Alan McMillan uncovers the Alan McMillan had one heck of a summer vacation. The Anthropology instructor travelled back in time about 2,000 years while excavating an ancient First Nations village on Western Vancouver Island near Bamfield. The site is an ancestral village of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, part of the Nuu-chah- nulth people who inhabit this part of Vancouver Island. “On the surface you can clearly see the outlines of where 10 houses once stood,” says McMillan. “The inhabitants would have cleared a large area for the house, and over time would have tossed out shells and other domestic refuse -- the everyday garbage. There was no garbage pickup, and people were eating a lot of shellfish, so it built up against the back of the house and to a lesser extent along the sides. When the house was eventually removed there was a great ridge along the back and sides and you can see where the house once stood.” McMillan is co-director of the dig, along with Denis St. Claire, a high school teacher from Victoria who owns a private research company. Each person on the crew brought their own skills to the excavation -- McMillan worked on artifacts and overview, while St. Claire works on ethnography, or the records of changes in native life through early documents. Other team members specialized in areas such as examining animal bones and shells. Using small tools, the team dug in five-centimetre levels down to about two meters in depth into where the house once stood, and below to earlier layers. On ahigher terrace behind the house platforms are even earlier remains, perhaps dating 3,000 to 5,000 years ago when sea levels were higher. McMillan and the team excavated in the corner of the largest house, which was about 35 meters across. “The back corners are the high-status chief areas. Of course, this presupposes that you know where the door is!” he says. “The bulk of what we found, and the most important in terms of knowledge, are the bones of food remains, everything from uny herring right up to giant whales.” The inhabitants of the village appear to have been active whalers, a fact that McMillan thinks he can demonstrate. “There's been a debate if they were actively hunting or if the whales had just drifted ashore, and we certainly got insight into that,” he says. “One interesting discovery from another site nearby was a stack of whalebone. It wasn't just a butchering event — we think it was a whaler’s trophy. The bones were from all different sorts of whales. When we lifted up one huge skull we saw that still embedded in it was most of a mussel-shell harpoon head. The whaler was wildly off his mark and just skimmed the back of the whale’s head as it dove, and the blade entered the bone at such a shallow angle that it didn’t shatter.” Bones werent the only thing McMillan and the team uncovered. A 33 ancient Thunderbird centimetre long harpoon made of whalebone, in perfect condition, was just sitting on the house floor. They also found several stone fish hook shanks that would have had bone barbs lashed to them, all intact. “One really interesting artifact is a large bone pendant with two eyes in the middle. You look at it and realize it uses a typical feature of North West Coast art, visual punning, in that it is several things at once. You look at it one way and it’s the Vhunderbird’s head and it ends in his beak, but if you look at it the other way, it’s the whale, and the Vhunderbird’s beak becomes the whale’s tail. The overarching metaphor, the theme to all Nuu-chah- nulth art, mythology and iconography ts the Thunderbird and the whale. The Thunderbird was the whaler of the supernatural world, just as the Nuu-chah-nulth people were the whalers of the natural world.” For McMillan, an important part of his work is being able to bring a Anthropology instructor Alan McMillan spent his summer excavating an ancestral village of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation on Vancouver Island. Here, McMillan displays copies of artifacts from other digs. sense of personal involvement to his students at Douglas College. He can talk to them about archaeology and tell them what it’s like in the field, using recent exam ples and experiences. “think it’s important in teaching that students get some sense that you are talking from personal experience, that you've been involved in doing this rather than just passing on what you've read in books.” CFCS students anticipating cross-Canada journey next Spring A planned cross-Canada partnership will have students in the Early Childhood Education, Classroom and Community Support, Child and Youth Care Counselling, Youth Justice and Community Social Service Worker programs packing their bags for New Brunswick next Spring. The Pan Mobility Exchange brings together Douglas College, New Brunswick Community College and the College of New Caledonia ina partnership that provides students with the chance to do their practicums in another part of the country. “The objective of the program is to allow students, particularly those from a more disadvantaged background, to travel and expand their horizons in fields where they can see a connection with their employment skills and employment opportunities that exist across the country,” says Jan Lindsay, Dean of Child, Family and Community Studies. The program is currently in phase two development. Funding is provided by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. Approval of phase two funding will allow the student exchange activity next Spring. In the past, practicums have been found in other parts of the country, but students haven't been able to afford to get there. The Pan Mobility Exchange program provides students with airfare to the practicum site as well as $75 a week in support. “We're hoping that there may be a way to swap Instructors from New Brunswick Community College and the College of New Caledonia visited Douglas College last summer to discuss the Pan Mobility Exchange Program. The program would allow students to do practicums in either college's region. living spaces between the students who are in the exchange, or at the very least find inexpensive lodging for them,” says Lindsay. “This program will make this opportunity a reality for those students who otherwise couldn't attord it.” Douglas College students will travel to New Brunswick, while New Brunswick students will have the choice of coming to Douglas College for an urban experience or the College ot New Caledonia tora rural visit. “This project has also proven to be great for the faculty involved,” says Lindsay. “They're picking up Ideas from each other, and it gives them a new resource person to contact.” = % = Sip wine and support students Why not sip some Merlot (or another fine wine) for the students? Tickets are now on sale for A Class Act Wine Fest, the Douglas College Foundation’s annual fundraiser, to be held November 18. The clegant evening features good wine, great fun and yummy foods from around the world, served by students of the Hotel and Restaurant Management Program. Musical entertainment, oO Oo 50/50 draw, door prizes including a computer, and live and silent auctions make ita night to remember. Tickets are $50 per person before November 4 and $55 after November 4 (including GST). Partial proceeds will go toward financial aid for students in the College’s Hotel and Restaurant Management, Athletics and Dispensing Optician programs and the CKNW Orphans’ Fund. Last year’s festival sold out, raising over $27,000 for student aid and drawing 435 guests. The event takes place at the Executive Plaza Hotel, 405 North Road, Coquitlam from 7- 9:30pm. For tickets, contact the | ouglas College Foundation at 604-777-6176.