Parks Canada Underwater Archaeologist at Section Cove, 2006
Parks Canada has a great underwater archaeology unit. They have been coming out to dive on targets we’ve identified on the drowned terrestrial landscape of Haida Gwaii. This picture shows an archaeologist with a suction hose on the bottom near (though, sadly, not on) the target we identified at the outlet of the lake that formerly sat in Section Cove, near Huxley Island. This target is at about 33 metres below the surface, while the diver here is at about 27 metres down, so on a small bump above ancient landform of interest – not a place with zero potential, but not a huge amount either, we don’t think. The hose sucked out the bottom sediments into a mesh bag which could then be lifted by crane onboard the mother ship, and screened on deck. Therefore, it was not really a lift hose, but the system worked pretty well though as I say, it was not applied to the precise location of the high potential. In future years once this dive team perfects their procedures for working in this difficult location and at challenging depths we hope to find some very cool archaeological stuff dating to the terminal Pleistocene / end of the last ice age.
Northwest Coast Archaeology 