Archaeological work to continue at Old Bezanson Townsite

Morton says the survey included looking for old cellar pits and foundations. Test pits were also dug where there were no signs of old buildings. They mostly found things like old nails and glass There was also a stone flake that would indicate potential for an Indigenous component to this research.

Morton says he became interested after he and co-researcher/spouse Dr. Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown moved to the Peace three years ago after travelling around, becoming familiar with the area and learning the area’s history. They have a similar community-focused project in Belize on an ancient Maya site.

“With COVID and us not being able to travel to Belize for our regular research and just with the opportunities of having a great site like Bezanson this close to where we’re living here in Grande Prairie, it all just kind of lined up.”

Morton says the site in Belize looks at urban development, specifically looking at it as a boomtown. The Old Bezanson site offers a chance for similar research.

“We’re interested in questions of how did the site develop, what kinds of features, buildings, services, comforts did people bring in when they were setting up the site to make it feel like home? Essentially, how do you live in a community like this.”

Morton says there are many boomtowns in the world. Grande Prairie would also be one.

“In many cases, such as at Grande Prairie, the town has continued. and so the archaeological signature of that initial period of development is buried or obscured under the next 100 years or so of people living here.”

At Bezanson, the site was founded in 1911 and abandoned in 1926.

“Which means there isn’t that over-burden of stuff. We can get a really clear view of the site’s development and so that’s really interesting to us,” says Morton.

He adds they are interested in studying what happened before, during, and after pioneer times.

“Just because of the nature of the site, it focuses on the establishment, occupation, and abandonment of the townsite itself”

“But the reality is is that even though the site no longer functioned as townsite, post-abandonment, it still had a life, it still had a presence, people did stuff there, so we would be capturing something of that.”

“One of the reasons the site is located where it’s located is because it’s a relatively easy fording point of the Smoky River and so long before settler populations were in the area, Indigenous populations were making use of that same fording location. We expect there should be an Indigenous component, perhaps going back thousands of years.”

Morton says they would be looking at not just the old townsite, but also the Smoky flood plain, the upper river terrace and surrounding areas.

He adds planning for what comes next is underway.

“Right now, we’re applying for funding to support a larger program at the site. We will apply for permits to accompany that.” (Archaeological work is done under permits from the province).

“Hopefully this summer, we’ll have some larger excavations, so not just these small test pits but broader excavations where we can try and identify specific archaeological features.”

Morton says ideally, they would find some garbage dumps.

He adds they are hoping that by the summer of 2023, the hope is this would become an open, public program where people could come out and try doing archaeological work. They would also like to introduce school programs. He adds they would be happy to show people around if they come to visit the site while the researchers are there.

by Curtis Galbraith

Archaeological work to continue at Old Bezanson Townsite

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