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Excavation in progress
at MiTu-1, with youth working at the site
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In August of 2002, the Gwich’in Social and Cultural
Institute (GSCI) in partnership with the Prince of Wales Northern
Heritage Centre (PWNHC) and the Teetl’it Gwich’in
Council initiated a community-based archaeology project within
the traditional land use area of the Teetl'it Gwich'in. Mélanie
Fafard was hired by the GSCI to conduct the study whose objectives
were threefold: (1) to carry out a two-week excavation at
a site (MiTu-1) located within the community of Fort McPherson;
(2) to educate youth about archaeology and their own history
through practical experience; and (3) to survey a few potential
sites including Nataiinlaii (Mhtu-2) and the place where the
trading post (Old Fort, MhTu-1) was first built before being
moved to the present location of Fort McPherson.
The excavation in Fort McPherson took place between the 12th
and the 28th of August. In total, seven youth from the community
took part in the project. All of them were assigned their
own unit of excavation and were responsible to excavate it,
record the artefacts and the faunal material they encountered,
and screen all the sediment taken out of their unit to ensure
that no cultural remains had been overlooked.
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| Gerald Tetlichi holding
a barbed antler spear point that he found in his unit |
The area excavated was the place where the Teetl'it Gwich'in
used to camp in the second part of the 19th century and the
early 20th century, when coming to the fort to trade with
the Hudson's Bay Company. Besides many animal bones which
belonged mostly to fish, muskrat, beaver, caribou and moose,
the remains encountered include many Euro-Canadian artefacts
such as nails, cartridge cases, pottery and glass fragments,
numerous beads and one gun flint. Gwich'in-made artefacts
found at the site consisted of several bone and antler spear
points, a needle or awl made out of antler, and a few chert
and quartzite flakes. The occupants of the site also recycled
several glass fragments to make scrapers and cutting tools.
Evidence of hearths was found within all of the units excavated,
and a few cooking rocks were also collected. The presence
of a significant amount of decayed/decaying wood suggested
that there might have been a structure of some sort standing
at the site.
Finally, no cultural remains were collected at Nataiinlaii
and the Old Fort, despite the oral history attached to both
of these places and the historical records that confirm that
a trading post existed at the Old Fort for less than a decade
around the mid-nineteenth century.
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