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Indian Village
Sun, 30 Mar 2008
Hi Wayne and Sandy
I used Google to take a look up the creek. Approximately 1950 feet
north-north west of the bridge, the creek empties from a wider and more
shallow valley which has a light coloured field on the east side of the
creek. Many trails are visible but what caught my attention are the
clear lines of poles from a couple of longhouses. The measurements match
very well with the ones over at Crawford Lake Conservation, (33 feet
wide by 183 feet long, with three lines of posts running parallel, the
center line supporting the ridge of the longhouse). There are signs of a
pallisade, another smaller long house to the south of the main one, and
three large circular shapes which may have been other buildings. The
coordinates for this if you want to look them up on Google, are 43D 41M.
41.18 S. North x 79D. 58M. 32.23 S West. This puts you right in the
middle of the main longhouse. I have asked Heather Henderson, and
Archaeologist to comment on this site because she will have data on the
village and references.
I meant to ask why the
Catholic School Board is running a facility out of the arch frame
building at the east end of the farm? This is clearly a CVC interpretive
center with classrooms, so how do they decide that this is important but
ignore the heritage building already on the site? (Obviously dumb
question, they know it will cost money to fix.) However, it is possible
to take the tack that running an interpretive center on the site, but
ignoring the historic heritage of the site, is illogical.
Regarding the millrace, I
have been checking timber cribs and recall that a millpond in Stockdale,
that I visited in 1968 had replaced the original timber cribbing with
concrete piers but still used heavy hardwood planks as the dam to hold
back almost 15 feet of pond. the water spilled continuously through the
joints in the timbers, which I found visually fascinating. I did one of
my earliest serious sketches of this dam and mill, but the drawing is
long lost. What I do remember clearly is watching kids swim in the pond
from the top of the dam. I had never learned to swim, coming from the
dry prairie, where the only thing we called a swimming hole, was a green
smelly pool on Eagle Creek where the Herefords left patties every few
feet in the pasture. (Looking back on it, kids in Africa don't seem to
have it so bad with their swimming holes.) While standing by myself, I
suddenly felt a huge push and found myself heading straight to the
bottom of the pond. I watched the many pairs of legs treading water
above me, before realizing that someone had pushed me into the pond. I
realized that it might be a good idea to try to get back to the surface,
and had kept my mouth closed, so broke the surface in time for my older
cousin to haul me out on the shore. She chewed out the Dutch girl who
had pushed me in. (Perhaps she was trying to be friendly, but she had
never considered that somebody might not know how to swim, because
everyone she knew in Holland could swim.) So I survived my first
millpond, and paid special attention to how it functioned in the
community.
I feel fairly certain
that a 6 foot wide millrace across the road would have been bridged with
a few heavy planks allowing wagons to cross the water before it fell on
the overshot wheel. If so, the mill would have been constructed on the
east bank of the creek at the inside bend where the road bends from the
east abutment of the bridge. A high rubble wall has been laid against
this embankment to hold the soil back.
What are your thoughts?
Sincerely
Tom Murison |
