This is Going to be an Adventure.

This is Going to Be an Adventure

Diary Entry #1 – The Project

I haven’t written a diary since I was 12 years old and experiencing new things at a friend’s cottage. This one will have a double purpose – to remind me of that experience, and, with a little good fortune, to tell others, students and colleagues, of what I have discovered with this project. I don’t know what I will find, or whether I will find anything.

It is going to be an adventure at the very least. My studies as an archaeologist have been limited to analyzing other people’s work.  No other archaeologist at the university wanted to engage in this research, as it might turn out to reveal nothing new and interesting, and may be thought to reflect researcher failure. However, as a new hire who really wants to be tenured, I simply had to say yes with a big smile on my face. The dean several times called this an ‘opportunity’ when he spoke to me about it, but it had been a long, long time since he had been a newly hired professor. I think that he just wanted to justify my hiring to his fellow deans and other administrators. He is very much involved with university politics.

For a long time, a glacier had covered what were now two large hills and the land that joins the two of them. Climate change was obviously the cause of this dramatic development. That has happened elsewhere in the Arctic. At this point it could only be stated that the hills had been under water and ice in the Northwest Territories of Canada for centuries. Just how many centuries is yet to be determined. I hope to discover this through my research, particularly if an early historical human presence can be found, perhaps the earliest in the area. Without such a discovery, my work would probably just be ignored and tenure will be slow in coming. 

When I announced the subject of my research to my introductory class, one of my Indigenous students, whose people were the oldest known to live in this area, over a thousand years, came up to me and suggested that I meet up with a highly respected Elder, a wise man who knew the stories of the past that had been handed down from generation to generation. 

On the weekend that followed I drove him to his community and he introduced me to the Elder.  I offered him tobacco, which he received with a smile. When I informed him about the project, he told me that there were stories passed down by Elders for generations that there had once been a people living there who spoke a different language, and had very different ways of living. He told me that they were no longer in the area.  One of the stories that he told was to my way of thinking quite imaginative, and unlike any Indigenous stories that I had ever read I tried not to let my doubts show. I wanted to say that it could have been the subject of a science fiction movie, but I didn’t say anything to him about it.

The Elder showed his respect both for those ancient people and for the work that I was about to be engaged in by smudging both hills before I engaged in any digging.

Diary entry #2 – My Staff and I

My staff, university students, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous were all rather inexperienced in the hard physical labour necessary for an archaeological project such as this. But they were highly motivated, not just to get the experience needed to possibly continue a career in archaeology, but because I had convinced them that they would be contributing to highly original and significant work. I hoped that what I told them would prove to be true, and not just a cheap trick of my part to get recruits. I had no idea what we might find, hopefully not just rocks moved by a glacier and seawater. That would not make for a much needed publication for me on my pathway to tenure.

Diary Entry #3 – We Find Caves and Tools

Thankfully, it turned out that I did not have to worry about us finding evidence of an early human presence. Each of the hills had a cave, each one facing the other directly. It also seemed to me from the very beginning that these caves were probably very, very old. It could well be that they were made by the first people to live here, people who were quite skilled in the digging of caves. I was very impressed by how far into the hills the caves looked to be even at first sight.

Diary Entry #4 - No Burials to be Found

One curious lack of discovery is the fact that we have found no evidence of burials, not a sign of any bones anywhere on or in the hills or in the flatlands in between. It looks like we will not be able to learn what these people did with their dead.

Diary Entry #5 – At Last, a Discovery

We went back and forth in both caves, thinking that we had gone their length without finding any signs of previous life. After a few days work, I began to think that the project was doomed. Then the student who had put me in contact with the Elder told me that he thought that the large stone at what appeared to be the end of one of the caves might just be blocking a deeper depth where we might find something. I was initially critical, but decided that we should at least give a try on rolling the rock.  I am very glad that we did. There was more cave beyond. It rose gradually to what was an opening that was covered by another large rock. When we pushed it aside, we could walk out to the side of the hill.  The opening provided some light into the newly discovered part of the cave, which we enhanced by the flashlights that we had carried with us. We could see then that the walls were covered with pictures in a variety of shiny colours, most of which depicted scenes of the land, the plants, and the animals. 

           The first picture provided a view of the two hills and the land in between from a position of great height in the sky. In the next picture we saw that the artist lowered the perspective, viewing the two hills from the ground.   

           The last picture came as big surprise.  It portrayed two people standing close together, one was dressed in the traditional sacred clothing quite like what I had seen the Elder wear. He was handing what looked like a leather pouch to the other man, who looked like he was wearing a one-piece outfit that was entirely blue. 

           What was a bigger surprise was that in the background there was what looked like some kind of spaceship, a flying saucer that would not have looked out of place in a space story of the 1960s.  This was what the Elder had tried to tell me in his last story, that there were blue sky-beings, who flew into and eventually out of their territory in a roundish vehicle shaped like a very big Arctic clam shell. I am glad that I never articulated my doubts. But now it is up to me to convince others that the story is true. I doubt if many of my colleagues and the dean will believe me. It could be maker or a breaker of my career. This is going to be an adventure.