Finalising the season

Yesterday morning we packed our yellow truck, left Rick and his helpers to set up the community showing of the finest artefacts from this season, and went out to the site for a morning finalising the excavation and backfilling before heading back to the show & tell. Fortunately we had backfilling help from Mike and the Q-corp guys again, the first hour of only five shovels (as Edouard and Charlotta spent the morning drawing sections) against a mountain of dirt seemed like a Sisyphus struggle… However, with four extra pairs of strong arms and an able four wheeler the invincible piles of dirt shrunk with considerable speed, and when the hour stuck twelve most of the site was covered in dirt, and a large part also in turf. When Charlotta finally put down the pen from the last section drawing (almost dissolving in the rain), the science part of the dig was officially over, and the last little hole could finally be tarped up and backfilled together with the rest. Only hard physical labour remained to be done on site, but it would have to wait till the next day as we had a Show & Tell to orchestrate. While we were shovelling dirt Rick, Colleen and the temporary exhibition crew had arranged the room and found the hundreds of pieces that were going to be shown to the Quinhagak community. Assembled together and covering several tables, one realises how big a collection of artefacts we have from this year, and among them are several exceptional pieces. What a rich and beautiful heritage the Yup’ik have! From four people started to drop in to see the artefacts, and the room was soon full. Due to the fantastic preservation at the Nunalleq site we have such a wide range of different material, tools and craftwork; grass basketry, wooden household objects, fishing equipment and fine artwork, to mention a few. The crafts tradition is still strong in the Quinhagak community, and many of the artefacts are recognised by elders and craftspeople, bring memories to life, and inspire to storytelling and sharing of knowledge. The Quinhagak Show & Tell was a very vibrant event this year; even more so because the Quinhagak Dancers preformed in the village for the first time. It was a powerful experience to see traditional Yup’ik dancing preformed publically for the first time in 100 years.

  

Charlotta