-: [Shannon Ricles} Hi everyone.
Thank you so much for joining us today
for the American Indian Log Boats -
Every Tree Tells a Story
with Chris Southerly and John Mintz.
I'm Shannon Ricles,
the Education and Outreach Coordinator
for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary,
and I'm going to be your host today.
And joining me is Mark Losavio.
He's the media and outreach and coordinator
for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.
He's going to act as co-host today.
This webinar is brought to you
by NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
in collaboration with North Carolina Office
of State Archeology.
Partnering since 1975,
NOAA and the State of North Carolina work
to research honor and protect the hallmarks
of North Carolina's underwater cultural heritage -
shipwrecks.
Now these shipwrecks hold information
about the ever-changing technologies
and cultural and physical landscapes.
They serve as uniquely accessible underwater museums
and a memorial to generations of Mariners who lived, died,
worked and fought off our shores.
This is one of the many webinars we will be hosting
in the coming months for the Submerged NC
webinar series in collaboration
with the North Carolina Office of State Archeology.
Monitor is just one of 15 national marine sanctuaries
and two marine national monuments
in the National Marine Sanctuary System.
The system encompasses more than 620,000 square miles
of marine and Great Lakes waters from Washington state
to the Florida Keys and from Lake Huron to American Samoa.
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all attendees will be in listen-only mode.
You are welcome to type questions into the question box
at the bottom of the control panel on the right-hand side
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Now, this is the same area you can let us know
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We'll be monitoring the incoming questions
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We are recording this session and will share the recording
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So let's get started.
Chris and John, tell us about log boat initiative
of the North Carolina State of Archeology.
And let us learn more.
You ready? I'm going to change over to you.
Let's see. Change presenter.
Here we go.
All right, Chris, do you have it?
All right.
You're muted, Chris, you need to unmute yourself.
All right, there you go.
[Chris Southerly] All right.
Thanks Shannon and Mark and good afternoon,
evening or morning to everyone,
wherever you're watching from today.
As Shannon said today,
we're going to talk about American Indian log boats
in North Carolina and how every tree can tell a tale.
I'm gonna let state archeologist John Mintz start
with the presentation here for us.
And we'll kind of tag team on the slides here.
[John Mintz] Okay. Thank you, Chris.
American Indian log boats, each and everyone have
a different story to tell.
So we're going to try to tell that story to you today.
North Carolina has a vast network of more than 37,000 miles
of navigable lakes, rivers, sounds, inlets
with access to the Atlantic Ocean,
that forms the largest or the second largest estuary system
in the United States.
Almost 10% of the state is covered in water.
And North Carolina has more water than the entire state
of Connecticut has dry land.
These waters have served the peoples of North Carolina
for thousands of years.
Today, we often think of water as a barrier that needs
to be gone around or crossed with a bridge or ferry.
However, from the beginning,
even into the early 20th century,
water was an early means of travel and transportation.
Initial European settlements happened along the shorelines
with public and private landings developed over time,
all along the rivers, creeks, and sounds.
In modern terms, you can think of the rivers like
an interstate or major highway with the landings
being exit ramps, giving access to a town
or leading to a secondary road to go farther
into the countryside.
American Indians constructed dugout canoes
and relied on them for transportation, fishing,
hunting, trading, and sometimes defense,
utilizing the extensive waters of North Carolina.
First-hand accounts of early European explorers,
John Smith and Thomas Harriet combined
with Theodor De Bry's detail engravings
of John White's early drawings
provide a description of how these dugout canoes
were constructed.
The canoes were built using fire and tools.
Tools made of stone, shell, and antler to hollow out
and shape the logs into the forms and sizes
to meet the Indians' needs.
Large straight trees,
typically pine or bald cypress were carefully skirted
at the base and burned to fell them.
The laborious process of stripping limbs, bark,
and sometimes sapwood,
then took place while the ends
were further burned and shaped.
The logs were then hollowed out
by careful repetitive burning and scraping.
Often wet clay, grass, rosin,
and sometimes fat or grease were used to direct
and control the burning process.
To the left is a chart of the cultural period
and representative traditions in the coastal plain
of North Carolina.
The earliest canoe dated in North Carolina
is currently from Lake Phelps at about 2430 BC
and falls within the late Archaic period.
The earliest dugout canoe worldwide,
dates to almost 8000 BC.
To the right you see one of De Bry's engravings
showing American Indians fishing from a dugout canoe
in the late 1500's at about the time of European contact.
Like the American Indians, early European settlers
relied heavily on canoes for transportation, commerce,
fishing, and exploration in North Carolina and Virginia.
European settlers often acquired canoes
from the American Indians they encountered
and eventually emulated the construction techniques
to make their own canoes,
this time however, using iron tools to cut down
and hew out the tree trunks.
The slide in front of you,
here you can see the distribution of dugout canoes
in coastal North Carolina, broken down by county
with prehistoric / pre-contact canoes on the left
and historic post-European contact to the right.
You will notice a large concentration of prehistoric canoes
in Washington, Bladen and Columbus counties.
This corresponds to the location of some
of North Carolina's inland lakes that were extensively used
by American Indians, specifically Jones Lake,
Singletary Lake, and White Lake in Bladen County.
Lake Waccamaw in Columbus County
and the largest collection we have today
at Lake Phelps in Washington County.
The bottom table shows the distribution
of prehistoric canoes by body of water
within the respective counties noted in the top table,
notably White Lake in Bladen County,
Lake Waccamaw in Columbus County
and Lake Phelps in Washington County.
This table in front of you now shows the canoes that we have
carbon-14 dates for, broken down by body of water.
Now carbon-14, or as we normally call it,
C14 dating is not exact.
So for simplicity, what is recorded in this table
is the mean date for each of the wood samples.
Each of these samples have an error range
of plus or minus 50 years.
A few things to note on this table,
Lake Phelps has the oldest canoe from 2430
as previously mentioned in the late Archaic.
And one of the youngest from 1400 AD in the Lake Woodland,
less than 200 years from a European contact.
The canoes in Lake Phelps are all constructed
from bald cypress.
Whereas the canoes farther south along the coastal plain
are predominantly pine.
Is this just a resource issue
or is there a cultural preference for cypress over pine
in the Northeastern part of the state?
In Lake Phelps and Lake Waccamaw, there are several canoes
that have a mean carbon date only 10 or 20 years apart.
Given the error of plus or minus 50 years,
as mentioned earlier, we know that many of these canoes
were operating together on the lake.
To this point, we have looked at a lot
of background information with numbers and dates.
Now let's take a look at some of the canoes themselves
from around coastal North Carolina
before focusing in on some of our most recent work.
Here, you will see images of the Tar River canoe,
which is on exhibit at Terrell Lane Middle School
near where it was recovered.
You can see the Lumber River canoe recovered decades ago,
closer to the South Carolina line.
You can also see the Cape Fear River canoe,
which was recovered from one of the spoil islands
in the middle of the river.
And finally, in fragments of four different canoes
found at White Lake in Bladen County.
I've mentioned before North Carolina
has six natural lakes that have
had dugout canoes found in them.
The greatest number of these, 23,
are from Lake Phelps in Washington County.
The canoes from Lake Phelps are associated
with other terrestrial archeological artifacts
and features, such as projectile points,
cooking vessels and other ceramics
dating back to almost 9000 BC.
These artifacts indicate that the area
around Lake Phelps supported
a significant American Indian community
for thousands of years.
Although the oldest canoe sample only dates
to around 2500 BC.
Lake Phelps is only rain fed.
During periods of extreme drought in the 1980s,
numerous dugout canoes were discovered,
primarily along the northern shoreline, as noted here.
Initial documentation was done in 1986
with many subsequent visits
for monitoring and future research over the years.
Four of the 23 canoes were recovered
and conserved using sucrose or sugar,
but the remainder were left in situ,
meaning left where they were found
after detailed mapping and collection of wooden samples
for most of them.
[Chris Southerly] All right.
So here we see one of the longer canoes that was discovered
at Lake Phelps, measuring in at about 30 feet long,
dating to 900 BC.
PHL0002, or Phelps Lake Two, was recovered, conserved
and as John mentioned, conserved using sugar
as the bulking agent to stabilize the waterlogged wood,
and put on display at the Museum of History in Raleigh.
Now the use of sucrose or sugar for stabilization
and conservation is not ideal,
but it was selected as the most viable option at the time.
Here you see Phelps Lake number six
is still sitting in situ.
And this canoe,
when it was discovered was already broken into two pieces.
This one being a little over, in combined length,
21 feet long and dates to 230 AD.
Another of the canoes, a little bit younger, 18 feet long,
number 10, AD 420 in situ.
You can see both ends of the canoe, one part in the shallow
and the other part is still partially buried
a little further out into the lake.
Now recently, again, with the problem of sucrose,
additional research has been done concerning re-treatment
of the Lake Phelps canoes to address some of those problems.
A previous webinar in this series
discussed this in detail
and is available in the archive section,
if you're interested in looking at that.
One of our conservators, Tim Smith,
took the lead on this project under a grant project
for about a year and a half, looking at these in detail.
Now let's turn to some of our more recent endeavors
with the prehistoric dugout canoes that we have here
in North Carolina.
Now on May 16th, 2018, a local informant reported
to the director of the Fayetteville Area
Transportation and History Museum that they knew
of someone that had found a dugout canoe while fishing
along the South River,
just down from the old railroad bridge,
as they described it and planned to recover it,
dry it out and use it for fishing
because it was in such good shape.
You can see the image to the right actually shows the canoe
that the gentleman who discovered it had posted on Facebook,
making a public announcement of his finds.
Following the directions provided by the informant,
the director of the museum and two city employees
that he recruited from Fayetteville located the canoe
just south of the bridge and confirming that it was a canoe
and was relatively intact.
Now by making their way back to the road, through the swamp,
they passed two individuals, as he reported,
one armed with a pistol heading into the swamp
in the direction of the canoe.
The director then notified local law enforcement
and remained at the nearby bridge to monitor what
was going on while the city staff returned to Fayetteville
to assemble a crew, to get the necessary straps
and recovery material to properly retrieve the canoe.
By the time a Sampson County Sheriff's deputy arrived,
the individuals had pulled the canoe from the water
and appeared to be planning how to remove it from the swamp.
The deputy informed the individuals that the canoe
was state, in other words, public property,
and to return to the roadway
and leave the canoe where it was.
The city crew returned shortly, went back into the swamp,
along the river and recovered the canoe,
taking it to the museum where it was kept wrapped and wet.
Now it took until May 22nd, 2018,
before UAB staff was able to make arrangements
to transport the canoe to the conservation lab
at Kure Beach.
To the left here, you see the temporary measures
that the museum staff took to keep the canoe wet
until it was picked up,
wrapping it in wet towels and keeping it filled with water,
and spraying it on a regular basis.
And to the right, you see museum director, Bruce Daws,
the older gentleman in the green shirt and in blue jeans,
and some of the staff and city crew that, in essence,
saved this canoe from disappearing into someone's backyard,
or probably, eventually a burn pit
because it wouldn't have been conserved properly.
Now the South River canoe was relatively small,
only 12 feet, nine inches long, but it was fully intact.
It was very structurally sound.
And with the sides coming up almost to what
would have probably been the original height
and was an excellent example of how, had residue
of how charring was used for hollowing out the canoe
down the entire length of it.
At the lab, the center picture here, you can see
a wood sample was collected for carbon-14 dating.
The mean date on this one was 1337 AD
and had a, as John mentioned earlier,
they typically have a 50 to 70 year error range.
This one was given as a plus or minus 60 years on this.
The initial treatment was started,
which always starts with an antifungal treatment,
coming from a waterlogged environment,
it is prone to mold, mildew, and growth.
So the antifungal treatment was begun at the same time.
Now, as the canoe, as we said, was small
and actually very robust compared to a lot that we find,
the conservation team elected to fill the canoe
and surround it with the bulking agent
rather than completely immersing it in the solution.
It was kept tightly wrapped and periodically monitored
and more solution was added into the canoe.
And also in the plastic wrapping around that,
as it was absorbed into the wood.
This canoe has an interesting story or a little blip
in its conservation process as the treatment
was interrupted by Hurricane Florence
that was passing through and our lab
and most of New Hanover County
was in the direct path of the storm.
So the departmental upper management decided
that it would be most prudent to temporarily relocate
the canoe to an inland location out of the direct path.
This was acceptable because this was again,
a very robust canoe and relatively small
and easy to move safely.
Once the canoe returned after the storm, it was,
it completed its bulking treatment
and began the dehydration monitoring process,
where we continue to monitor the moisture content
and make sure that it is staying stable
as it moves to the appropriate relative humidity
for its long-term storage or display.
Now, during the dehydration monitoring,
the canoe was transported for temporary display
at the Coharie Tribal Center in Clinton, North Carolina.
Now this was for their annual powwow
and it was, when it was relocated,
it was given a traditional blessing by the tribe
and was available for tribal members and visitors
to see during the powwow.
And it was met with an overwhelming response
by tribal members and elders that visited,
as well as just the general population that came
to participate in the powwow.
Now from the Coharie Tribal Center,
the canoe was taken just a little farther up the road
to Dunn, North Carolina.
To the Dunn Area History Museum
for additional public display over a short period of time.
Now from Dunn, the canoe returned to the UAB lab
for final assessments, documentation,
and the eventual exhibit planning for this canoe.
And fast forward to July of this year, 2021,
the South River canoe was transferred on long-term loan
to the Coharie Tribal Centers' newly renovated
cultural exhibit space for public display
and interpretation.
One of the reasons that we would place the canoe
where it was is,
the Underwater Archeology Branch has always
prioritized placing recovered and conserved artifacts
at an appropriate location for public education,
interpretation, and outreach that was as close as possible
to the original recovery area.
And this was very close to the, as the crow flies,
to its original discovery location.
Now, over the years, both pre-contact
and post-contact dugout canoes had been found
in Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina,
as you recall from the slides earlier,
the extensive numbers that were there
in the Southeastern part of the state.
Some of the early discoveries were recovered.
Later ones have been placed in stable on-site holding areas
where there was not some place for them
to be properly put on display and to alleviate the need
for some of the expensive conservation process.
Now in late June 2019, UAB was notified
by the Lake Waccamaw State Park Rangers that
a large dugout canoe had blown up into the shallows
along the east shore of the lake.
On inspection, the canoe was found to be significantly
out of the water and was beginning to dry out
where it had blown up.
To prevent further damage, the canoe was floated
into a deeper area and secured in place
while we began making plans for either
a long-term relocation or recovery of the canoe.
As it was a full canoe and the sides were mostly intact,
not as good a shape as the South River canoe,
but still significantly there along the edges,
and the fact that the lake would be extremely busy
during the upcoming 4th of July weekend,
limiting our ability to securely relocate in the lake
to a discreet area, we determined that recovery
would end up, would be the best option for this.
So a custom-built treatment tank was constructed
at the UAB lab and logistical plans were made
for the immediate recovery.
A diverse team was rapidly drawn together,
which included staff from the Underwater Archeology Branch,
staff from our main office in Raleigh,
the Office of State Archeology.
We had personnel from state historic sites,
the Lake Waccamaw State Park staff, Lake Waccamaw police.
One of the gentlemen there you see in the picture
is Mr. Matt Thompson with Thompson Maritime Consulting.
He's the principal archeologist for the company
and was a former UAB intern whose family happened
to own property at the lake
and he made his services and resources available to us.
And most importantly, in this process,
we had members of the Waccamaw Siouan tribe present
during the planning and the recovery of this canoe.
Now on the day of recovery,
this canoe, which was almost 24 feet long,
was carefully supported and padded with PFDs, life jackets,
and alternatively walked, or walked through the shallows
or slowly towed by the recovery boat,
approximately one and a half miles around the lake
to the closest boat ramp that we had, in Big Creek,
to actually be able to do an effective recovery.
On the left here, you see the life jackets
and canoe getting positioned beside the guide boat.
To the right, you can see staff walking the canoe
through the access canal from Big Creek to the boat ramp.
So here you can actually see some video shot from the bridge
that we floated under, as we were approaching the ramp.
What you don't see in this video
and what we didn't notice in some cases,
were the eyes and noses of three to four foot alligators
disappearing as we approached,
and then reappearing after we had passed by.
Doing underwater archeology and diving
and doing things like that, we sometimes joke
that we're cheating death for science.
So we were in alligator-infested canals here,
bringing a canoe back to stabilize it and document it.
Once at the boat ramp, we released from the guide boat
and carefully floated the canoe onto
a specially prepared padded stretcher that was attached
to a modern boat trailer.
And once loaded and carefully wrapped, padded
and secured for transport,
the canoe traveled 55 miles from the boat ramp
to the UAB lab at Kure Beach, North Carolina.
And, you know, here, you see kind of
the obligatory trophy photo or accomplishment photo
of the successful first half of the day,
and some of the participants that were there,
again state park, local police, Thompson Maritime,
members of the Waccamaw Siouan tribe,
as well as our staff at State Archeology.
Now upon arrival at UAB, the second crew was standing by
to carefully move the canoe from the trailer and stretcher
to the custom-built conservation tank.
At this location, staff from Carolina Beach State Park,
Fort Fisher State Recreation area,
and Fort Fisher State Historic Site,
which were nearby state entities,
joined the UAB staff to transfer the canoe.
Now they say many hands make light work,
but even with 12 people,
this canoe was extremely heavy out of the water
with it being fully waterlogged
and a challenge to move safely into the conservation tank.
The canoe was then fully immersed in, first in water,
just for temporary holding.
And then the water was replaced
with the bulking solution that would then permeate in
and stabilize the waterlogged wood.
The bulking solution was purchased through the support
of UNC-Pembroke, where it would eventually,
the plan was at that point,
that was a likely possible location for it to go.
The canoe was monitored over a six-month period,
and now has reached the dehydration monitoring stage.
If all continues to progress well,
a custom cradle will be constructed for this,
similar, but larger, to what you saw
with the South River canoe.
And at some point, sometime this winter,
it will make a stop at the Waccamaw Siouan Tribal Center
in Buckhead, North Carolina,
to receive a formal blessing and for the local tribe members
to spend some time with it there,
before it continues on with the display loan to the museum
of the Southeast American Indian that's at UNC-Pembroke,
where it will be there for interpretation
and educational outreach.
Now, almost exactly two years later,
in early July of this year, 2021,
Lake Waccamaw again produced
a previously unknown dugout canoe.
UAB and OSA archeologists visited Lake Waccamaw
at the request of the Hill family,
whose children discovered the canoe partially buried
while swimming and playing in the lake shallows
near their pier that was out into the lake.
Upon inspection, the canoe was intact end to end,
almost 29 feet in length,
but had much more degraded sides, which is somewhat typical
of finding the canoes.
Being partially buried in the shallow water,
which was about waist deep, it appeared to have been hit
and damaged at least once, possibly twice
by a passing boat propeller
or more likely the skeg off
of the outboard motor sticking down.
Portions of the canoe were too deeply buried
to relocate it at that time.
So plans were made to return with the appropriate equipment
to stage it to a safe location away from boat traffic,
and where someone else might hit it.
Now, here on this slide, you see UAB and OSA staff
with members of the Waccamaw Siouan tribe
during the initial reconnaissance,
moving out into the water to do the assessment
and some of the measurements and planning.
To the right of the slide, you see Ms. Pamela Young-Jacobs,
who's the chair of the Waccamaw Siouan Tribal Council,
along with Jess Hill, who happens to be the Clerk
of the Columbus County Superior Court
and one of the middle generation members of the family
who owns the property.
It's interesting to note here, that Mr. Hill,
he was dressed and heading to work when we arrived,
but he was so enthusiastic and concerned for the canoe,
he took off his jacket, took off his tie,
slipped out of his leather dress shoes
and proceeded to wade into the lake with us
to look at the canoe during the assessment
and be a bit late for work that day.
You know, when we revisited this,
one of the Superior Court judges for Columbus County,
his direct boss, actually came out as well
to see the canoe.
Now, our staff returned on July 23rd, 2021
to excavate and stage the canoe
to a secure location under the Hill family pier
until an appropriate tank could be built
and plans made for transportation
and conservation of this canoe.
As is typical for shallow water operations,
we used a water induction dredge system
to excavate, carefully excavate, the buried portions
of the canoe with the outflow from that suction being passed
through a quarter-inch archeological screen
to collect anything that would have been around
or associated with the canoe.
Detailed photos, video and measurements were taken
prior to moving the canoe approximately 30 yards
from where it was located
to a prepared location under the Hill family pier.
On the left, you can see the canoe sitting
in shallow clear water after being moved and aligned
with the pier and on the right, you can see the canoe
being reburied for protection under the pier,
covering, being covered up with some protective sand.
Now, at 27 and a half feet long, almost 28 feet long,
it's about three and a half feet longer than
the canoe recovered in 2019.
And the mean carbon date of this one, 1047 AD,
is 10 years younger than the previous canoe,
but they were undoubtedly in use at the same time
on the lake. You know,
this is back in the mid-11th century,
500 years before European contact
that these two large canoes were being used for fishing
and trade and transport on Lake Waccamaw.
Here, you'll see a a short video clip of the canoe.
This was shot immediately prior to it being reburied
to await recovery.
Here we go.
So now, as previously noted,
UAB and OSA are collaborating closely with the
Waccamaw Siouan tribe.
The conservation tank for this canoe has been completed,
and we will be checking on that probably later this week,
and then moving forward with plans to recover the canoe
and take it to the conservation lab
to begin detailed examination and stabilization.
All right, you know, currently North Carolina
is participating with the State of Virginia
and the State of Maryland
in the Mid-Atlantic Log Boat Registry,
begun in 2018 by the Maritime Heritage Chapter
of the Archeological Society of Virginia,
the goal is to create a searchable database
for the mid-Atlantic region that will be a resource
for researchers interested in studying both prehistoric
and historic log boats ranging from dugout canoes
like what we're looking at here,
all the way up to Chesapeake Bay bugeyes that were used
in the Mid-Atlantic region in the oystering industry.
These recent finds that we've had
over the past couple of years,
continue to build that database
and indicate the likelihood that many more discoveries
can be added to this database.
Since the beginnings of the Underwater Archeology Branch
in 1962 with the recovery of artifacts
from the Civil War blockade runner, Modern Greece,
in collaboration with the U.S. Navy
and the U.S. Coast Guard,
our office has always worked with partners.
What was true almost 60 years ago is still true today.
Things get done and are accomplished more efficiently
working with colleagues towards a common goal.
It's one of the reasons I've highlighted NOAA here,
NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
and North Carolina's Underwater Archeology Branch
of the Office of State Archeology have partnered since 1975,
as Shannon mentioned in the intro, to research, honor
and protect our shared underwater cultural heritage.
And we want to keep that moving forward
and also partner with as many other agencies and entities
as we can to achieve these common goals.
Now, the Submerge webinar, Submerged NC webinar series
kind of exemplifies that goal.
It began in February of this year.
And this webinar that we're providing today
is number 18 in the series.
This slide shows a few of the topics covered.
If you've missed any,
you can go to the NOAA archive page to view them.
And if you have any suggestions or requests
for future webinars,
please don't hesitate to reach out and let us know.
And kind of with that said,
I'd like to turn it back to John,
if he's got any closing thoughts to add.
[John Mintz] Thank you, Chris.
In closing, I, on behalf of the North Carolina
Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
and the Office of State Archeology,
we'd like to thank you for sharing your time
and your interest and our research efforts
with American Indian Log Boat Initiative.
I would like to thank the American Indian community
of North Carolina for their partnership and their support,
the American Indian community of North Carolina
were first on the land, and they're still on the land.
I'd like to acknowledge the North Carolina Commission
of Indian Affairs, North Carolina State Parks,
and in particular, the Waccamaw Siouan tribe
and the Coharie tribe.
Together, we are identifying
and preserving North Carolina's endangered
and nonrenewable cultural artifact resource,
the American Indian log boat.
I feel very confident that by continuing to work together,
sharing our information, partnering with one another,
and actually doing recoveries with one another,
that we can continue to protect
what I term a nonrenewable resource.
Thank you very much.
Glad that you were able to take the time
to visit with us today.
[Shannon Ricles] All right. Thank you both.
This is awesome.
I am going to take back the presentation, just a second,
but we had lots of questions come in.
But if you haven't typed in a question yet,
and you do have one there,
go ahead and start doing that now in the questions box.
And also if you, sorry, I did forget to turn my camera on.
And also if you haven't downloaded Chris
and John's bios yet, they're also in the chat box.
Be sure to do that now before you exit the webinar
and we're going to begin taking questions.
I'll start out.
We have one that came in early, it said,
did the tribes ever take the canoes into the ocean?
Do you know that? If they did or not?
[Chris Southerly] The, not to my knowledge, I'm sure.
I mean, we know that they were used in the rivers
and the sounds, which were salt water,
and presumably it would be feasible maybe to take them out
in the ocean, but they were the style and design of them,
they sit low, they're a little heavy.
In some cases they may have been,
at least the ones around in North Carolina,
the, I kind of view them as they were as much,
almost like a modern sit-on-top kayak would be,
with a really shallow draft.
I don't know that they would have been seaworthy enough
to go out on the ocean,
but they were definitely extensively used in the sounds
and the rivers and the lakes.
[Shannon Ricles] OK Mark is there a question you wanna ask?
Think you're muted, Mark.
[Mark Losavio] Sorry about that.
You were showing us all these really interesting ways
that you guys use to move the canoes.
And we have a question in the audience
that's wondering,
how much does the South River canoe weigh,
considering how inventive you all had to get
in transporting them?
[Chris] I don't know that we ever actually got a weight
on the South River canoe.
You know what, 12 feet, nine inches,
I would guess it was probably.
Two of us were able to pick it up with effort,
so I'm guessing probably 250, maybe 300 pounds total,
something along those lines.
[Shannon Ricles] Okay.
[Mark Losavio] Wow. Thank you.
[Shannon Ricles] Okay. This is kind of a technical question.
So I'm going to do my best with it here.
It says, is there a suitable local dendrochronology
available for dating the canoes?
And are there different types found than those that you
presented such as birch bark canoes?
And in case there are, what are their dates?
[Chris Southerly] To my knowledge in North Carolina,
Eastern North Carolina, we don't,
and John can weigh in on this,
I don't think we have a good dendrochronological series
that had been established, especially in conjunction
with bald cypress and pine that were used in these canoes.
So we can't really use the dendrochronology
or tree rings to date the ones that we have.
We rely almost exclusively on the carbon-14 dating.
In terms of the types of canoes,
the ones we have here are all dugout canoes.
The birch bark canoes,
or the bark on frame construction canoes were more common,
further north, typically associated with the Iroquois
or the Algonquin further up into the Northeast
where the birch bark trees were available.
So we really, the ones we have here are pretty much
all dugout construction in North Carolina.
[John Mintz] Chris, if I could follow up on that question,
we're currently in the process, as part of our initiative,
as we mentioned earlier, we do not have carbon-14,
C14 dates, for all of our canoes.
So we're presently in the process of taking samples
of each canoe that we know,
the in situ ones, which as we said earlier,
are the ones that were left in place
and any that we may have recovered that are in storage
or conservation now.
To begin to do what we would call temporal database
as to what do these canoes date to across the state
by body of water.
Are there any similarities or non similarities, if you will.
And to begin to look for, possibly add to,
a burgeoning or nascent dendrochronology database as well.
So once we recover these canoes
and they go through conservation
and they go through interpretation and exhibit,
you know, we're not finished then.
We continue to do what we call condition reporting
or condition monitoring,
and continue to try to get as much information out
of these canoes as possible because that information
in some respects may help us to replay,
to recreate what we would call pre-settlement visitation
and the environmental conditions at that time.
So these canoes individually and collectively within
and without their body of water of recovery
are actually a lab, an archeological lab,
that gives us a lot of information,
but as time goes on, more advanced techniques
methodological will be developed.
So we can continue to use these canoes,
not only as a representative of the American Indian people
of North Carolina, but as a science to continue
to develop science and refine science.
[Shannon Ricles] Okay, perfect. Mark?
[Mark] So we have quite a few questions in the audience that
are asking what exactly is in the bulking solution.
[Chris] The, pretty much the industry standard at this point
that we use for conservation is,
it's a type of wax, it's called polyethylene glycol.
It's a soluble compound.
We typically get it in a powder state,
it's then mixed with water.
It's designed to permeate into the wood,
into the wood cells.
Now with waterlogged wood,
the cell walls begin to degrade with submersion.
And if the wood is allowed to dry out
without some type of bulking agent
or support within those wood cells,
then it's going to shrink.
It's going to collapse. It's going to warp.
And so, you know, PEG or polyethylene glycol
is used to permeate into the degraded wood cells.
And then when it is dehydrated out,
this can be done in a, very slowly, in a humidity chamber.
The best thing or the most efficient means of conservation
and drying out, is if you have a freeze dryer,
it dries it quickly and consistently
over a short period of time to minimize any chance
of the warping or distorting with the process.
But yeah, polyethylene glycol is the industry standard
that we have right now for these objects.
[John Mintz] And for the discussion this afternoon,
I am not a conservator,
but basically from the time of removal from water
to exhibit time can be anywhere, easily,
from two and a half to four years.
Getting the canoe out and getting it into conservation,
getting it conserved, getting it ready for transport,
getting it transported, set up in an exhibit
and preparing the the exhibit notes, if you will,
the interpretive panels.
So this process, it's labor intensive and time consuming,
it generally can take from,
we'll just say a good two to four years.
And then sometimes, as we've mentioned,
as Chris mentioned earlier with the Coharie,
they have to come back for re-conservation.
So it's definitely not a one and done.
[Shannon Ricles] Gotcha. Okay.
One of the questions asked for canoes that you leave
in situ, are there any markings on them
for protective measures to alert the public
that is a state artifact,
I guess, just do you mark them in some way?
And then the second half of their question is,
is there any interest in geocaching,
citizen science or the like,
to help preserve and manage the in situ historical items?
[Chris] The, with the ones we leave in situ, for example,
the ones in Lake Waccamaw had been relocated
from the shallows into a deeper area
and buried in the sand and the mud at the bottom.
We've got coordinates on those
and a means to relocate them ourselves,
but they are pretty much out of sight, out of view.
And the idea is to put them in an area where they won't
be re-encountered and be safe from boat traffic
or curious onlookers in that regard,
because the, for preservation of most artifacts,
especially wood in a wet environment,
if it can be buried in an anaerobic
or relatively anaerobic environment,
it's going to preserve and stay intact much longer
and changes in the environment
are what will speed up the degradation.
So exposed to buried, wet to dry, sunlight to darkness,
things like that will speed up the degradation process.
So we try and put them
where they're gonna remain stable, undisturbed.
In the cases of the canoes at Lake Phelps
in the mid eighties and then we have revisited
and done more research in the nineties
and in the two thousands.
You know, they are, most of them, were buried
to start off with, they had just become exposed
because of the extreme drought,
the water levels on those, you know, where,
when they were initially looked at were, you know,
maybe only a foot or two deep.
The last time we went out, it was three or four feet deep.
So again, they are, they're hidden
and not likely to be disturbed
and non disturbance is the best means
of preservation in situ.
[Shannon Ricles] Okay. Gotcha.
Okay, Mark, I think we might have time
for one more question, if there's one that you think
can be answered fairly quickly?
[Mark] Yes, I know you touched on this earlier, but can you,
do you find these canoes anywhere else in the United States?
[Chris Southerly] There are canoes, dugout canoes all over.
Recently, there was one found in Wisconsin.
There have been numerous canoes, dugout canoes
found in Florida, South Carolina,
pretty much the dugout canoe was very ubiquitous
to boat traffic or early vessels worldwide.
You find them in Europe as well.
In fact, the oldest one, I think,
was found in the Netherlands,
I think the one that dated back to almost 8,000 BC
was somewhere in Northern Europe.
So the tradition and the construction exists all over.
So yeah, there's potential for finding them all
over the U.S. in various forms and construction.
[Shannon Ricles] All right. Well, thank you.
This was awesome.
So if we didn't get to your question, we're sorry.
Or if you have additional ones,
you can always send them directly to John or Chris
at the email addresses listed here on the screen.
I think they also gave you their contact information earlier
in the program.
So please don't hesitate to reach out to them,
if you have questions that we just couldn't get to today.
A video recording of this presentation will be available
as I said earlier on our Sanctuaries Webinar page,
it's going to be found at our URL that's listed at the top.
That's a long URL, but don't worry,
I'm going to send that to you in an email.
In addition, the webinar will be archived
on the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary's website.
You'll just click on the multimedia section
in the toolbar to access the webinar box.
You'll also find future webinars in that same section.
And don't worry, all of this information, as I said,
is going to be sent to you in an email,
once the video recording is ready for you to view.
These are some of our upcoming webinars.
I hope that you'll tune in.
In January, we're going to have Holly Rotondi,
she's the Executive Director
at the Friends of the National World War II Memorial
in Washington, DC be our presenter.
Then in February, we're going to have James Charlet,
he's a historian, author,
he used to manage the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station,
and he's going to tell us about the African-American crews
who served in North Carolina.
And then on March the eighth,
we have Dr. Sal coming back again,
he's Associate Professor of History at Campbell University,
and he's going to be talking about World War One
and the German U-boat force off the North Carolina coast.
So we have some great ones lined up for the next year.
So please check them out and join us for those.
And of course, we always invite you to follow us
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And lastly, as you exit the webinar,
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So if you are an educator, NOAA would really appreciate it
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Once again, we want to thank you
Chris and John for a great presentation,
and thank you for taking the time today to join us.
You have a wonderful day, happy holidays,
and this concludes the presentation,
and I will end the broadcast now for all.
Thank you. Bye everyone.