LOOSING OLD FRIENDS

The sudden loss of an old friend not only leaves an empty hole in your life, but it also makes you realize that we are all getting older - much, much older, and we too will soon be going on to whatever there is after death. A lot of my friends and relatives have passed on, some much earlier than one would expect and their passing's were real shockers.

Looking at the newspaper obituaries every day has become a full-time job for anyone over fifty, it seems and then, when you retire, it magically becomes a new job. When I was much younger I used to smile as my mother read the daily list of the departed in the evening paper. I didn't understand the attraction then, but I do now.

We're looking, with dread, for names of people who we either knew quite well; friends whom we haven't talked to for many years; school mates who shared a happier, worry-free past; old boy or girl friends, once romantically involved, but their fates unknown through past decades. Then suddenly, when you least expect it, their name appears . Heart stopping.

I can remember when people died of old age, heart attacks and accidents. Now-a-days, if you live to a ripe old age, they say you've beaten the system and had a good life.

The number of cancer deaths in any given month is nearly unbelievable, yet if you visit the cancer clinic at London Health Center and see the throngs of cancer patients receiving treatments daily, you'd say we were in the middle of an epidemic.

Yes, it's hard to lose family members or friends, but it's not hard to phone, email or write to those loved ones or old chums just to touch base. If you put it off and keep putting it off, someday it'll be too late, and then you'll wish you had acted when you had the chance.

DAY OF THE DIG

Photo courtesy of Rick Arsenault

It was a bright sunny morning when I arrived at Fort Beausèjour, well before the rest of my digging colleagues. I had been accepted for the early morning archeology dig on Friday the 13th of August, the last weekend of the 2010 program.

There was a short introduction, by Archeologist Charles Burke, on the process used to map out areas selected for an archeological study; how we should scrape/sift through the earth; what we would be looking for, and what we would probably find - if we were lucky. Following this we drove the short distance to the actual dig site located in a wide farm field, just steps away from a large marsh which separated the former village from the distant Fort.

During the introduction at the Fort, we had been told that when Parks Canada had acquired the 137 acres of the village, they had no idea of how the village had been laid out. In order to find some clue as to where to excavate, they dug several test holes throughout the site. If the test hole produced artifacts then they stopped excavation and moved on to another spot. After several shallow holes, or plots, were dug they could then evaluate what they had found, and sketch a rough map, with the help of satellite photographs, of how the village may have been laid out.

To test their theory, squares between 8 and 10 feet apiece were marked out in staggered patterns. In the photo below, taken a few years ago, you can see some rocks along the left hand side of the forward square. They could possibly indicate a wall or remains of some building, and the other squares behind it are exploratory holes to try and find connecting walls.

There were ten of us that bright sunny morning, plus Mr. Burk’s four archeological assistants, and they quickly assigned us to several of the pre-worked plots and handed us our tools - a bucket to carry dirt in, a small trowel to scrape the earth with, a dust pan for lifting the dirt into the bucket, a kneeling pad (thank goodness for that) and a pair of gloves.

We were shown how big an area to work and how to use the trowel to gently scrape away the compacted dirt, keeping a close eye as we went along for any signs of something that didn’t look like it belonged there.

When he assigned a section for me work, Mr. Burk indicated that I would might find some interesting items. The previous two days had uncovered several small but interesting items, but by noon I had only found several chicken bones, one lambs tooth, and a handful of Daubs.
A Daub looks very much like a misshapen piece of clay that could be completely overlooked if you didn’t know what it actually was.

When the Acadians built their log and stone buildings, they filled the cracks between the main material width a mixture of straw and mud, insulating their homes against the harsh Maritime winters. When the village was razed in 1750, the heat of the fires cooked the hardened insulation, turning it into lumps of ash which are called Daubs.

They have no value except that Mr. Burk explained to me that he has us collect them because some day he hopes to find imbedded in a Daub, the fingerprint of one of the early Acadians.

Although I didn’t find anything of great historical value, the whole experience of actually being a part of a real archeology dig, in a place where my ancestor once resided, was a thrill of a lifetime.

If you are interested in more information on the Beaubassin site and seeing pictures of what artifacts has been found so far, go to: http://publicarchaeologyexperience.wordpress.com/

For a little over two decades I’ve been searching through old records and history books, putting together the family histories of both my parents. It’s been an interesting trip which isn’t over by far, and it’s led me to some of the most startling findings - some happy and some very sad.

My ancestor on my Paternal side, Pierre Gaudin dit Chatillon, came to “New France” in 1635 as part of La Grande Recruè - 153 tradesmen, pioneers, nurses and teachers, under the leadership of M. De Maisonneuve, founder and Governor of Villemarie - Montreal.

After some 20 years in Montreal Pierre moved his family to Acadia, joining his oldest son Laurent who was already established at Beaubassin, a growing Acadian settlement in the Cumberland Basin at the isthmus of the Bay of Fundy.

The picture above, taken at Fort Beausèjour, built by the French in 1751 sits high above the wide expanse of marshland, which the Acadians diked, growing an abundance of crops and raising large herds of livestock.

The family connection with this particular area is one of the reasons my wife and I visited this and several other areas in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia last summer. The land on which Fort Beausèjour was built was once owned by Laurent, and was named after him. I had mistakenly thought he, and his brother Pierre, once resided and farmed there, but standing on that majestic piece of land, I realized he may have owned it, but he had actually resided in the Beaubassin settlement some distance from the fort.

The fort itself was very large and built in a star formation. Surrounded by a deep moat with high berms. Its design made it virtually impenetrable.

Unfortunately, the French never believed the English would attack en masse and on foot, which they did. The berms and moat keep the enemy at bay, but a slight rise in the land at the rear of the fort allowed the English to shoot their guns down into the fort, eventually forcing the French to surrender to the British in 1755 and was later renamed Fort Cumberland.

Each summer for the past five years Parks Canada has offered public participation in their very popular “Public Archaeology Experience,” a program which invites anyone to come and dig with the Archeologists, at the Beaubassin settlement.

I’ll tell you more in the next installment about my one day participation, and how it felt to be looking for artifacts in as small section of land on which my ancestors may have lived in the early 1700's.

Picture and numbered descriptions of Fort Beausèjour, courtesy of Parks Canada