Tse'K'wa Blog Post

Blogs about Tse'K'wa

(Charlie Lake Cave)

2021 Learning with the Elders Class

Blog Eight: Going to the Caves

April 13 - April 14... Learning with the Elders students visit Tse'K'wa

During our trip to Tse'K'wa we had to be cautious because of COVID-19 restrictions in place - which meant travelling with our cohort and making sure we wore masks when we were in close with others. We aren't always perfect with that but we try! We have visited Tse'K'wa and we have also come to the end of Quarter 3 at NPSS. Part of the job today was to photograph the cave using the 360 degree cameras. In order to prepare we made a list of photos we wanted to take... It didn't take long to realize that to take good photos, because the area around the cave and inside the cave was so small, we needed to keep people mostly out of the pictures to make sure people could actually get a feeling of what it is like at Tse'K'wa. Our photos of our Tse'K'wa field trip can be found here .

Being at the cave really brought what we had learned about the cave alive. From the top of the cave you can look out into the modern farmers fields and imagine what it would have been like to watch the bison and plan your hunt. We could also see the nearby creek which not only has fish - but would have been a place that animals would have come to drink. We thought about how the cave, even though you can't see it directly, could be seen from approaching people from a distance and perhaps would have been an ideal landmark to tell people, "hey, meet me at the caves!" We thought a lot about how people might have thought about the cave. We realized you could smell the water from Charlie Lake and the nearby creek at the right time of year and wondered what it might have been like in the past?

Sitting inside the cave it was cooler than it was outside. Even though we were not able to go later in the year when it will be warmer you can tell that inside the cave, even if you didn't live in it, would be a welcome change from the heat outside. Looking around the inside it is actually quite short - a person of normal size cannot stand up inside it - and because the mouth of the cave is so low any fire made inside would smother you with smoke. The cave is covered with soot on the roof but Mr. Neufeldt says he believes the evidence shows that people did not light fires inside the cave in the distant past and most of the soot is modern. Mr. Neufeldt told us about the most recent information that Dr. Driver has talked about, suggesting that the cave may have been used as a cache to store food. We think it makes sense to us that it would be good for that - the cave is cooler than outside so in a way it acts like a natural refrigerator. A hunting group could camp here, plan their hunt for the day, go out get some food. Perhaps they would store the meat from the first day or two in the cave, and on the last day leave the freshest meat in the cave and bring just what they could carry with them. We talked about the skulls and why it may have been that the people who hunted here brought the skull and brain with them back to the group so they could tan the bison hides with it - or perhaps they would cook the brain in the skull and serve it to their Elders as a gift.

A lot of the time today we thought about where we were and how it might have been to be here - lost in our own thoughts. Everyone will be taking a personal experience with them today from our visit to the cave. It isn't something we can write about because it is hard to put into words because there are so many different things you think, feel, smell, and so on when you are at the cave. If you get a chance you should definitely visit Tse'K'wa.

Blog Seven: Pre-visit Learning

April 6 to April 8 - Students share what they have learned in their research.

Part of the learning experience is about the pre-history of Tse'K'wa to understand its place in time and space. Almost all of our resource materials for our pre-history learning was the materials on Charlie Lake Cave (Tse'K'wa) done by Dr. Jon Driver and Dr. Knut Flanders. Their research material is available online from Simon Fraser University here.

Part of our learning has been to do research, and present on, different aspects of our learning about Tse'K'wa and the people that used it in pre-history. Many of us chose to do work on subsistence practices, which is basically how people hunt / harvest / use animals and plants to survive. Part of subsistence is understanding how to maximize energy gains (in the calories provided by the animals and plants) and minimize energy expenditure (during the hunting, dressing, harvesting, and transport of the animals and plants) so that you can try to ensure everyone in your group has the best chance of survival. We also examined what parts of animals would be taken back to the group so that they could be put to good use. For example, why would people prefer to take away the legs of an animal? The legs of the animal are a great choice because they have a large quantity of meat that can be more readily carried over distances to get it back to the group. In addition, the bones in the legs such as femurs, tibia, and metapodials allow those bones to be turned into bone tools. According to Mr. Neufeldt, who taught us about Tse'K'wa and bone tools, "bone is the plastic of the past" because it is very workable to make into other things.

Some of us looked at the stone tools that were found at Tse'K'wa and looked at flint knapping as a technology. On the technological side we learned how flint knapping techniques change over time and from place to place, and that the changes in technology at Tse'K'wa are one of the ways that we can see how the visitors to the cave also changed. We learned that technologies might have been brought from different places to Tse'K'wa by the people who originally honed that particular technique, it could have been acquired through trade, or knowledge of how to make the technology may have been passed from one group to another through the cultural exchange of information (which can occur much like trade). Fortunately stone is very stable over time so it is a good indicator of what time frame is occurring from place to place, and which cultural group was using it. We also learned that Mr. Neufeldt and Mr. Boissonneault from the Indigenous Education Centre do some flint knapping and for those of us that take the course next year (because the content changes you can take Learning with the Elders more than once) we might get a chance to try flint knapping.

The last big topic areas we examined are spiritual practices and cultural practices. Two Raven skeletons were found at Tse'K'wa and appeared to be buried with such care that there was likely reverence for the animals. A stone tool was left with one Raven and according to Mr. Neufeldt people do not leave important things in animal burials if the animals were not important to the people. During our discussion we thought that if the Raven was buried with such care it is likely because the people who buried it respected it and felt it deserved to be honoured. The appreciation of the Raven is still relevant to people today. In recent history there have been visitors to the cave who appreciate the history but also the spiritual part of Tse'K'wa. It was a place visited by ancestors and it is a place where you feel how important it is. We thought about how our modern regalia may have also had some variation in the past. We learned from Mr. Neufeldt that studying how living peoples cultures exist in our time to better understand the past is called ethnoarchaeology. We also learned that it is important to listen to those cultures and their history from their perspective - so that we do not dismiss their cultural understanding of the materials created by peoples in the past. It is exciting to think that some of the things that we do today may have been practiced long ago by our ancestors at Tse'K'wa.

When we talked about the archaeological evidence of stone tools and bone tools and why there wasn't much evidence of clothing and so on - we learned that some types of evidence are more likely to survive than others. Stone can survive almost indefinitely. Bone can survive for at least thousands of years as well if the soil conditions are right - but if the soil isn't right or if the bone is particularly fragile it is very difficult to find good pieces. According to Mr. Neufeldt there was in fact a lot of bone evidence at Tse'K'wa - and for the times longest ago the most 'robust' types of bone are the best indicators of what was eaten and used by the people who came there during its earliest use. We learned that bone can still be found in large quantities as fragments even if it isn't fully identifiable. Skins, cloth, sinew, plants (unless they are preserved by the right conditions) are not likely to last very long - which is why we don't have a lot of evidence about what their clothing looked like. But we can use ethnoarchaeology to give us an idea of what it might have looked like.

Blog Six: Pre-visit Learning

March 29 - April 1

We have finally begun to work with the 360 degree cameras and the sound equipment. Those familiar with modern smart phones and smart phone operation will find using the equipment fairly easy - both in setup (installing the software on an iPad or smartphone, and in use. We took many pictures and videos walking the halls and by the end of the day we realized we had a problem - there were plenty of other students in our shots that were not part of our project and we could not include them in our blog because they did not know what we were doing and we didn't have consent to include them.

Blog Five: Pre-visit Learning

February 1 to February 11 part 2

We learned that the environment around the cave was changing in the first 1500 years or so after it started to be used. At the beginning, the area surrounding the cave eventually went from barren bedrock to a grassland - with the types of animals you would expect to see. Evidence for the animals in the area, during that time, comes from the archaeological work done at Tse'K'wa. Collared Lemming, which likes a more Tundra type environment was their first. Once the grassland was established it was getting warmer and in addition to the Bison two important species, the Hare and Richardson's Ground Squirrel, show the greatest change over time. When it was grassy Richardson's Ground Squirrel is more plentiful in the archaeological record with a modest amount of Hare. Over time the number of ground squirrels became less and less and the number of Hare became more and more. Because both animals have different ecological / environmental preferences it is safe to say that in the 1000 years or so that is covered during that slice of the record the environment went from grassland to a treed forest type of environment. And of course, once the trees are plentiful the number of bison also goes down - as their bodies are not particularly suited to travelling over deadfall in forests. Once the area was heavily treed it stayed that way until post-contact when farming practices cut down the trees to make room for grasslands (planted grains).

Research projects have been chosen or assigned.... ahhhh!

Blog Four: Pre-visit Learning

February 1 to February 11 part 1

We have undertaken projects that examine the geological formation of the cave and the timeframe from the late Pleistocene through the Holocene to the present. Essentially the cave was formed through hydraulic action of water carving the cave into the rock that was underneath the melting glaciers. As the ice melted a passage, known as the Ice Free Corridor, was formed between the Cordilleran Ice Sheet to the west, and the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the east. Over time the water eventually disappeared, and the hard rock that was under the ice built up with earth allowing plants and animals to eventually return to the area. Some of the first animals hunted around Tse'K'wa were Northern and Southern Bison - which are examples of Late Pleistocene megafauna (megafauna means large animals that are 90kg in size or larger). Bison bones were found in the gully that formed between the mouth of Tse'K'wa and the parapet (a big piece of stone) that is a few meters away from the cave mouth. Paleoindian hunting groups hunted the Bison, likely following them from both the North and the South. Archaeological finds at the cave support movement of humans from both directions as well. From the south a point was found that is similar technologically to the Clovis Point. The Clovis Point, is a type of stone tool that is used as a spear point and was originally discovered near Clovis, New Mexico. The Clovis technology has been found over time and space spreading out from the Clovis area, with a point similar in technological design found in the Tse'K'wa archaeological materials. In addition, a micro-core that is similar to those found in the far northern regions was also found. The evidence suggests that people came to Tse'K'wa from both directions.

Blog Three: Alternating Days

Moving into Quarter 3 the Learning with the Elders class has begun. As Students we are split into two groups and go to class on alternating days. The first few days of the Quarter have been spent learning about Tse'K'wa in prehistory from the end of the Late Pleistocene until the present. Within the context of our learning we have undertaken some research to better understand the formation of the cave, what the archaeological evidence can tell us, how the local knowledge and spiritual practices are relevant to the caves, and how animal utility (how the hunted animal provides for the group) is relevant to the use of the cave.

Blog Two: Scheduling

The 2020/2021 academic year plans, based on COVID-19 scheduling, has thrown a monkey-wrench into the system. Rather than having normal term lengths we have a quarter system which greatly reduces the number of days that we can spend with the students. Further, the Learning with the Elders class is now in Quarter 3 so it is unsure whether or not Tse'K'wa will even be accessible. In addition, the truncated time table has forced the students to alternate days to maintain COVID-19 required cohort safety. In addition, the SET-BC Synergy Project is only part of what is being taught so our timetable is further reduced - hopefully we will get enough days to have about 10 blogs worth of material before the end of term.

Blog One: The Project and COVID-19

In 2019, Chris Neufeldt of School District 60 Indigenous Education Centre and Sarah Elson-Haugan of North Peace Secondary School applied to SET-BC for the Synergy Virtual Mapping Project Place Based Learning project. The aim of the project? "To create a virtual map of Tse’K’Wa (aka Charlie Lake Cave), a recently designated Canadian National Historical Site of archaeological importance due to the important evidence found at the cave illuminating the prehistory of the First Peoples of Canada." The cave has important cultural significance and the goal was that students could learn about the prehistory of the cave as it relates to prehistory, and its cultural importance over time.

The project was subsequently awarded and a timeline was established! Before the hardware from SET-BC arrived Chris began pre-teaching the importance of Tse'K'wa to the students in the Learning with the Elders program.

Enter COVID-19

With COVID-19 shutting down the schools the timeline became askew, students could not meet in person to practice with the equipment, we were unable to work the timeline into our program. The students did eventually return to the classroom - but the timeline was too short to accomplish the goals we had and get a field trip to Tse'K'wa to do the 3D photography.

The project was moved to the 2020-2021 academic year.

Report abuse