February 14, 2018
Post date: Feb 21, 2018 12:46:50 AM
On Wednesday, February 14th, 2018, we had a larger than normal gathering at the Duff-Baby Interpretation Center. It was great to see so many people show up! We had a little hick-up getting going when our first laptop wouldn’t work, then the second was too advanced and we couldn’t connect our projector to it and then a savior in the crowd saved us with a laptop he had. So with our third laptop of the night, we managed to get our presentation going! Whew!
Last fall on September 23 and 24, 2017, the Windsor Chapter members participated in a weekend of surveying with ground penetrating radar on the park land across from Assumption Church with the University of Windsor’s Earth Science Department. This adventure was led by Maria Cioppa, Associate Professor with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Ms Cioppa joined us to present the preliminary GPR and magnetometer results from the WEDigHistory geophysics survey.
The WEDigHistory project is a Canada 150 project that focusing on “digging up” the history of the Sandwich area, and particularly the history of Assumption Park. Ms Cioppa is not an archaeologist, so when she speaks of “digging up” the history she doesn’t mean with the use of a shovel and trowel like we would. Her tools of the trade are GPR and magnetometer, she also dug up historical information in documents. Permission to even look at the property was only given to the university once it was agreed that they would only perform noninvasive explorations of the lands. She did not have permission to put a single shovel into the ground.
The project was funded by the Windsor Essex Community Foundation and the University of Windsor, with support from Ontario Heritage Trust, the Ontario Archaeological Society (Windsor-Essex Chapter), Sensors and Software Ltd, and the City of Windsor.
The presentation itself included very interesting results, and Ms Cioppa provided possible interpretations for the results uncovered. She then related those results to documented history for the area.
Ms Maria Cioppa would like to do further examination of the site with new machinery that the university has purchased and has invited us back to help with this continuing exploration of the site.