Hi everyone, this is Jamie Bennett from the Fort St. Joseph Advisory Committee!
A little over a year ago, the City of Niles announced it had openings for several committee positions available. Since I have a love of history and felt like I had too much free time, I applied to join the Fort St. Joseph Archeological Committee. In January of 2019, the city approved adding me to the committee, and I was excited to be involved with Fort St. Joseph Archeology!!
A little over a year ago, the City of Niles announced it had openings for several committee positions available. Since I have a love of history and felt like I had too much free time, I applied to join the Fort St. Joseph Archeological Committee. In January of 2019, the city approved adding me to the committee, and I was excited to be involved with Fort St. Joseph Archeology!!
At one of our spring meetings, Dr Nassaney invited the committee members to join the summer camp. While Dr Nassaney gave an amazing account of the activities to the committee, it is a completely different experience being there yourself. My older son had attended the camp and enjoyed it. So I decided, yes, I’m in!! But due to a scheduling conflict with work, I signed up for the 2nd week with high schoolers from July 22nd until July 26th.
Before the camp began we were given a packing list of items to bring, and were informed that we would meet at the Niles History Center for the first day of camp. There, we were introduced to our instructor for the week, Tim Bober. The camps are broken down into two parts: We would meet in the morning at the Niles District Library at 9 AM for a lecture and classroom work. In the afternoon, the campers ride over to the site for lunch with the college students and archaeology team. After lunch, campers work with their own camper excavation units!
Tim Bober is currently a college professor of archeology at WMU. He passed out binders with reference materials about general archeology, nomenclature, and history related to Fort St. Joseph in Niles. The materials were extra reading and unassigned, which I find is the best. Honestly, I was exhausted everyday after camp. I asked Tim if he uses the same lectures each year, which he replied he does. Tim was very animated and engaging during the lectures. He definitely has a passion for the materials he presents. He was also a great source of information for those interested in pursuing archeology as a non-academic career.
While we didn’t work with the WMU students, we did tour their units every day after lunch. The students provided details about their units, such as features and artifacts of interest. This year, the project had done something new. We had decided to take a look underneath the 20th century landfill. It was a bit surreal to be standing on piles of garbage and looking down into their units. The WMU students worked inside these trenches surrounded by mounds of modern day waste.
Afterwards, we headed down to the camper units where we would work in pairs. The site had three camper units. Each unit had its own individual uniqueness. The campers rotated often, so we all excavated in each of the units, and worked at the wet screens. Personally, I enjoyed leaning over scraping small areas in the units, only digging 2 or 3 centimeters of the rich dark soil, and standing in the blazing sun with a hose getting muddy and wet at the wet screens. To each our own as there were several campers who enjoyed the wet screening!!
During the excavations, there is a lot of down time. During our first day, Tim encouraged us to talk about our hobbies while we excavate. And each morning, we had an exercise to discuss something fun that had happened during the previous evening. That made the experience more enjoyable for me. Not only were we learning about the history of the fort and archeology, we were connecting and learning about other people.
The units I worked on were started by the middle school campers during the previous week. And after the work we had accomplished, the life long learners would continue to work in the same units the following week. The camper units in themselves did hold several interesting discoveries. There was a large piece of pottery which held my interest and imagination. We also found lots of bones. The campers learned skills completing documentation, troweling, and wet screening. Our instructor, Tim Bober, was very supportive and fun. It was a great experience. My younger son can’t wait until he can go to the camp as well!!
Happy New Year,
Jamie Bennett
