The work in the lab continues.  Anne Garland and Charlene Penner are diligently working their way through the collections.  Tomorrow Laura Thomas is going to start volunteering as well.  It is a long slow process.  As they go, occasionally an artifact (usually modified bone or tooth) shows up and we have to add it to the catalog.

I’ve been rather busy this week with several projects that came up rather quickly at the end of summer.  For some reason, cultural resources compliance seems to get forgotten in the planning of construction projects more often than it should.  Then there is a scramble to make sure it gets done so permits don’t get held up.  Two of the projects require going to Anaktuvuk Pass, so I spent most of the day trying to make travel arrangements.  They apparently had a power failure, so I wasn’t able to get through to some people there, but nevertheless, I’m heading to Fairbanks on Tuesday and going to AKP on Wednesday morning.  I’ve been doing the background research and writing those sections of the report, so all that will be left is writing up the fieldwork and whatever conclusions & recommendations to which it leads.

The plan is to come back on Friday, since I’ve promised to help with a teacher in-service on Saturday.  I enjoy doing these, since we get so many new teachers on the North Slope every year.  Archaeology, especially local archaeology, can serve as a basis for teaching all sorts of skills, from writing to math to social studies, and doing so from a local culturally-relevant perspective.  So this is something I do not want to miss.