By Maryanna Gabriel
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| My mother did a sketch of our camp at Gibbs Creek. |
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| Our crew. I am center. |
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| Cooking dinner on bed-springs. I am right. |
I was headed up the Fraser to a creek where we had all made camp and from where we did our surveillance and excavations. Once I assisted on a burial. Another time I was selected to accompany a palynologist to a lake that was high up. We bored for samples and he talked to me about what he was thinking he was going to find as a means for assisting with the dating of the occupations we were researching. We used carbon dating as well. For awhile I thought I would be a palynologist but I changed my mind thinking there might not be a high demand for work. I thought a lot about the creek that we camped by. It seemed to accompany the memory, the rushing sound of water we slept to and where we washed and swam.
I dove past Fountain and it was this Band that owned the land and from whom we had obtained permission to excavate. I remembered a most awful story. A woman in Fountain had fought off a cougar protecting children and in a most dreadful drama she saved them but not before the cougar ripped her apart. I shivered. This was also rattlesnake country although I had never seen one of those. I do remember a local telling me that he had decided there was no gold in them thar' holes that we were excavating. He had driven his bulldozer through a site looking. Nope. Not one speck of gold. The doctorate in charge of the research was bowled over with that one. It was a bit hard to take in and more than a little overwhelming as to how to respond to that besides the fact it is illegal. I hesitated by the road where we had all been and not a soul was in sight. I wanted to explore but it was private property and I did not have permission. It was an interesting and exciting time with lots of camaraderie and fun in addition to the high learning curve. I turned away, curious about the country I was driving through. I had a date with a bath tub and I needed to keep it before it got too dark for me to find my way.
