Hiway16 Magazine... about people and places in north-central British Columbia, Canada

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Signs of the Past

From Hazelton west, First Nations people used Red Cedar bark for mats, clothing, construction and more. Click on the photo to the right to see a knife or axe cut straight across the bark at the top of the photo. Another cut was made across the bottom and a wide strip of cedar bark was pulled from the tree. This is known as a rectangular bark strip.

All bark strips and CMTs can be dated accurately. The tree is cored and another core is taken at the middle of the scar. If the tree is 200 years old and the core from the scar shows 90 years, we know that the bark was stripped 110 years ago or in the spring of 1895.

Rectangular bark strips on a Red Cedar

Any CMT tree that dates before 1846 is automatically protected by the Heritage Conservation Act and cannot be cut. Every forestry cut block in BC is evaluated for trees that have been culturally modified before 1846. Once found, such CMTs are recorded and either left standing or topped above the scar. Any CMT tree dated after 1846 can be cut without a permit.

Why 1846? That's when the Oregon Treaty was signed by the US and British to define the border in western Canada along the 49th parallel. The Archeology Branch has decided that any CMT before that date has special historic value.

Centimetre scale next to large ancient stone tools

Smithers resident Matt Begg's job as a professional archeologist is to document culturally modified trees and other archaelogical artifacts that are found on forestry cut blocks, mine sites, housing subdivisions or anywhere the land suface is disturbed.

Matt and his crew do traverses across proposed timber cut blocks and measure and record every CMT they find. They also do shovel tests. They dig under the moss cover looking for ancient stone tools or signs of a camp or village.

CMTs are easy to find. Matt says that there are CMTs at the playground near the Civic Arena in Smithers. Other good CMT trees are near Ft Babine and around Houston. There are CMTs along the McDonnell Lake Forest Service Road that date back to the late 1700s which means that they are more than 225 years old. Others are found at Whitesail Lake south of Houston.

Another collection of CMTs are along the Aldermere trail in Telkwa. Here's a trail description.

Click for a photo at the Smithers Civic Arena playground.






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