Thomas Big Canoe
Indigenous Peoples have a long and often forgotten history in Canada. These communities have been in this region since time in immemorial. They continue to pass down oral histories and Traditional Knowledge to this day. Archeology has helped uncover some of the material remains from these past periods in time.
On May 6th, 2025, the ground was wet from a night of rain which made somewhat ideal conditions to do a field walk as dust and other debris have been washed off any surface artifacts. Almost the entire field school participated in this activity. We walked about 100m south of BcGn-17 to a hill on a farmer’s field. With some prior knowledge of Indigenous settlement locations which included hills near water I suspected we might find something.
The class walked the length of the entire hill. Greg was to my left and Jacob was on my right, no one was finding anything but the occasional cool rock which we would pocket. At the end of the walk James and Kate showed the group a broken archaic period stone axe head found by another student during the fieldwalk which was likely broken and left on the ground for thousands of years. After getting a closer look I realized that it was very similar to one of the cool rocks I had in my pocket. After the class dispersed for lunch, I asked James and Kate if the rock I had could be something which they replied, “Where did you find that?”. It turned out to be an archaic period axe head which was estimated to be 3000-4000 years old.
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