In the summer of 1999 we dug into Fort Steele's past. Not through the archives using pen and paper, but through the lawn using trowels and dental picks. Yes, that's right, the second year of an archaeological excavation was underway.

Archaeology is the study of past communities and cultures through the materials they left behind. Most of the time when people think of archaeology, visions of Ancient Egypt flash into their minds. But archaeology can actually cover any time period in the last half a million years and be done anywhere in the world. The materials we are excavating at Fort Steele Heritage Town may not seem old enough to be archaeological as we are concentrating on areas dating from the 1860s to the 1950s. This type of archaeology is called "Historical Archaeology" and uses historical documents (such as newspapers, maps and photographs) to provide added background information.

This project was designed to add to our knowledge of Fort Steele's past while letting the public come into contact with archaeology, archaeologists and artifacts in the field. We are doing this through several means. One way is by having the excavations on site and clearly visible to the public. By doing this, visitors to Fort Steele have access to a display that is both interactive and dynamic - where they can talk to the excavators and see a display that is changing daily. As part of the interpretation team at Fort Steele, historical archaeology adds to the overall experience of the visitor.

The first area we started excavating in the summer of 1999 was a large rectangular depression about 3m by 2m in size. The depression has been sinking continually over the heritage site's 30-year history. No one knew what had caused the depression so archaeology was the best way to find out. A few suggestions were made before we started including that it may have been a cesspit, a cellar or an old car used as a septic tank. What it turned out to be is an old cellar. We have documentary evidence that this cellar dates to 1898 or before and that a business was built over top of the cellar by 1900. That business, along with many others on the same block, burned down in 1906. The majority of the artifacts excavated, however, are from the 1930s or 1940s. How can this be? Well, people lived here in the 1940s and they used the old cellar hole as a dump. Some of the materials found to date include a ring, hundreds of tin cans, bottles, fragments of a bowl and the front axle of a Model T Ford.

Visitors viewing the site

The summer of 1998 we also excavated a unit in what we suspected was an old outhouse or privy. The initial indication that something was here was a 1.5m wide round depression that was greener than its surroundings. Digging up an old outhouse sounds disgusting to some, but people deposited a lot of garbage down their privies. It is not uncommon to find bottles, chamber pots, kitchen garbage, toys and the like down an old outhouse hole. This hole, however, was quite different from a typical outhouse. The first meter and a half consisted of sand that was used to fill the depression. Under that we found deposits with lots of very fragmented materials – normally an outhouse has things that are either whole or broken into a few pieces. It is odd to find such broken up stuff. Under that, and continuing down past 2.2 meters were some very large pieces of metal, wood, and chicken wire. At this point it was getting a little too dangerous to have this hole open and to be in the bottom of it, so we just do not know how deep the deposits actually go. We also did not find the typical, rich deposits associated with outhouse deposits. One expects to find seeds, small pieces of bone and lye under ground but none of these were discovered. Because the deposits are so different from a typical outhouse, we may actually be looking at something else.

The third place we excavated in 1999 were focussed around an area behind one of the oldest hotels at Fort Steele: the Windsor. Two areas were of interest in this location. The first was an odd-shaped depression out behind the hotel. We have pictures of the Windsor Hotel, but none showing the backyard. Archaeology was the only way to explore this place. With excavations that have continued this summer we have found another cellar. Although this one did not provide a large amount of tin cans and bottles as the last one did, the wooden structure of the cellar is very much in tact. This cellar is teaching us a lot about how cellars were constructed and used. So far we do not have a firm date for this feature, but it appears to date from the 1890s.

Just to the east of this cellar we have been trying to find a bowling alley and shooting gallery that apparently opened up in the late 1890s. We have a newspaper article from this time period announcing the opening of this establishment beside the Windsor Hotel. In 1999 we explored on building and found evidence for the building being lived in and used as a laundry, but no sign of a shooting gallery. So this summer we moved a little further east and explored another building. Again, we found no evidence for the building being used this way, but we found something very interesting in deed. In this building we found evidence both for a livery stable and a car repair garage. It appears that the building was first a livery and then turned into a garage. This was apparently common as the carriage turned into the automobile.

Archaeology is yet another method Fort Steele Heritage Town has employed to learn more about the past. Different from history, archaeology concentrates on the materials used by people of the past to make general assumptions about everyday life (finding out what people ate, where they imported their goods from, the types of vehicles they used, the medicines they consumed - the list could go on forever). History, on the other hand, tends to look at specific people and specific events. By using this tool called archaeology, a whole new dimension of Fort Steele's past may be brought into view.

Part of a Job Creation Program funded by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), this project is designed to educate the public about archaeology and Fort Steele's past. Other generous funding partners and sponsors include the Ministry of Small Business Tourism and Culture, the Friends of Fort Steele, First Jobs in Science and Technology 2000 , British Columbia Heritage Trust, CIBC, BC Hydro, the Columbia Brewery, AEC Oil and Gas, the East Kootenay Community Credit Union, Westburne Supply Cranbrook, Kinette Club of Cranbrook, the University Women’s Club of Cranbrook, and the Key City Odd Fellows. The Fort Steele Heritage Town is grateful to all of these partners.