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Core group of volunteers
(r-l): Doug Tate, Heather Passmore,
Steven Rowan, Laina Pilon, Jean-Luc Pilon.
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In 2000, Tom Andrews of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage
Centre in Yellowknife carried out limited testing at the Fort
Simpson Heritage Park, where the Fort Simpson Historical Society
hopes to relocate a heritage building, which demonstrated
that archaeological deposits did in fact exist there. As a
result, additional work was required in order to better evaluate
the potential significance of these remains. It has also been
suggested that the site of Fort of the Forks, a North West
Company post dating to 1803, was located somewhere on, or
near, the Park. It was with this in mind that a small crew
of volunteers carried out archaeological fieldwork in the
Fort Simpson Heritage Park during the 2002 field season. The
project was sponsored by the Fort Simpson Historical Society,
supported by the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre
and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and carried out under
the direction of Jean-Luc Pilon.
Four 3 m x 50 cm test trenches were laid out in such a way
as to expand upon the results of the 2000 investigation, leading
to the recovery of artifacts and features that provide a much
better idea of some of the events that have taken place within
the Heritage Park over the last two centuries or more. The
upper 30 cm of soil showed that there had been serious disturbance,
probably a result of ploughing at the beginning of the 20th
century, which completely mixed 19th and 20th century artefacts.
In one trench, affectionately known as Heather’s trench,
a deep pit was found. However, we only realized that this
pit was near 1.4 m in depth in the last days of the excavation
and so very little of the pit’s interior was actually
exposed. The bottom was leveled with a layer of heavy silt/clay,
on top of which a 2 cm-thick layer of wood and bark chips
was lain. Though pattern was repeated at least twice, very
few artefacts were found in these fill layers.
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| View within the original
early 19th century pit; note the distinct layers of wood
chips/bark on either side of the narrow trench. |
This construction technique has been documented at fur trade
posts across Canada where it is a common way of lining the
bottom of a cellar under a house or an icehouse. In W.F. Wentzel’s
journal kept at the Fort of the Forks in the first decade
of the 19th century, he describes roots cellars for the garden’s
produce as well as an ice house, suggesting that the excavated
pit in may in fact be the remains of either an ice house or
a root cellar associated with the Fort of the Forks. Unfortunately
the ploughing likely destroyed any building foundations that
might have existed there, and only the full excavation of
this pit and perhaps exploration for other similar features
would help determine the true identity and age of the pit
with any certainty.
This work at Fort Simpson, at or near the site of the Fort
of the Forks was particularly meaningful on a very personal
level. During the winter of 1810-11 conditions were so severe
that five members of the local Native band died of starvation
as well as 4 individuals of the post’s complement of
over-wintering men. One of these was François Pilon
a distant relative of mine. This summer, for a few brief moments,
my daughter Laina (who performed wonderfully as an archaeological
field assistant) and I bowed our heads and remembered our
kin who died there nearly two centuries ago. We were the first
relatives of his to stand and cry over his grave so far removed
from his home on the Island of Montréal that he likely
so yearned to see one last time before he closed his eyes
forever. Further work is planned at the site next summer.
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