Searching for the Pond
Well, the field school has started (three-weeks in) and we have made some good progress. All of the students have gone through orientation and have started the series of rotations that will train them to be field archaeologists. As Sandra Grubbs reports, "The students of Portland State University and Washington State University Vancouver are working with the National Park Service at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. The students are hard at work excavating locations near the waterfront searching for the malaria epidemic hospital. One of our trenches near the train tracks is very close to being fully excavated." As Sandra notes, we are nearing the end of the two 1 X 2-meter test units we placed in the area of the pond. It has been a long slog through railroad fill placed sometime after 1907 with an occasional rotted post or voids left from removal of the pilings for the original train trestle. A few railroad spikes have been recovered but not much more. As Daniela Ortiz,
