What Now??

We gained SO much new information during our trip to Montana I have to admit I wasn't entirely sure where to even start! Right now we have a lot of unfinished projects that the team is still in the process of working on and still researching! I think we all left with a lot of new questions that we're trying to find answers to and we all really want to do the history and the project justice. So there's some filming to be done, some exhibits to be made, and as soon as we can pick a time hopefully a few more trips back to Montana SOON!

Some In The Field Research

Filming

Some photography

Professor Svingen and Leo Ariwite


Professor Svingen

In words of one of the fearless leaders
"I'm bored. Let's go."

-Bill Peterson

The big dinner

Filming

The Anderson's awesome artifact

(It's a really old bowl worn out of a river rock)

Interviewing everyone that we can

trying to find a needle in a hay stack

While we came to field school with a small understanding and a few texts under our belts little did we know the information that we were missing and what we had left to find out.

Some information was found through endless hours in libraries and archives, but to me I found a lot of really great information from running around talking to locals and digging in the dirt.

Leo Ariwite, Mark Perrault, the Woodsons, Les Gilman, and Jim and Addie Anderson and many others were all such huge helps that I was lucky to work with throughout the trip, there would still be a lot of missing puzzle pieces if it weren't for their knowledge and enthusiasm!
And while a finished cut is still a little while off, making the documentary and learning the local history and documenting the field school really was a great experience that I have a lot of appreciation for.

When We Weren't Working..

We'd find little times through out the day to goof off and enjoy exploring the greatness of Montana..

Just a few of our goofy pictures

Lay in the middle of the street

to hold up non-existent traffic

We'd fly fish in the middle of the streets

(well, dirt roads)

We'd take a lot of pictures


Play with bones


Hike

Tori was always picking up bones.
Everywhere.
All the time.

Go Exploring

The Newest Member of the Team

Tori, Mr. Mark Perrault, and I beneath

a tree where we believe two road agents

were hung back in the late 1800s

One of the documentary interviews

An exploratory outing
This once used to be Robert Dempsey's place
Another key character of the time


Inside the "new found" actual Laurin house,
Tori, Jared, and myself with the framed list
of the house's previous owners

One day while running into Ennis for coffee we ran into the Blue Heron gift shop and amongst all the books we were pointed in the direction or Mr. Mark Perrault's book, Ruby Valley, Stinkingwater country. The find of the century! Mr. Perrault wrote an entire book about the local history including lots of information about a Mr. J.P. Laurin, whom the town of Laurin was named after. Until the point in time we had little information about such an important person who was present at the treaty signing. After all, it was signed at his house! Mr. Perrault's research opened our eyes to the fact that Laurin had lived in more that one spot when he was alive and in the area. The spot that we had thought was the Laurin house was not in fact his house, rather it was one down the street, and the site where the house that treaty was signed at was yet at another place! Mr. Perrault still lives in the area and graciously took us about as our own personal tour guide and even helped us make our documentary with a few interviews! We definitely were very lucky in meeting Mr. Perrault!

Archaeology 101

Archaeology was a big important component of field school, because where we couldn't find records of exactly what we wanted, or we had suspicions things once existed in certain places, there was no better way to verify our inklings than to dig around in the dirt for bones, trade beads, glass and other goodies...

Bundle up and decide on some areas

Then maybe survey a bit to be sure..

(See Part II)

Archaeology 101 part II

Flag our sites

This would be me already to dig up the next wonder of the world

(or in this pit test, not a thing!

BUT sometimes negative research is positive research...)

Kate showing us all up

Kate and Andrea sifting through the screens

Digging is only a part of the process,

You have to throw the dirt onto the screen

and pick up the screen and shake the dirt

free from the artifacts that you hope you found

Apparently somebody beat us to all the goods

before they're ancient shovel rotted away..