Biface from Archaeological Site JcRh-2.

Glen MacKay of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC) conducted an archaeological survey of Trout Lake, NWT under Archaeologist’s Permit 2005-974.  Tom Andrews of the PWNHC assisted MacKay and Violet Sanguez, a Sambaa K’e cultural specialist with Crosscurrent Associates Ltd., facilitated the field project.  Several community elders and students also participated in the fieldwork.  

A collaborative effort between Elders, students and archaeologists, the Sambaa K’e Archaeology Project involved visiting several important cultural places identified by the Elders of the Sambaa K’e Dene Band, and documenting them as archaeological sites.  The project had a strong educational component for high school students from the community, with students receiving instruction in archaeological survey methods and learning about important cultural places from community elders. 

We recorded nineteen archaeological sites, including sacred sites, burials, historic cabins and camps, traditional trails and precontact sites, during the Sambaa K’e Archaeology Project.  Working in close collaboration with Sambaa K’e Elders, we were also able to document some of the oral histories and traditions associated with these sites.  Contextualized in this way, archaeological data illustrates how ‘history is written on the land’ at cultural places, and how these places are linked with other places, to form a cultural landscape.

Cabin at Archaeological site JeRg-3.

The archaeological sites recorded during the project span several historical periods of Trout Lake.  Archaeological site JcRg-1 is an abandoned United States Army Air Force weather station operated at Trout Lake during the Second World War.  This station provided daily weather observations for military aircraft flying from Edmonton to the Yukon.  This site represents a significant period of cultural contact between the Sambaa K’e Dene Band and the outside world.  JdRg-1 is a multi-component precontact archaeological deposit at the confluence of Paradise River with Trout Lake.  This site, buried beneath a contemporary fish camp, indicates that people have fished at this locality for thousands of years.  Cultural places associated with stories from mythical times were also recorded.  For example, JcRi-3 is a small stretch of beach covered in flat brown rocks.  An important culture hero carried one of these rocks during his travels around the world and they are thought to contain significant medicine power.  Together, these sites and the others recorded represent the beginnings of a culture-history of Trout Lake that incorporates the perspectives of both Aboriginal and Western cultural traditions.

The Sambaa K’e Archaeology Project seeks to integrate cultural and archaeological understandings into an integrated history of the Sambaa K’e cultural landscape.  We hope to continue this project in future years.