[Gwyn] So it's just a short period each spring when the land part of this archaeological site is exposed...
... and we've done some work there over the years, its been sort of a punctuated project, 'cause...
...we come in and dig like mad for three weeks and then the water level rises...
... and its covered over again until the next spring.
We're trying something a bit different this year. We have the Parks Canada marine archaeology unit out...
...and they are they are doing some underwater testing just off shore...
... because if that works out, and they are able to successfully find the deposits that have...
... the archaeology materials in them, then we can set up a longer term underwater excavation...
... and then we won’t be so limited by time constraints.
[Charles] We have just found the tell-tale layers that mark the cultural deposits, so we are setting up a larger excavation unit.
[Gwyn] Parks are supposed to protect the natural resources, but they also have an obligation to protect the cultural resources.
...and to that end we have a team of archaeologists and historians that work in this park and other mountain parks.
[Charles] The excavations units are marked by squares of aluminum pipe.
[Gwyn] The site at Lake Minnewnaka is one of the really premier sites in the park.
It has a campsite on the shores of it here that was a travel route...
... it was for people coming in to the mountains past the Ghost River.
People would camp here and they left behind remains that built up a site with several meters deep of deposits.
[Charles] We use a suction dredge to suck up the sediments from the lake bottom.
[Gwyn] There were people living here from the Clovis period leaving a spear point behind right up to historic times.
There is a submerged historic townsite here from the early days of the park so when people come to dive on these...
... historic resources they are really just visiting the very last of a long series of human occupations in this area.
[Charles] sediment goes through a mesh bag, the fine mud flows out through the filter.
Larger objects, including any cultural artifacts, are caught in the filter bag, and can be brought to the surface for inspection.
The cultural landscape here contains thousands of years of occupation...
... with people coming back and visiting this area year after year to do very similar things.
[Brad] These are cultural. These are flakes that are made when they are making stone tools.
[Gwyn] These are two of the Clovis spearpoints that we found on the shore at the Sheep Point Site.
These are broken -- archaeologists always found the broken bits that are left behind.
You can imagine the whole point would have been like this… it just snapped off .
These are about as early as it gets anywhere in Banff Park.
These would be from the 12 to 13 thousand year old occupational layer at the site.
And from the opposite extreme these are some of the more recent points you find in the park...
... small arrow heads and these are from up closer to Healy Pass.
Why is archaeology the coolest job on the planet?
Because you never know from time to time what you are going to find ...
... or what you’r going to uncover with the next scrape of the trowel ...
... and because you get to look at the whole story of human use at a place.
Where else do you get to look at the 13 thousand year story of people and a place?
