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Archaeologists are not unlike truckers. Exploring Minnesota and Wisconsin's oddities, scenery, culture, back roads, and eateries helps keep me sane.

12 August 2009

History is Offensive

We're currently working in Superior, which I consider one of Wisconsin's armpits. Sorry Superior, you could really do so much better! The best thing about Superior is its proximity to Duluth, one of my favorite Midwest cities. Superior does have a high quantity of retro neon signs though, those are fun to look at. I'd go downtown to take some photos of them tonight, but downtown Superior is shady enough in the daylight. Okay, enough Superior bashing! Props to the Osaugie trail along the waterfront. It kicked my ass on a run today, but kept me going with enough stuff to look at.

While up here for work, we were given an interesting mission on the side... a sort of scavenger hunt. Word got back to the museum in Madison that there are a series of t-shirts for sale in northern Wisconsin (and Minnesota), that are pretty offensive to Native American peoples. Since every history has a dark side, we attempted to find some of these t-shirts to give to the museum to document a harsher part of Wisconsin's history.

Click here to see the particular t-shirts we were looking for.

Superior is a bit too close to the source of fire, so I'm not sure we'll have much luck here. There's still one day left to complete this mission. If we don't succeed, at least we got to laugh at a lot of other offensive t-shirts for sale. Below are a few I photo'd before my camera batteries ran out. Hopefully there will me more to post tomorrow! And here are some lovely suggestions from my Facebook friends, which may or may not be worthy of documenting as history:

"Purchasing Managers Do It By the Book"

"This isn't a beer belly, it's a gas tank for a sex machine." (worn by a rumored sex offender - ew!

An image depicting two unicorns humping under a rainbow. Brilliant!

"I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull fuck you!"

One with the silhouette of a car on it that says, "my other ride is your boyfriend"

"This isn't a beer belly....it's a blood reservoir for my penis"

"Swallow or it's going in your eye."

"If the heat doesn't kill the elderly, I will" t-shirt.

"My other car is up my nose."





10 August 2009

What a Shame!

It's been two months to the day since I've blogged. I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't prolific. To my defense though, the field season has been fairly redundant. Burnett County was my second home from the end of May through mid-July. I returned briefly to Hwy 60 in Richland County, with a move and selling nearly all of my possessions in between. So let's recap the past two months!

So, Siren isn't a bad place to be stuck for a while, but any place for a while gets a bit dull. It was a bit far from the project area, which made for really long days when we kept hitting sites and finding artifacts. Too much work to do, wasting too much time driving. One of the local property owners told us of a place down the road, and regretfully, it took us a couple weeks to check it out. Now, the Heartwood Conference Center is definitely one of my most favorite places in Wisconsin to stay. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's surrounded by 700 acres of nature and has a private lake/sandy beach with free canoes, kayaks, and rowboats to use. There are trails to bike or hike, athletic fields with all the gear you'd need, a great internet connection, and best of all -- bad cell phone reception! We'll be up here for just about all the rest of the field season, hopefully staying in a cabin where we can cook and actually feel domestic for once. I'm hoping a bear comes strolling through at some point. There are frequently deer on the dirt road in, and I even saw one nibbling on some grass outside of my hotel room's patio door. Only downside = other vacationers. My work time/home life, their "vacation, let the kids loose to scream and run around so their out of the way" time. Yeah, I'm that grumpy chick who's been scowling at your loud children.

Because of an overload of work and a very small crew, I can't recall many shenanigans to write about. We've kayaked, jumped on the water trampoline, cooked and stuffed each other silly, and spent a lot of time just hanging by the lake. There have been a couple outings to Hayward, to remind us what an actual town is like (but not too often). A favorite with the crew is the Angry Minnow brewery and restaurant. I concur, fabulous beer! We strolled around Hayward one day. There are some great shops, but way overpriced and too many people. How much fudge can people eat? Answer - A LOT. I ran out of the candy store as fast as I ran into it, and with no purchases!

Another outing was to the Forts Folle Avione between Webster and Danbury, on the Yellow River. It a nice little museum and a historic fort with FANTASTIC guides!! A Native Mille Lacs man took us through the reconstructed Woodland village, which was mainly reconstructed by him - by hand. So impressive. Then a self-professed "half-breed" aka half Native/half French woman guided us through the French fur trade era trading posts. She was incredibly enthusiastic, which I was really entertained by, although some of my coworkers though she was a bit much. No way man, turn up the enthusiasm whenever possible! And to top it off, we finally saw a black bear there. After 6 or 7 weeks of being told by property owners about all the bears, a little guy was hanging around the park trying to steal food from campers. Not gonna lie, I probably would've fed him (I know, I know!).

And that about sums up a month and a half of "up nort" living. Yeah, the cultural interaction is pretty minimal. Less woods, more people, more serenity. Maybe we'll get a bit more rowdy and explore when the excavations start this fall. Or maybe I'll just keep taking ridiculously beautiful nature photos and stay peaceful.