In 1986, Expo '86 celebrated 100 years of Vancouver as a city. Fifteen years earlier, British Columbia marked 100 years as a province. Before that, Canada spent all of 1967 marking the nation's centenary.
Exciting and fun times but in truth, kind of short-sighted. How about a real milestone to celebrate? If it wasn't for a niggling detail like the absence of calendars at the start, the residents of North Delta could be marking more that 8,000 years of continual human activity on the southern banks of the Fraser River.
Drivers on River Road spend too much time nervously watching the encroaching semi in the rear-view mirror to contemplate what lies just north of the busy strip of asphalt. Beginning at the foot of the Alex Fraser Bridge and stretching roughly one kilometre eastward lies one of the most important archaeological sites in Western Canada.
"It's a very significant site," said Kathy Bossort of the Delta Museum and Archives. "Activity there goes way back, at least 8,000 years. The archaeological dig revealed some amazing things. It showed a change in use of resources and how the site was used. Apparently the use of the site did change over time, both the seasons it was occupied and the types of animals they were using."
To put that in perspective, Stonehenge in England was erected beginning 5,100 years ago. The pyramids in Egypt were constructed 4,500 years ago. But 3,000 years before that, indigenous people were scratching out a living on the banks of the Fraser in North Delta.
The age of the site is only part of its archaeological allure. Evidence gathered shows a gradual change in the lives of the people who accessed natural resources there.
Tools formed from bone and antler offer the earliest evidence of a hunting society in seasonal camps that lived off large game such as elk. As the centuries went by, that usage gradually changed, reflecting a similar change in the human society. The later evidence shows a society that was centred around harvesting salmon and other aquatic life at different times of the year.
When Europeans arrived in the 1800s, the salmon harvesting continued on an industrial scale. The historic St. Mungo and Glenrose canneries were erected on the site and operated there for almost a century.
In the 1970s, archaeologists undertook the first detailed study of the Glenrose cannery area and determined it was one of the oldest locations occupied by humans in the Lower Mainland.
A decade later, the St. Mungo cannery was torn down to make way for the Alex Fraser Bridge and a hurried archaeological dig was undertaken to excavate as much as possible before the concrete began to pour. The discoveries at that time were determined to be so important that the location of the bridge supports were moved to protect the archaeological site.
Source: Surrey Now