A Study of Selected Fur Trade Sites and Artifacts, Voyageurs National Park and Environs, 2001-2002
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FROM THINGS LEFT BEHIND: A STUDY OF SELECTED FUR TRADE SITES AND ARTIFACTS, VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK AND ENVIRONS, 2001-2002. by Douglas A. Birk, Senior Archaeologist/Historian Institute for Minnesota Archaeology 4522 Nokomis Avenue South Minneapolis, Minnesota 5540 Jeffrey J. Richner, Archeologist National Park Service Midwest Archeological Center Lincoln, Nebraska Issued jointly as: MIDWEST ARCHEOLOGICAL CENTER, TECHNICAL REPORT NUMBER 84 and INSTITUTE FOR MINNESOTA ARCHAEOLOGY, REPORTS OF INVESTIGATIONS NUMBER 606 16 November 2004 This document was prepared for: Voyageurs National Park National Park Service International Falls, Minnesota FROM THINGS LEFT BEHIND: A STUDY OF SELECTED FUR TRADE SITES AND ARTIFACTS, VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK AND ENVIRONS, 2001-2002. by Douglas A. Birk and Jeffrey J. Richner Recommended by: _______________________________________________________________________ Park Archeology Program Manager, Midwest Archeological Center Concurred by: ___________________________________________________________________________ Superintendent, Voyageurs National Park Approved by: ____________________________________________________________________________ Regional Director, Midwest Region MANAGEMENT SUMMARY This volume reports on work conducted by the National Park Service (NPS) and the Institute for Minnesota Archaeology (IMA) in 2001-2002 to extend knowledge of historic fur trade resources and activities within the area of Voyageurs National Park (VOYA). The project involved terrestrial and underwater archaeological investigations, archival research, artifact analysis, and informant interviews. Douglas Birk, Senior Archaeologist/Historian of the IMA in Minneapolis Minnesota, and Jeffrey J. Richner, NPS Archeologist with the Midwest Archeological Center in Lincoln Nebraska, served as principal investigators. This work is part of a broader study. An earlier phase of the study, a literature review completed in 2000, documented the park’s environmental history and assembled some historical information relevant to fur trade experiences in the VOYA between 1730 and 1870 (Catton and Montgomery 2000:4). VOYA is a NPS unit located in the Rainy Lake-area of northern Minnesota. The park incorporates over 217,000 acres and a part of the “Voyageur’s Highway,” an old mainline fur- trade canoe route extending between Lake Superior and the northwest interior of Canada. Much of the park area is comprised of surface water, now regulated by reservoir dams. While the surface water has influenced local settlement, land use, and transportation since ancient times, it is the historic era of the fur trades that gives VOYA its historical identity and name. The NPS is currently sponsoring programs to locate, identify, evaluate, and protect fur trade resources in the park, and the IMA, through a cooperative agreement with the NPS, is assisting these efforts. This volume consists of six sections or “chapters,” including an introduction, four research papers, and a concluding paper. Each “chapter” has its own list of cited references. The introduction (Chapter 1) provides background information about VOYA and discusses the general content and goals of this volume. The first paper (Chapter 2) addresses prior VOYA-related fur trade studies and study results. The second paper (Chapter 3) reports on small-scale inventory and excavation activities at VOYA sites 21SL173, 21SL191, and 21SL47 and concludes that each of these sites contains a fur trade component likely associated with the Bois Forte Ojibwe. The third paper (Chapter 4) discusses VOYA’s water resources and offshore archaeological potentials, and reports on the 2001 underwater search for possible material evidence of the fur trades at Soldier Point and sites 21SL47, 21SL82, and 21SL212. Despite careful planning and execution, no workable offshore archaeological sites, features, or deposits were identified. The fourth paper (Chapter 5) is a preliminary report on VOYA-area fur trade artifact collections held by various private parties and by the Koochiching Museums in International Falls. It describes the kinds of fur trade objects observed during the study, explores how and when they were used, and assays their potentials for further research and interpretation. The final paper (Chapter 6) summarizes what is now known about the park’s fur trade history and makes recommendations for future fur trade studies, including continued field and archival research, documentation and analysis of artifact collections, and underwater archaeological surveys. CONTENTS Management Summary...................................................................................................................... Acknowledgments............................................................................................................................. Chapter 1. Introduction (by Douglas A. Birk)................................................................................ 1 Chapter 2. Knowing the Past (by Douglas A. Birk) ....................................................................... 7 Chapter 3. Archeological Test Excavations at Three Sites with Fur-Trade Components in Voyageurs National Park, St. Louis County, Minnesota (by Jeffrey J. Richner)....... 15 Chapter 4. Underwater Archaeological Survey of Selected Offshore Areas at Voyageurs National Park, St. Louis County, Minnesota, 2001 (by Douglas A. Birk) ................. 44 Chapter 5. Voyageurs National Park Preliminary Fur Trade Artifact Study (by Douglas A. Birk)…….................................................................................................................... 55 Chapter 6. Potentials and Recommendations (by Douglas A. Birk and Jeffrey J. Richner). ..... 138 LIST OF NUMBERED FIGURES Figure 1.1. A map showing old mainline canoe routes ................................................................... 2 Figure 1.2. A map of Voyageurs National Park and the surrounding area...................................... 3 Figure 3.1. Site 21SL173............................................................................................................... 24 Figure 3.2. Selected Artifacts from 2001 fieldwork...................................................................... 27 Figure 3.3. Site 21SL191............................................................................................................... 29 Figure 3.4. Selected Artifacts from 2001 fieldwork...................................................................... 31 Figure 3.5. Site 21SL47................................................................................................................. 36 Figure 4.1. Frances Anne Hopkins oil painting, Voyageurs at Dawn............................................ 46 Figure 4.2. The 2001 VOYA underwater survey team .................................................................. 49 Figure 6.1. Life-long Rainy Lake residents, Don “Buck” Johnson and Lauren Erickson........... 140 LIST OF NUMBERED TABLES Table 5.1. Itemized inventory of observed fur trade artifact collections..................................... 117 Table 5.2. Listing of observed artifacts by function and by frequency of occurrence. ............... 120 Table 5.3. Functional classification of observed artifacts ........................................................... 121 Table 5.4. Ranked order of various functional groupings of fur trade materials......................... 114 Table 5.5. VOYA artifact study, relative dates ........................................................................... 122 Table 5.6. VOYA artifact collections, bracketing dates.............................................................. 125 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We welcome this opportunity to thank all who assisted the VOYA research described in this report. First and foremost we are grateful to NPS Cultural Resources Specialist, Mary Graves, who has the good fortune of being permanently stationed at VOYA. Mary, a selfless archaeologist and humanitarian, has worked diligently at the park since 1980 promoting and assisting park resource investigations. Her enthusiasm for VOYA history and research are indeed contagious. Richner thanks his 2001 field crew including Midwest Archeological Center (MWAC) Archeological Technician Peter Taber, MWAC volunteers John Banks and Richard Webster, VOYA Forestry Technician Kurt Fogelberg, and Mary Graves. Mary also coordinated the overall project that resulted in Chapter 3 of this report. Peter analyzed and cataloged the collections retrieved during MWAC fieldwork and Janet Robertson illustrated the fur trade artifacts. Thanks to Joe Cayou, an experienced boat operator and guide, now semi-retired from the NPS, who consistently demonstrated patience, skill, and good-humor in getting us to and from project areas within the park. Thanks too to David Cooper, Chief of Resource Management at Grand Portage National Monument. Cooper, the former head of underwater archaeology for the state of Wisconsin, accompanied Graves and Birk on an initial tour of potential dive sites within VOYA. In addition to consulting on the underwater surveys, Cooper also helped arrange volunteer divers. Birk is beholden to volunteer divers Steven Daniel, Kenneth (“Ken”) Knutson, and Robert (“Bob”) Olson, from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society (GLSPS) for their participation in underwater archaeological surveys at VOYA. Steven, Ken, and Bob are seasoned deep-water divers who regularly dive Lake Superior. They not only made great dive partners, observers, and