La Verendrye’s successors:

“I promised to all the tribes that M. de Niverville would go and create an establishment nine hundred miles farther up than that on the Paskoyac. I agreed with all the tribes that they should unite with me at that new trading post.” (from Dugas 1905:96)

Paskoyac refers to the present day The Pas, Manitoba, located along the Saskatchewan River. St. Pierre’s statement provides a distance and possible geographical landmark for the fort. And later St. Pierre wrote again:

“…was executed on 29th May, 1751. He sent off ten men in two canoes, who ascended the river Paskoya [Saskatchewan] as far as the Rocky Mountains, where they made a good fort, which I named Fort la Jonquierre….“

This quote refers to a slightly better landmark. The Saskatchewan River, or one of its forks (either the North Saskatchewan, the Bow River, or even the Red Deer River). But, even if we believe these entries (and I personally do), would there be any archaeological remains left? What exactly did they build? St. Pierre later wrote about La Jonquierre:

“…met with a nation loaded with beaver, who were going by a river which issues from the Rocky Mountains, to trade with the French, who had their first establishment on an island at a small distance from the land, where there is a large storehouse…”

Then in 1757, Louis-Antoine De Bougainville wrote: “The posts of the Western Sea includes St. Pierre, St. Charles, Bourbon, De la Rheine, Dauphin, Posakoiac and Des Prairies [De la Jonquierre?], all of which are built with palisades that can give protection only against the Indians.” The Des Prairies forts could also refer to St. Louis and La Corne. So, this reference is somewhat dubious.

An old voyageur told Abbe Dugas in early 1900s that the fort was located above Calgary, on the Bow River. He claimed that when First Nations people passed the spot, they cast a stone on it, and, “….in truth there is a heap of stone there.” However, what exactly that heap of stone represented is anyone’s guess. Perhaps a fireplace from the fort but other options exist (burial, later fur trade post, farmer’s field rock collection, etc.).

The location and physical evidence of a fort would then consist of the following: 1) located near the foot of the Rocky mountains, on an island in a river (either Bow, Red Deer, or North Saskatchewan); 2) containing at least one building (perhaps with a cellar) and a possible palisade; and, 3) artifacts that represented the time period in question. Assuming the original location was undisturbed (and not swept away by the river), the archaeological record would consist of: 1) building wood foundation logs and maybe a cellar depression; 2) a palisade footer trench; and, 3) 18th century artifacts (hopefully a few with a short manufacturing period).

The map below shows roughly where nine-hundred miles west from Paskoyac places you on those rivers. The problem however, is that there are many islands on these rivers, as a piece of the Bow River above Calgary shows (below).

Approximate position of La Jonquierre on major rivers leading into the Rocky Mountains. This estimate would have had to be very general. Distance west (longitude) was very hard to accurately measure. And estimating distance along winding rivers, in varying currents, was even more difficult.
A section of the Bow River, above Calgary, Alberta. There are many islands in the Bow River. The problem is compounded because former islands are now part of the mainland and others simply eroded over time. Even if we could narrow the spot down to a few islands, finding those sparse fort physical features would still be very difficult (more on searching methods in a future article).

Here’s what a fort palisade footer trench and cellar depression would look like:

Palisade footer trenches and corner bastion, NWC Fort George (c.1792-1800). The trench, or ditch, was sometimes up to a metre deep, depending on the height of the palisade. It leaves a very visible footprint on and in the ground, even when the ground is disturbed (i.e., cultivated). At inland fur trade sites the palisade pales (vertical posts) are still preserved after remaining in the ground for over two-hundred years. I have walked along still visible (on the ground surface) fort palisade footer trench depressions, over two-hundred years old, in the dense undergrowth along the Peace River.
This large cellar depression at the NWC/HBC Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) is still nearly two metres deep, even after many flooding episodes of the lower terrace of the Peace River.

There are Skeptics

Not everyone agrees that the French built a fort this high on the Saskatchewan River, for various reasons: 1) questionable documents; neither St. Pierre or De Bougainville ever saw the fort; they just wrote about it; 2) traveling from The Pas, Manitoba, at ice-breakup on the Saskatchewan River to the Rocky Mountains, by the 29th of May was questionable; and, 3) no physical evidence of the fort was ever found. I won’t go into detail about these arguments, or counter-arguments. If interested, you can read more in my 2000 article.

Some Final Thoughts

I’m fairly convinced that Fort La Jonquierre existed and its remains, if not destroyed, lie somewhere in Alberta. No one has ever seriously looked for the fort, so the argument about the lack of physical evidence just doesn’t cut it.

If I were to ever look, I would start above Calgary and check all the major islands in the Bow River. Both on the ground and with Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) Imagery.

It’s interesting to think that if the fort had been built near Calgary, Alberta, and the French had prevailed before withdrawing from the west again after the Seven Years War (1756 – 1763), Calgary may have been named La Jonquierre.

“And the La Jonquierre Flammes win the Stanley Cup….”

On a final, somewhat more serious note, when I worked for the Government of Alberta, one of our branch mandates was to protect and manage our archaeological resources. That’s not easy to do if you don’t know where they are. The sometimes frustrating thing about historical archaeology, is that often there is an accompanying documentary record that suggests forts or other settlements existed. We just can’t find them. And the reason why? The physical obstacles are formidable when we search for these places.

In future blogs, I’ll give you some examples of just how tough it is to find a fort site after two-hundred years, and describe some new noninvasive methods we use to help make the task a little easier.

References Cited:

Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de. 1908. Memoir of Bougainville: 1757. In The French Regime in Wisconsin, edited by Reuban G. Thwaites, pp. 167-195. Wisconsin Historical Collections.

Dugas, Abbe. 1905. The Canadian West. Librairie Beauchemin, Montreal.

Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Repeniguy. 1887. Memoir of Summary Journal of the Expedition of Jacques Repeniguy Legardeur de Saint-Pierre Charged with the Discovery of the Western Sea. In Report on Canadian Archives, 1886. Note C., pp.xiviii-clxix.

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My Little Wooden House: Wood Building Techniques in Canada

Canadians, for the most part, used wood as the material of choice to build their homes. For hundreds of years. The construction methods however, have changed over that period of time. And when we go back to the 17th and 18th centuries, some of the methods seem foreign to us today. Here is a brief chronological rundown (starting with the most recent) of those building construction methods, ending with some very unique ones I have seen in Alberta.

I’ll quickly summarize the modern techniques which are elaborated on elsewhere. Also, J. Gottfred has extensively covered log building construction techniques, and I (Pyszczyk, 1992) have also written extensively on western Canadian log construction techniques (more from an archaeological perspective).

Modern Stud Frame Building Construction

Depending on where you live, current stud frame house construction started sometime in the early 20th century. Here uniformly cut 2″ x 4″ or 2″ x 6″ ‘studs’, 8′ – 10′ long were used to build the building frame. The studs for walls only extended one storey, and then the entire process was repeated at the 2nd and 3rd stories. Wall infill consisted of various materials to insulate the building. The interior and exterior was then clad with a variety of materials. This construction technique uses large quantities of nails or screws to join everything together.

Balloon Frame Building Construction

Said to date from the 1830’s – 1930s in the US, the balloon frame house shown in this photograph differs mainly from the stud frame house by the length of the studs which extend all the way to the roof line in the former (even in a second or third storey building). As with modern stud framing, infill and cladding consisted of various materials, and everything hung together with nails. Some people think the ‘balloon’ description for this building method originated from its skeptics believing it would blow away in a severe wind, like a balloon. (Courtesy of Scott Sidler)

The Old Bay House, Fort Vermilion, Alberta, shown on the front page of my web site, constructed in c.1908, is a balloon frame building. One of the oldest in Alberta. I’d be guessing if I tried dating this method in various parts of Canada (if any of you have more information on this method in Canada, I’d love to hear from you). It likely first appears in areas having access to standardized milled lumber.
Inside of the Old Bay House, Fort Vermilion, Alberta, showing wood interior wall and ceiling cladding.

Massed Log Building Construction

This technique consists of laying a series of horizontal logs on top of one another and connecting them with various types of notching on the corners of the building. It has various names and origins, and appears at different times in different parts of Canada. The French called it “pièce sur pièce” (piece on piece) construction. The cracks between the logs were chinked and the interior walls were sometimes mudded (more on that later). The technique is ‘wood heavy’, requiring large, long, straight logs, which are left rounded or squared. Few nails are used in this technique; logs are joined by wooden dowels at intervals along the wall.

The dovetail corner notching method is one of the most elaborate techniques found in western Canada (shown below). The angled joints in this method don’t require overhang (as in a saddle notched corner) and prevent the corners from coming apart. There are many good examples in Alberta, but some of the best I have seen come from the central and northern parts of the province.

This somewhat unique log building, at Carcajou, Alberta, has dovetail corner notching and logs only squared near the corners; the rest are left round. Carcajou was one of the earliest Metis settlements in Alberta, already shown on David Thompson’s 1826 map, as ‘Wolverine Point‘. In this community, this technique might have had a French Canadian influence. This building dates to the late 19th – early 20th century.
This log building, constructed in 1987 by the Hudson’s Bay Company, at Carcajou, Alberta, also has dovetail corner notching. The ethnic origins of its builder are unknown. The Company at this time hired people with different ethnic backgrounds, including French Canadians.
Close up view of the Carcajou HBC log building showing a series of round auger marks in the logs. The marks were used to number the logs, suggesting that this building had been dismantled and repaired, or dismantled and moved.

Massed log corner notching construction technique, probably the most familiar to many people, is also difficult to date in Canada. In some parts of the country it likely goes back as far as the beginnings of basic log construction, with a simple saddle notched log cabin at the lake or woods. And being built as recently as the last decade. In Alberta, the earliest dated example of dovetail notching is the clerk’s quarters at Dunvegan (c.1878 – present-day). The first Ukrainian immigrants (late 19th century) in Alberta used the dovetail notching method as well. Here are a few more examples of this technique. Assigning any definitive ethnic affiliation to these methods is problematic. There are likely many.

Top Left Photograph: The clerk’s quarter, Hudson’s Bay Company, Dunvegan, Alberta (c.1878 – present).

Bottom Right Photograph: A close-up view of the clerk’s quarters building corner showing the elaborate dovetail corner notching.
Old cabin, near Buck Lake, Alberta. Massed log saddle notching construction technique. Date unknown.

Red River Frame/Post-and-Plank

Also referred to as poteaux et pièce coulissante (posts and sliding piece), Gottfred suggests this method was adapted in New France from the French method of plankwall framing. In the much colder Canadian winter, logs replaced planks. In this method upright logs were grooved (mortised) and set along the building walls and corners at intervals, and then horizontal logs filled in the rest of the wall by carving tenons on the ends which fit into the uprights (Tongue and groove, mortise and tenon). The technique uses shorter (than massed log construction) infill logs between the vertical uprights. It uses few nails. Instead wood dowels along the walls and corners kept everything together.

I have seen two types of log wall framing methods in western Canada: 1) Post-on-sill; and, 2) Post-in-ground (see schematic diagram below). Post-on-sill was used after c.1830 by the Hudson’s Bay Company at many of its inland forts. Post-in-ground is an earlier form of framed log construction, going back to the 1780s in Alberta, and probably much earlier at the Saskatchewan and Manitoba fur trade posts. With this method the vertical posts are set in pits in the ground. At the turn of the 19th century we also see combinations of the two methods, such as at the HBC Nottingham House in northern Alberta. However this method should not be confused with the true post-in-ground (Poteaux-en-terre) method used earlier in French Canada (discussed later).

Pretend you are looking at a vertical wall and a cut-away of the ground in this image. These were the two most common log framed construction techniques for the various fur trade companies in western Canada. Archaeologically, the post-in-ground method is easy to identify because of the large pits dug to place the posts in, up to a metre deep in the ground. For some reason this method was abandoned in favor of the post-on-sill method, which eventually gave way to the massed dovetail log construction method.
All of the excavated buildings at the North West Company Fort George (c1792-1800), Alberta, were constructed using the post-in-ground method. In this photograph we exposed a vertical wood post in a pit with horizontal wood sills (foundation logs) butting up to it (likely tenoned into it).
This scaled drawing of a building wall found at the North West Company, Boyer’s Fort (c.1788-1792) shows a vertical post in a pit with the building sills (base logs) butting up to it
Excavations of the main house, at the HBC Buckingham House site, northern Alberta, showing some post pits holding the vertical posts of building walls, and the corner posts sitting on sills. Courtesy Karlis Karklins, Parks Canada.
One of the large warehouses at the c.1830 – 1915 HBC Fort Edmonton, Alberta being dismantled. A good example of post-on-sill-construction where the squared horizontal infill logs were inserted into the grooved vertical logs along the wall of the building. A large vertical timber is laying in the foreground of this c.1915 photograph. With this method the entire building could be taken apart and repaired, or moved and built elsewhere with relative ease. This particular fort building was built in the c.1860s when the fort expanded.
When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for log buildings. A large barn structure, New South Wales, Australia. A kind of post-in-ground framed log construction technique without the bottom logs. Adapted for either better ventilation, or flooding, for which parts of Australia are notorious.

Original Post-in-Ground (Poteaux-en-terre) and Post-on-Sill (Poteaux-sur-sol) Construction

Unfortunately, there is some confusion with all these similar architectural terms. The original 17th century French versions of Post-in-Ground and Post-on-sill log construction refer to entirely different log construction method. In this method the logs for the entire wall are all placed vertically, either in a trench in the ground, or sat on a horizontal foundation log (sill), or stones. The spaces between them were filled with stone, bricks and mud. As the images below show, they have a very distinct archaeological imprint making them readily recognizable.

Post-on-sill vertical log wall construction. An early French Canadian method where cracks between the vertical walls are filled with stones, bricks, plaster or mud. Courtesy: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drawing_of_Poteaux-en-Terre_in_the_Beauvais_House_in_Ste_Genevieve_MO.png
Image of a rowhouse, Fort Michilimackinac (c.1715 -30). Vertical wood wall posts would either sit on a sill or in a trench in the ground. (from Stone, 1974)
French House (c.1720-30), Fort Michilimackinac (from Stone, 1974). This small French house at the fort was definitely French post-in-ground construction. The archaeological evidence would reveal vertical post remains standing side-by-side in a trench. We searched for this building construction method in western Canada, but to no avail. Even though many of the early forts were likely constructed by French Canadians. I thought I had found a vertical building wall at the 1798 NWC LaFleur’s post in the Peace River Region. Later I realized that a new building had been constructed over a former old palisade wall which would have had similar vertical posts sitting in a trench.

The post-in-ground method originated in France, possibly the Normandy area. Here vertical posts for the wall were placed in the ground, and filled in between with either brick or stones. In the much colder climates of Canada the entire wall was made of vertical wood and covered by mud or plaster to prevent drafts and heat loss (from Russell Versaci, 2008)

Mud, the Plaster of Yesterday

Whenever I lecture on log construction techniques, I emphasize the importance of mud, or some mud/clay mixture, during construction. Many of the 18th – 19th century framed log buildings we excavated in Alberta used a mixture of mud/clay/straw to chink the outside walls. Sometimes entire the interior building walls were completely mudded. Also stone fireplaces and chimneys were covered with mud as well. I think the mud was not only used to prevent drafts from coming through the cracks between the logs, but when the interior walls or fireplace was mudded (as much as two inches thick) the mud worked as a heat sink absorbing the heat from the fire and retaining it in the mud walls.

Mud outer wall chinking on this building from Carcajou, Alberta. A branch or sapling was inserted into the crack (because it was large) and then the entire area filled with mud.

The importance of good mud or clay for this type of log building construction cannot be overstated: “I arrived at the entrance of Riviere Original…I brought the goods,however, to a large point on the south-east of the lake, and wrought two or three days at felling trees, but, to my great mortification we then discovered there was no clay to be found within five leagues of us.”  (Angus Shaw, NWC, 1789, near Moose Lake, Alberta)

Top Left Photograph: A schematic drawing of the willow lathe framework placed diagonally over the log inside walls of Angus Shaw’s big house at the NWC Fort George (c.1792-1800).

Lower Right Photograph: Fired mud chinking and wall suggesting that the building burned down. And by doing so the mud became fired and hard as brick. The impressions in the fired mud told us whether the wall logs were squared or rounded and if lathing had been placed on them. I have seen cut lathing on the inside walls of early 20th century Ukrainian houses in Alberta, to keep the mud in place. (Images from Kidd, 1970)
Top Left Photograph: Still standing (at least in the early 20th century) stone and mud fireplace, Fort Reliance, NWT. Similar fireplaces were built at other 18th-19th century fur trade posts. The chimney is made of logs and sticks, covered in mud. A similar fireplace chimney was noted in some fur trade journals: “…fixed Poles to the chimney of Mr. McLeod’s upper Room in order to heighten it.” (Daily Transactions, Fort Dunvegan, Alberta).

Bottom Right Photograph: A single stone fireplace at the NWC Fort George, Alberta (now on display at the Royal Alberta Museum). After being abandoned the mud from the fireplace and chimney oozed over the charred floor remains, preserving them perfectly.

Not Everything was Wood

I’ll end this post with one of the most unusual houses I have ever set my eyes on in Alberta. ‘Soddies’ were a common form of building construction on the Canadian prairies where wood was rare. But in central Alberta? Below is a still-standing (I hope) sod and wood framed house in east central Alberta. A truly unique and rather unorthodox home.

This wood framed house, with sod infill for walls, was built in east-central Alberta. Perhaps one of the most unique houses I have ever seen. According to Government of Alberta files: 1907 – Homestead filed and smaller sod house built; 1910 – House built; 1911 – Exterior plastered with lime and sand, and interior finished with Beaverboard; 1950 – last occupied. (Photographs and information Courtesy of Historic Sites Service, Government of Alberta)
A close-up view of the sod infill used to fashion the walls of this house. The sod was then covered with plaster and beaverboard. Unfortunately, this exposed part of the wall now makes for a great nesting area for barn swallows. As with straw bale wall construction, the trick here is to completely seal the wall to prevent rodents or other critters from getting in. (Photographs and information Courtesy of Historic Sites Service, Government of Alberta)

What is ‘Canadian‘?

As Canadians we have a long tradition of building our homes with wood. And we continue to do so. For example, in 2019 there were a total of 187,177 houses built in Canada, and I would think most of them were wood framed structures.

Some of the Canadian wood building methods used over the centuries occur in other places in North America and the world. Assigning specific dates, or origin, or builder ethnic affiliation, is risky and cannot always be generalized. The examples I give here are mostly from western Canada, and dates, ethnic affiliation or construction methods, will vary elsewhere in the country and continent.

But, there are some Canadian wood building methods that were adapted from Europe to deal with our often harsh Canadian environment, peoples’ specific needs, or their economies. They are truly our own. They are Canadian.

References

Kidd, Robert, 1970. Archeological Excavations at the Probable Site of the First Fort Edmonton or Fort Augustus, 1795 to Early 1800’s”. Provincial Museum of Alberta Human History Occasional Paper No. 3. Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Historical Resources Division, 1987.

Pyszczyk, Heinz, 1992. The Architecture of the Western Canadian Fur Trade: A Cultural-Historical Perspective. Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 17(2):32-41.

Stone, Lyle M., 1974. Fort Michilimackinac, 1715-1781. An Archaeological Perspective on the Revolutionary Frontier. Publications of the Museum Michigan State University.

Versaci, Russell, 2008. Roots of Home. Our Journey to a New Old House. The Taunton Press.

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Stone Tobacco Smoking Pipes in the Canadian Fur Trade

Tobacco was an integral part of the Canadian fur trade. It was smoked, chewed and snuffed. It was traded and gifted to Indigenous peoples, and consumed by both men and women. One of the most common ways of smoking tobacco was with a clay tobacco pipe. However, not all pipes were made of clay. This is a story of one of the most interesting and unusual types of tobacco pipes I have run across – a stone tobacco pipe.

Metis dog driver, Lac La Biche, Alberta, smoking a clay tobacco pipe. (Arthur Heming sketch, courtesy of Glenbow Archives)

Clay Tobacco Pipes

Whenever we excavate at the inland fur trade posts in Canada, one of the most common artifacts we recover are clay tobacco pipe fragments. These pipes are the remnants of smoking activities at these posts. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. At the end of the 18th century the stem on some of these pipes, known as Churchwardens, was nearly three feet long. Only the upper classes smoked them while the laborers smoked the shorter stemmed cuttie.

Man smoking the excessively long-stemmed churchwarden tobacco pipe.
These two clay tobacco pipes were recovered from the c.1830 – 1917 Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The pipes were made from ball clay and mostly manufactured in Europe. While they were relatively cheap, they were also quite fragile.

Many of the 18th and 19th century clay tobacco pipes shipped to the inland posts, were made in Europe. The Hudson’s Bay Company imported most of their pipes from England. Many of the pipe bowls and stems were stamped sometimes with the maker’s name or initials. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 19th century that a Canadian clay pipe industry took hold in eastern Canada. Bannerman of Montreal clay pipes were shipped to the Alberta fur trade posts.

These tobacco pipe fragments came from the Northwest/Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) site. This pipe bowl has the letters ‘TD’ stamped on it. It refers to Thomas Dormer, a pipe maker in England during the late 18th – early 19th centuries.
Ornate clay tobacco pipe stem fragments with floral designs. In the second half of the 19th century many pipes had very elaborate decorations on them. Some of the bowls even had faces on them. The bottom stem has ‘Baltic’ (origins unknown) stamped on it, probably referring to the manufacturer. These fragments were recovered from the HBC Fort Edmonton (c.1830-1917), Alberta.
Hudson’s Bay Company men smoking outside of Fort Edmonton (1871), on what are now the Alberta legislature grounds. The Company inventories list thousands of pounds of tobacco shipped to these inland posts. These men might have been smoking one of the pipes above. (Photograph by Charles Horetzky, Library and Archives of Canada/c-7534)

The Somewhat Puzzling History of Western Canadian Stone Tobacco Pipes

But not all pipes were made of clay. When we excavated the North West Company Fort George (c.1792-1800) site in east-central Alberta we found platform (a type) tobacco pipes made from soapstone, pipestone or local mudstone. They were found in domestic household refuse along with many other common fur trade artifacts (beads, buttons, etc.). These pipes are poorly documented.

This rare, complete mudstone tobacco pipe was found at Fort George, Alberta. The mudstone occurs in round nodules found in the North Saskatchewan Sands and Gravels. We found the mud balls and partially finished pipes in the household refuse at the site.

We often speculated who made and smoked these pipes. They certainly were not European. Or, so we initially thought. And, what were they doing in Alberta, Canada?

Peter Rindisbacher painting, 1821, Red River, showing a First Nations family smoking. The man is smoking a stone elbow pipe. And the woman is smoking what looks like a stone platform pipe similar to the one found at Fort George.

Initially we thought these pipes were made by local Indigenous men or women working at the western Canadian fur trade forts. But there is no record of this kind of pipe being used prior to White contact in Alberta. Only recently I realized that these pipes were similar to Iroquois platform pipes. Iroquois? In Alberta? Well, yes. The Northwest Company brought Iroquois hunters out west to trap furs in the late 18th – early 19th centuries. (The community of ‘Calahoo’, Alberta is named after an Alberta Iroquoian family.)

This image of an Iroquois man smoking tobacco from what looks like a platform stone pipe. Many stone pipe fragments, similar to the Alberta pipes, have been found at St. Lawrence Iroquoian archaeological sites. (photo image courtesy of Marie-Helene Daviau, 2008)

I thought at this point at least we now knew the possible origins of this pipe style. Quite possibly brought west by the Iroquois hunters who lived at the forts. But then, after seeing the image below, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

In this image, taken from the cover of Daviau’s monograph, shows a French Canadian farmer smoking what looks like a stone platform pipe. (Frederick von Germann, 1778) In 1749, Peter Kalm noted the French Canadian woodsmen borrowed this style from the Iroquois of the St. Lawrence River Valley (Daviau 2008:189).

The North West Company hired many French Canadians to work at their inland western Canadian posts. These men made up the famous canoe brigades and worked mostly as laborers at the posts when not paddling. So, it is entirely possible that they brought their stone pipes with them, or fashioned them out of local material at the forts.

We found similar stone pipe fragments at the remote northern Alberta fur trade posts, such as Fort Vermilion, Peace River region. But the peculiar markings on these pipes add a bit of a twist to the story.

This stone tobacco pipe base (the bowl on the top is missing), found at Fort Vermilion, Alberta, is of the platform variety, but with some unusual circle-and-dot markings on it. We are still trying to figure out how these perfectly symmetrical circles were incised into the stone. Possibly by a small auger bit.

Over the years I have noticed artifacts with similar circle-and-dot markings on them in other western Canadian fur trade assemblages. The circle-and-dot motif is an Athabaskan symbol that has a geographical distribution ranging from central Alberta to northwestern Alaska. Was this tobacco pipe style adopted by Athabaskan-speaking people who then put their markings on it? Quite possibly. Interestingly, in Alberta the style seems to disappear by the 1840s.

Bone artifacts from Rocky Mountain House, Jasper House and Dunvegan, showing the circle-and-dot motif. Left to right: Quill smoother; bone fragment; bone flesher.

A Few Final Thoughts

Occasionally archaeologists recover artifacts from a documented period of Canadian history whose origins and uses are puzzling. Not all material culture is well documented. Especially when it belongs to people who aren’t doing any of the documenting. These objects were likely made and used by Indigenous people and/or French Canadian voyageurs (who were mostly illiterate) – a people without a written history. In the case of the stone tobacco pipes, careful dating and geographic location are extremely important to figure out their possible origins and uses.

References

Daviau, Marie-Helen. 2008. La Pipe de pierre dans la societe conadienne des XVII et XIX siecles. Centre interuniversitaire d’etudes sur les letters, les arts et les traditions (CELAT), Quebec.

Heinz W. Pyszczyk. 2015. The Last Fort Standing: Fort Vermilion and the Peace River Fur Trade, 1798-1830. Occasional Papers of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. Number 14.

Note: In my next post, I’ll tell you about another unusual tobacco pipe in the fur trade. However, before I reveal more about this artifact, I will write a short story about it first.