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7 The weekly lifestyle section of The Midiand Times, Penetanguishene Citizen, Elmvale Lance, Collingwood Times, Wasaga Beach Times, and Thornbury Review-Herald Wednesday, July 9, 1975 ron | CG |i Le -"a e seeking lakers e at the movies ® crossword e summer salads e horoscope Teaching digging Charles Garrard, above, is the past president of the Ontario Archaeological Society, and this summer is using his expertise and knowledge of Blue Mountain's Petun Indians in the classroom as well as in the field. He is conducting the Georgian College summer school archaeological excavation course at Club Mountain. ((See story on page 2). Staff photo x kk I Huronia appenings The Visitors Services Program at the Wasaga Beach Provincial Park is now in full swing for the summer. The program offers a wide variety of activities to families, children and senior aes who visit the park. Most of the activities takeXete in Beach Area 5 near the log cabin Visitor Centre. For more information on the program call the Ministry of Natural Resources at Wasaga Beach, 429-2516. ov a. ~ yas kkk This week in Barrie, the Gryphon Theatre Company is mounting its second of five summer productions, The Sunshine Boys, a Neil Simon comedy that provides an inside look at a slice of show-biz life. The performances began on Monday and run through to Saturday with curtain time at 8:30 p.m. There is also a Thursday matinee at 2 p.m. Under the guidance of artistic director Sean Mulcahy, the company will put on two one-act plays -- The Boor by Anton Chekhov, and The Tiger by Murray Schisgal -- from July 21 to 26; Sleuth, by Anthony Shaffer from August 4 to 9; and Joyce Rayburn's comedy Don't Start Without Me from August 18 to 23. kk * Many Penetanguishene residents are going to bed earlier than usual this week, following a tremendously successful -- and exhausting -- Old Home Week marking the centennial of the town's incorporation as a village in 1875. A host of former residents returned home for at least part of the week, which was marked by a round of parties, concerts, theatrical produc- tions and a list of events far too numerous to list here. Suffice it to say that the town of just over 5,000 put on a first-rate community effort -- and it may take the next 100 years to rest up. Already, however, Penetanguishene residents are talking of an annual Summerama -- and the next birthday bash could be held in 1981, 100 years after the village officially became a town. kk Quote of the week Community health nurse to a five-year-old: "You have a cold and I have a cold. Here is some Kleenex, one for you and one for me."' Both blew noses. Community health nurse: "Can't you blow harder than that?" "I don't need to," said the five-year-old. 'You have more than me."' Simcoe County District Health Unit report for May, 1975 TERRY PENN by John Beaulieu | HEAR YOU'VE GOT A REAL "POOL SHARK" OVER HERE ! Archaeology: by Jim Park For most of us, a day in the bush is just that -- a time to wander amid fresh smells, surrounded by the sounds of unseen life, and a time to admire what man has not yet, at least, destroyed. But to a select group of people, the "bush" of Canada, and in this case Georgian Bay, holds a treasure trove of tidbits, hints that when pieced together will give us a picture of how man developed and survived on this continent before the arrival of our "modern"' civilization. i Archaeology, in essence, is the study of the unwritten history of man. It is an amalgam of disciplines ranging from anthropology and history through geology, biology, zoology, drafting, photography instinct and luck. Jack of all trades In the words of Sheryl Smith, "the catch phrase is that an archaeologist is a jack of all trades and master of none -- we can change tires, fix sinks, all of that." "And of that" includes telling the dif: ference between a piece of soil and a piece of what once was Indian pottery, looking at : Oa Sear Brian Ross, a student at the University of Manitoba working for the summer at the archaeological dig at Methodist Point north of Penetanguishene, slowly scrapes through layers of soil, searching for clues ching, slowly, for a bit of quartz and deciding whether it's a natural chip or part of what once was some man-made implement For the past four years, archaeologists have been working in the Methodist Point area north of Penetanguishene, in what is now being developed as Etienne Brule Provincial Park. They have been working quietly, without publicity, and they have been working carefully, looking for sites of what once were Indian villages, seasonal camping grounds or early European homes. This summer, after two years of sear- ching and one dig at an inland lake, they have begun experimental digs in earnest, on a federally-funded project with the money funnelled through the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Their work will take years to complete -- and indeed will become an integral part of the unique park the province is developing -- but they do know that they have found, at least, the site of a former Huron Indian Camp, and a pioneer log cabin. Sheryl Smith is the field director for the project, and last Thursday took a reporter -- by boat since there is no road -- to where the work is going on. That was after 'eer ' BF: Re ae clues that will help us piece together the lifestyle of Canada's now virtually extinct Huron Indians -- adding something to the un- written history of Canada and her native people. the lost reporter finally found the group's hideaway in the woods. Six archaeology people and one park staff member live in an old stone cottage that nestles on the shore of Georgian Bay, at the end of a windy dusty road marked chiefly by a host of No Trespassing signs. It's as solid as the rocks that surround the bay, and was built years ago by a doctor from Buffalo, New York, as a place to retreat from urban life. Educational experience Before leaving for the site, Smith talked of the project as something that will eventually be educational for park users, and academically important in historical terms. A young, bronzed, unpretentious chain smoker, she is a graduate of McMaster University now working on her master's degree at the University of Manitoba. "The role of archaeology," she said, "is hopefully to provide an integral role in how people see the park. It will be a natural environment park, rather than recreational, with the emphasis on_ in- dividual learning experiences through hiking and nature trails, an individual experience park where people can come and learn more about the area, who lived there -- and more about themselves."' "It's a sore back, houswife's knees, bugs ... but it's not boring" From the archaeologist's point of view, she said the aim is to "find out how the land was used 300 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years ago -- to help people realize that there's more to a piece of bush than you think." Much of the more recent history is known in at least rough terms, and she said there are three components to study on the site. She identified them as Middle Woodland, between 600 B.C. and 700 A.D., the Prehistoric Huron period from roughly 1450 to 1550 A.D., and the pioneer stage, dating back to the arrival of the white man in the early part of the seventeenth cen- tury. The Hurons and their predecessors were pottery makers and involved with agriculture as well as fishing, hunting, and gathering natural foods. Corn, as a staple, '"'didn't come in until after 1,000 A.D. in a big way"' as far as is known, but was definitely a mainstay of the Hurons' economy. The Indians now in the area are mainly Ojibway, part of the Algonquin nation, who inoved in from the north to be closer to the fur trade following the Iroquois-Huron wars in the seventeenth century. After the Jesuit outpost near Midland was burned in 1649, they moved with 6,000 Hurons to Christian Island. By the end of that winter, according to Smith, up to 5,000 had died from famine or disease, and in the summer of 1650 the Jesuits returned to Quebec, taking with them about 300 Hurons. The rest scattered to various parts of Canada. Search for understanding Part of this knowledge comes from the records of Europeans who came to live among the Indian populations of the country, but a large part also comes from the work of people like Smith and the staff now digging at Methodist Point, who are trying to develop an understanding of Huron . culture and way of life. There is only a handful of pure-blooded Hurons left in Canada. a Aoi Measuring Ruth Gotthardt, foreground, above, is measuring layers of soil in one of the squares being dug in the Methodist Point area north of Penetanguishene. It's painstaking work, slowly scraping through the material, looking for bits of pottery or e The bush of Georgian Bay is a treasure trove for those seeking the unwritten history of man % fk soil layers other remanats of the now-dead Huron Indian civilization that once flourished in Huronia. Field director Sheryl Smith looks on. Gotthardt is going into third year at the University of Toronto this fall. Staff photo Most of the staff members are ar- chaeology students hired for the summer to work in the area, and they spend painstaking hours gently scraping through layers of soil in blocked-out squares. The total area covered so far this year is roughly 1,600 square metres, and the ground is spotted with the holes, young men or women on the edge searching patiently for a bit of pottery or some other relic of a people's past. The holes are one metre square, and Ruth Gotthardt, a University of Toronto student on the site for the summer, said it took her a week to get the first two levels of ground. Smith said that "what we expect to find (this year) is Huron': material quite close to the top of the ground. There's a sterile layer of about seven inches of sand" before diggers would reach the Middle Woodland remains. So Ruth Gotthardt's levels are five centimeters each, and it took a week's labour to get down two layers without risking damaging a potentially valuable piece of pottery or other remnant of the Hurons' past. A seasonal camp What Smith thinks they have found so far is a seasonal Huron site, possibly used in the spring or fall, possibly as a vacation camp -- "'some place to go down by the water and look over the bay. "'We don't think they were carrying on a full range of activities, not all the day to day activities..maybe they were only fishing." So far, the people at the site are not positive of what they have found, or what will come in future. They do know that with analysis, over time, the pieces of the puzzle of man's development will fit together and make a story. For many people, archaeology is a romantic profession, a sentiment fostered mainly by major findings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or complete cities in the Middle East long-since buried by time. Glamour fades fast But the work, in fact, is painstaking. Elizabeth McDonald of Toronto said "the glamour comes in the first day..."' Sheryl Smith said that a large part of archaeology is "a sore back, houswife's knees, bugs...but it's not boring. I find working on an assembly line boring."' Only two things worry the staff at the Methodist Point site. The first is campers, who unthinkingly use the digs as latrines or places for garbage, and the second is that someone at night might fall into them. And one thing bugs the staff. It's a question mentioned by Elizabeth McDonald, but probably asked of coun- tless other archaeologists: "Was it there before you found it?"' om F N= by Shirley Whittington It is now July,and the world has tossed away its panty hose and taken off its girdle. And yet, I am surprised by the number of people I know who are taking a sober and earnest look at the summer ahead. They have signed up for courses in bonsai or conversational Chinese or creative roller skating. They are writing books or re-building the front porch. They are embarking on three-inch novels, like 'The Source and the Gulag Archipelago. Some of them have bought boats, and have reserved every weekend for fishing Who needs cottages or sailboats when your or cruising. Others have sold their boats and bought swimming pools in which , they vow, they will do ten lengths every day. Before breakfast. Still others are bran- dishing tennis raquets and bicycles and are dreaming of a svelte September. There are people who have gone all green in the thumb, and have thus sen- tenced themselves to a summer of weeding, watering and cultivating their vegetable gardens. Well, this apparently universal summer purposefulness hasn't left me entirely unscathed. I decided, a couple of days ago, to get up each morning with the birds, get my work over with in the cool of the day, and devote the afternoon to frivolity or indolence - whichever came along first. Accordingly, yesterday, I came downstairs, took the cover off the typewriter and began the first paragraph on a serious piece about Canada's bir- thday. That was when I got this irresistable urge to go out and buy a hammock. The more I tried to dedicate myself to hysterical patriotism, the more obsessed I became with the desire to swing in a hammock. The Kid is, by nature, an early riser. While he puddled around in his corn flakes, I told him of the hammocks of my childhood. Capacious, stretchy, fringed and pillowed - they were great places for day dreaming, eating smuggled cookies and general fooling around. He agreed that a hammock was ab- solutely the first priority of the day, and as soon as the stores opened, we zipped down and bought a flower-sprigged one with a fringe and a pillow. The salesman asked about a hammock stand, but we scorned it as an unromantic and angular modernism, quite out of keeping with true summer hammockry. Surreptitiously, we hooked our ham- mock up between the apple tree and the corner post of the patio fence. Stealth was imperative. For one thing, the only rope we could find was attached to Daddy's fishing anchor. And we both knew, in our heart of hearts, that that patio fence was not designed to support a bulging hammock. We got the thing up, and took turns swaying under the tree, admiring the view of the sky through the leafy umbrella above. Then the Voice of Reason appeared. "T thought," said he, '"'you had planned to devote every morning to serious work."' We explained that we had gone to buy a hammock instead. Other people, we said, were buying sailboats, swimming pools, Winnebago campers and similar ex- pensive summer toys. Was he not glad that our tastes were so simple? He said he was, but that he was not glad that the patio fence which he had spent last' summer building, was sagging like a dowager's chin. He predicted disaster, fraught with broken bones and fence boards, and all the while he kept looking pointedly at the stout nylon rope that suspended the hammock. He was right, and we knew it. Sadly, we hammock sways seductively inthe backyard? dismantled the thing, and the corner post sprang back to attention. The Kid went off on his bike. I returned to tapping out platitudes about Canada's birthday. The story has a happy swinging ending. The hammock is in an iron stand now, and the apple tree and patio fence are free to pursue their separate upright destinies. But I'm still having trouble with Canada's birthday, and anything else I'm required to write. Every time I apply the seat of my pants to the chair, I think of that darned hammock, and I have to go out and daydream awhile. There are, indeed, serious matters to be considered this lazy sun-blessed month - things like writing and housework and courses in self-improvement. But as long as that hammock sways seductively under the apple tree, I refuse to take anything seriously. The hammock has a low centre of gravity, and in July, so do I. Shirley Whittington is a staff writer with Markle Community Newspapers.