Northern Alberta site yields rare pottery find

“I think what I said was ‘Jackpot!’” said John Janvier when he discovered a fragment of an arrow point at Berry Point, where he was excavating north of English Bay. “I dug these little squares and I found an arrow point. It was kind of broken. But a couple of days later another boy found a better one.”

The style of the arrow heads discovered in the English Bay mitigation stretch from 4,000 to 4,500 years ago.
“People were living on and off that same spot for a wide span of time. That’s kind of cool,” said archaeologist Gareth Spicer.

While Spicer’s company Turtle Island Cultural Resource Management, out of Calgary, has only been involved in the Cold Lake mitigation for three years, Spicer said excavation work has been ongoing for 20 years and in that time 14,000 artifacts have been uncovered.

Spicer said it’s not surprising that so many artifacts have been excavated given the location. “It’s a flat spot, above a beach by a lake. That’s usually a good spot.”

Among the more unique was a pottery cooking utensil unearthed in 2008. Enough fragments were recovered to indicate the shape of the pot and date it back to pre-contact time.

“There’s been two or three other occasions where pottery you can even tell anything from has been found. It’s a rare thing in Alberta generally, but north of Edmonton is quite rare. That was a significant thing,” said Spicer.
Finds like these, said Janvier, confirm the telling of First Nations history and stories.

“It tells me that our people were here for centuries, before we were told that we got here. Our stories and our legends say different. This is proof,” he said.

Janvier, a former school teacher, finds this kind of work interesting. This is the second mitigation site he has been involved in. In the late 1980s, Janvier was involved in the Duckett mitigation, on the shores of Ethel Lake.
“There’s always that anticipation,” said Janvier. “Oh, wow, what am I going to find?’”

Now that the English Bay mitigation is complete, Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation is starting its public process for input into plans to expand the English Bay campground. The boat launch, which was reopened last fall, will remain open this summer. The proposed redevelopment includes 185 camping units designed to accommodate large RV units and include power hook-ups, facility upgrades including parking space, registration booth, day-use area, playground, new washrooms and walking trails.

A recent open house held last month to introduce the planned expansion attracted a large number of Cold Lake First Nations members as well as Cold Lake residents, said Camille Weleschuk, public affairs officer with Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation.

“If consultations go well, if everybody is in favour of the redevelopment as (it) is (presented), we could proceed with the development by the end of summer or early fall,” said Weleschuk.

The summary of public feedback will be posted on the government website.