M E T A L M A N 9

M E T A L M A N 9

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June 1 and June 9, 2024 Precontact Pottery Found

June 1 and June 9, 2024 Precontact Pottery Found

June 1 and June 9, 2024 Precontact Pottery Found. Red River Lot 153 and 154. These two pieces of land never cease to amaze… truly! They come with a very long history that I never expected to discover while out Metal Detecting. The first reference of habitation that I originally found was in the pages of a book called “Reapers of the Valley 1882 - 1982”. Link below is to the U of M digital collections. I again saw reference to this area on a “proposed railway” map where “Gaultier” was formerly mentioned. Gaultier was to be the name of the village in the “Two Little Points” area but much like another village to be, near Emerson called St. Pie, they never grew. The CN rail line bypassed both of these communities and thus Letellier was born in the early 1890’s. (I have yet to find the exact date the railway arrived). Everything moved to Letellier. I have also accessed the Manitoba Land Titles Offices and now have copies of all of the original owners of River Lot 153 starting back from 1870 with Mr. Joseph Godon and Mr. Joseph Parent as his neighbor on Lot 154. Incidentally, the Parent lineages still live in the area. You might think that you own a piece of land or property but you are only its custodian until it passes on to a new owner in time. It is the same going back in time. Finding an arrowhead or two tells us that an aboriginal hunter walked and hunted in this area eons ago but pottery sherds tell of a more permanent presence a very long time ago... Precontact. In this general area, initial contact with Europeans would have been around 1734 – 1736 as per the monument in Letellier. Gaultier was situated within the Two Little Points for some of the same reasons as why aboriginal people would have chosen this very spot to presumably set up camp. It has an elevated and a grand view of the river. See picture: Take away today’s windmills and your back 1000 years plus in time. The location is in between two bends in the river so your game is trapped in woodlands within the U shape and you have access to endless open prairie to the west. A very comfortable and safe location indeed. I have found two pieces of clearly identifiable pottery sherds to date. It is pure luck. I initially thought that the first piece was a piece of plastic. It is remarkably light in weight and the markings were caked with soil and not readily visible. It was not until I cleaned the piece at home that I realized just what I had found. I quite enjoy picking up the glass and ceramic pieces that litter the ground in this area. I also see surface metal items too, all without the need of my trusted metal detector. Ground Finds or Finds by Sight are a key part of the hobby. Remember, metal detectors only detect metals and the odd hot rock, not glass and certainly not pottery. I have to thank two dear friends: Sid and Pam Kroker for their guidance, advice and expertise on all matters archeological. They identified and confirmed the pottery and provided approximate dates. The accompanying pictures show the wide variety of metal items that I did find with my metal detector. As a side note, I detected a flattened coal pail buried at a depth of about 1 ½ feet. I ended up digging quite the hole. Let’s call it a small crater! In this same hole, I also dug up many pieces of what seemed to be one glass bottle. I packed these away separately and, just for fun, I later reconstructed the bottle. Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle. I’m missing a piece, half of the bottom, so it won’t stay up on its own but I’m quite pleased with the overall results. Yes, that’s one of the things that I do on rainy days when I have to hang up my metal detector. And yes, I did go back a few days later to reopen this crater. I found three more pieces of my bottle but no half bottom. Another thing that I do during down time is restore some of the more interesting iron finds. I do so in part, using a Rock Tumbler. The relics are then oiled to prevent rusting. One of the maps, the 1851 Hinds map of the Red River shows incredible detail. Two little Points is mentioned. The other is the Railway proposal map. Date unknown. Things to look for in the photos: Enjoy… Selkirk Pottery Cir. 700 – 1700. Most Probably 1200 – 1700. Spoon: Nevada Silver O.S. Co. Bullet: 7.58 gm. L P Co tube and screw cap. Tube is lead and the cap is copper. Reconstructed glass bottle. 4’ long chain and anchor plate. 4 Shotgun shell bottoms. Ceramic shards with color designs or writing. Iron pieces and the same Restored iron relics. Maps showing Gaultier and Tow Little Points Roger Reference: Sherd: refers specifically to broken pieces of pottery. Shard: refers to broken pieces of glass, metal, and ceramic and other non-pottery bits. h t t p s : / / d i g i t a l c o l l e c t i o n s . l i b . u m a n i t o b a . c a / i s l a n d o r a / o b j e c t / u o f m % 3 A 2 246399#page/28/mode/1up https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1607 h t t p s : / / m a n i t o b a a r c h a e o l o g i c a l s o c i e t y . c a / s i t e s / d e f a u l t / f i l e s / p a g e / p d f / pottery-aug-2016.pdf h t t p s : / / s h a . o r g / a s s e t s / d o c u m e n t s / T r a d e m a r k s % 2 0 o n % 2 0 B a s e - Metal%20Tableware.pdf

June 9, 2024 Between the Highways

June 9, 2024 Between the Highways

June 9, 2024 Between the Highways. I’m on Red River Lot 153 and 154 again. But this time I’m in between the Old 14 and 75 Highways. Both of these run parallel to each other in a North –South direction. The Old 14 was sort of an evolution of the old Pembina Trail, (more or less) and the 75 Highway came in much later on the west side of the railway and long after the rails were laid. River Lots 153 and 154 have featured a lot in my past posts and I’m sure will continue to do so. There’s so much history to be discovered. Most of the historical activity seems to be focused closer to the river, but I have had some luck in finding interesting items in between the highways in the past. See: May 28, 2023 – “Following the Pembina Trail” . The boat oar anchor was a special find way out in mid field. Something that also draws me for some strange reason is an open field. Something plain and unassuming and with no particular promise of discovery, yet these locations always seem to yield the most surprising of finds. So, with no special promise, here I go again, between the highways… I’m not expecting to find much. It’s usually a mix of modern and slightly older farm machinery parts. Fencing staples abound, especially in the space between the river lots and around their perimeters. Everything must have been fenced in for cattle way back when. For clear evidence of this, to the point where you can actually tell where the fence post must have been... See: June 5, 2023 – “More of “Following the Pembina Trail” . The last picture provided is from that outing shows red flags where the staples were found. Always interesting are the Bullets and Shell Casings that routinely show up in open fields. A bullet is fired off by a hunter decades or even a century ago, never to be seen again… until today. Wow. That is such luck in finding something so small. The Manitoba ORV license plate (Off Road Vehicle) was completely buried and made my metal detector go nuts but cleaned up nice. It might have belonged to my nephew Gabriel. He likes his ATVs and Snowmobiles. The partial jackknife is an obvious item and old too but the round brass screw cap, well, I have no idea what that would have been used for. The two foot long screw pins were probably parts of the center pivot irrigation system that once watered these fields. The rocks well, pink and green granite is just pretty, what more can I say. Roger