Rotating groups of archaeology enthusiasts and history buffs spent time with their knees in the dirt of the Quyon fairgrounds over the past two weekends to partake in the third annual public archaeology dig hosted by the Friends of Chats Falls.
While the group’s first two digs took place at Pointe a l’Indienne, a small peninsula which sticks out into the Ottawa River just upriver of Quyon, this year’s dig on the Quyon fairgrounds positioned the event smack-dab in the middle of town.
“We already did two years at Pointe a l’Indienne, and we know that this place here has a high potential for archaeology,” said Audrey Lapointe, one of the founding members of Archéo-Pontiac, the archaeology wing of Friends of Chats Falls.
She said on the occasion of Quyon’s 150th anniversary, and the Municipality of Pontiac’s 50th, she figured it was a good opportunity to dig up some of the town’s history and help residents engage with their ancestors through the objects they’ve left behind.
“I think it’s a good reason to come and dig in the park to figure out things we don’t know about, because it’s really the first time we do archaeology here in the park,” she said.
“So we don’t know what we’re going to find. We’re hoping we’ll find something that’s going to tell us more about the story of this territory.”
She said having the site right in town also makes it more accessible to residents of all ages, including the students at the Sainte-Marie school, where she teaches.
Archaeologists Gina Vincelli and Luce Lafrenière Archambault traveled to the site from the Montreal area both weekends to help guide the diggers and make sense of what they were finding.
This was the third year they supported Friends of Chats Falls in these digs.
“Here, when the village was first starting, this was a bit of a dump site, where people would come to dump their table scraps, garbage from their lots, and even old cars and motor pieces,” Archambault said. “We’re descending in depth and are starting to find objects from the 1850s, [and] the 1820s.”
Vincelli said the archaeologists knew this could be a rich site because of its location where the Quyon river flows out into the Ottawa.
“The archives told us there has been occupation since the colonial era, but we don’t have maps that show exactly where the buildings were,” she said, explaining they’re trying to find exactly where the old houses were.
The public dig was held over the span of two weekends, beginning Sept. 27. On Saturday, the second last day of the dig, new and seasoned excavators were hard at work to find more treasures before the event wrapped up.
Quyon resident Marie-Claude Blanchard was among them, back for more after spending the event’s first weekend at the site.
She sat with three others in a square hole over a foot deep, carefully scraping away layer after layer of dirt, and carefully removing any objects she found in a white plastic bucket.
“The archaeologists document whatever we find. [ . . . ] We’re trying to get to a level where it’s pre-1900s. Because we did a pre-session in June, and I went deep enough where I found a pipe, and it was more dated around the early 1800s.”
“It’s always been a passion of mine to do this kind of research – archaeology. I grew up in France, and we did a lot of that with my mom. [ . . . ] It’s just about finding the history of this area too, which is pretty interesting,” Blanchard said.
Aylmer residents Lynn Bazinet and her son Samuel Danis traveled to Quyon for the day to participate in the dig, something they’ve been doing for several years now.
“It kind of wakes up that child in you,” Bazinet said. “I came alone and then brought my kids because I figured it’s a good experience for them.”
