Indian Summer Festival

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Instructor Maurice White demonstrates to Danny Stuffco, 11, how to throw the atlatl (a spear used in historic times).

The weather was excellent on August 30 as adults and children gathered at Strathcona Science Park in northeast Edmonton to observe and/or participate in the 5th Annual Indian Summer Festival.

The event is sponsored to give one a feel for what life was like in historic times. Activities included hands-on experiences such as hide smoking, bannock making, atlatl throwing, stone tool making, string beading, tempra painting, making arrows shafts and the excavation and screening of stone flakes for which the site is well-known.

Story telling, fish scale art and moosehair tufting were also demonstrated.

Those who participated in the daylong events were issued special certificates from the Strathcona Archaeological Society.

The park, located along the North Saskatchewan River, is a historic site discovered in 1976 and is estimated to have been populated by stone-age craftsmen as much as 5,000 years ago.