An archeological study has been delayed at a Trent-Severn Waterway lock in the City of Kawartha Lakes, Ont., due to the discovery of what is believed to be historic construction debris.
Parks Canada plans to replace the dam and operations building at Lock 34 of the waterway in the village of Fenelon Falls, 25 kilometres north of Lindsay. The lock itself also needs some rehabilitation.
However, project manager Scott Gauthier said that before infrastructure work can proceed, a team of archeologists is investigating the land near the lock to see whether there are any historically significant artifacts below ground.
“We tend to conduct investigations and studies to ensure that those archeological resources are understood, and if they’re present, then we have the opportunity to record them and investigate them further before we begin any excavations on site,” he said on Tuesday.
The team arrived on Sept. 18 and was scheduled to be at the scene until Sept. 29. However, digging efforts were halted on Tuesday following the discovery of a layer of rock debris just below the soil.
Gauthier said they believe the rock is related to blasting work done in the 1960s which replaced the flight lock into a single concrete lock as it remains today.
Test pits strewn about the site have all hit the layer of rock fill — delaying the archeological study.
“At this point, the archeologists are not currently on site because they’re waiting on the support of an excavator to come out and do some digging for them through that rock fill so that they can more carefully dig into the sub-soils below,” Gauthier said.
The plan now is to burrow trenches through the rocky layer to allow the archeologist to look for artifacts below, possibly even Indigenous-related artifacts, he noted.
According to Parks Canada, Lock 34 was constructed between 1882 and 1885.
“What’s underlying that, if undisturbed, should be related to the commemoration period of the site, maybe dating back to the 1870s and even before,” Gauthier said. “As we know, the Indigenous peoples have been here for many generations and so there’s always the potential of Indigenous artifact discovery.”
Parks Canada is asking the public to avoid accessing or disturbing any open excavations. The work is not expected to impact boat navigation or nearby roadway access.
— with files from Sam Houpt/Global News Peterborough
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