Halfway into the Field Season at Turpin’s Island: Excavations, Artifacts & Island Life
- Catherine Losier
- Jun 11
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 12
Week Two of Memorial University's 2026 Field School on Turpin’s Island, Little St. Lawrence
We have now finished our second week at Turpin’s Island, which means we are halfway through the 2026 field season! Many of the students have completed their initial test pits; however, Test Pits 57, 58, and 59 are still actively undergoing excavation, with new features being discovered and several artifacts recovered! We have had a very eventful week, with significantly more time in the field as well as some visitors. Here is what we have been up to:
Outside of fieldwork, there was much exploration and fun! On Monday, we never made it out to the site under the impression that it would be a miserable day to be outside; however, it turned out to be a beautiful day! Regardless, everyone took a trip to the Provincial Seamen's Museum in Grand Bank. Interestingly, the building housing the museum was the Czechoslovakian pavilion at Expo 67 in Montréal, it was dismantled after the Exposition, and brought to Newfoundland. We learned about maritime history, and the museum's selection is incredible! They have a remarkable collection, and we had the opportunity to have a conversation with Steve, the museum curator. Later in the afternoon, we visited the St. Lawrence Miners Museum, where we were lucky enough to receive a tour of the entire exhibit!
Fig. 1 The crew at the Provincial Seamen’s Museum
Tuesday started with Kristin's birthday celebrations out in the field! Kristin began her special day by digging into her chocolate birthday cake with a trowel, which we have come to find out is a fun field school tradition! We then continued with our daily excavations.
Fig. 2 Kristen cutting her birthday cake with a (cleaned!) trowel on the field
William S. began Test Pit 60 on Wednesday, hoping to identify a feature south of Feature 5 and Test Pit 55. Although the test pit did not reveal any anthropic modification of the natural soil stratigraphy, he did uncover a few artifacts, including a piece of metal and a fragment of tile. However, as there was no evidence of anthropic modification of the soil, the test pit was closed soon after. Liam also began Test Pit 61 on Wednesday, excavating near the newly discovered well to determine whether any material culture was present. However, the only artifact recovered was a single nail, and excavation was completed on Thursday.
Matt and Cole continued work on Test Pit 57 on Tuesday and began an extension; by the end of the day, their test pit was four metres in length (Figure 3). A stone feature was revealed on the north end, as well as a gravel layer in the middle of the test pit. Due to the small number of artifacts, interpretation of the feature remains unclear. Wednesday and Thursday were spent cleaning the north stone feature in the test pit. Thursday was also spent continuing this cleaning process. On Friday, Matt and Cole began mapping the stratigraphy of the east wall of Test Pit 57.
One hypothesis is that both stone features on the north and south of the trench could be cobbles (graves in French), large areas of stones used to dry salted cod. The middle portion may represent a path between them. We know that French fishermen used to build graves. This hypothesis will be kept in mind for future excavations.
Fig. 3 Test Pit 57 documenting stones features. On the south side the stone feature is already exposed;
in the north, the feature still need to be uncovered
During the 2025 summer fieldwork, Unit 3A, a drain lined by large stones on the south of Feature 3 associated with Newman & Co. (1784–1810), began to be excavated. After excavating the drain surrounding the feature, work was paused at the end of the field season. This year, Taylor and Liam, with the help of Calum, began by removing the fill that was placed in the unit to backfill at the end of the 2025 fieldwork. Landscaping fabric was used to indicate the interface between the fill and the intact archaeological laye.
After removing the backfill, they began excavating layer 3A4 within Feature 3, where numerous artifacts were found, including multiple iron nails, ceramic fragments, a pipe stem, and an intact pipe bowl dated to the 1660s–1680s (Figure 4). Liam left for a few days to excavate his own test pit at the well but later rejoined the team at Unit 3A to help accelerate excavation progress. Currently, they are still working on excavating layer 3A4, but they have nearly reached the next layer!
Fig. 4 Removing the backfill ; The pipe bowl found within layer 3A4 in Unit 3A
Jennifer and Kristin have been making great progress in Test Pit 58, which appears to be a drain. They have uncovered over 50 artifacts over the past two weeks, including ceramic sherds, nails, glass, and even pipe stems. This feature has been identified as a drain, although it is currently unclear which occupation it can be associated with due to the variety of artifacts recovered. However, it appears to date to the 19th century, and may therefore be associated with either Newman & Co. and/or the Thorne family.
The drain continues west of the test pit, where a depression in the ground surface visibly leads toward the beach to evacuate water. Excavation of Test Pit 58 is now complete, along with the map drawing, and the week ended with the completion of the stratigraphy drawing. The stratigraphy provides insight into the layers and the differences between each one, which is essential for better understanding the date of each artifact that has been collected (Figure 6 and 7).
Fig. 6 Test Pit 58, and the map completed by Jennifer and Kristin; artefacts from layer 2
Fig. 7 A 3D model of Test Pit 58 showing the drain build using the bed rock and stones added to border its southern limit
Continuing on from their excavations from the first week, Emma and William C. extended their pit 59, searching further in the sector of a feature made of stones and bricks. A significant number of nails were uncovered, along with some glass and ceramic fragments within Layer 2, dated to the 20th century (Figure 8). Even more bricks were found in their excavations this week, and they will continue on with their work next week!
Liam and William S. began test pit 62 on Friday, on an indented section of the hill in what is suspected to be a feature located south of the Turpin house. They found pieces of Normandy stoneware, a type of ceramic that originated from France. A pipe stem fragment, and sherds of modern-era glassware and ceramics were also found within the pit. More on this next week!
Liam began his own excavation of the well feature, the location of which was only discovered this summer! In this test pit 61, one nail was found, but aside from that, no other artifacts were uncovered there and excavations concluded this week. Liam has since completed a drawing of stratigraphy for the well, and has moved on to other work on the field.
We had multiple visitors throughout Week 2, which has been a delight! The site is open to the public, and we welcome everyone to come and indulge themselves in the rich history of Turpin’s Island! We were lucky enough to be paid a visit by Cindy from the WJ Clarke Cafe and Gallery; she was incredibly kind and dropped by with some delicious desserts for the team. We will definitely be stopping by the cafe again soon. Thank you so much, Cindy!
Friday was very hot and sunny, ending the day with quite a few bug bites. We were thrilled to have Joel, an archaeologist from Portugal (PhD student at the University of Leicester in the UK), join us for the day in the field! Joel is intrigued by Turpin’s Island history and the archaeological work that has been completed so far, and we were more than happy to have his company. Catherine cooked up a delicious feast of chicken and potatoes on the BBQ for the entire team, and Joel joined us as well. No one wanted to miss this supper. Later, Emma set us up to play a game of King of the Castle, where the team was able to debut their best accents!
Saturday was also beautiful! In the afternoon, we visited Bill and Cindy at the WJ Clarke Gallery Cafe. They gave us a tour of the gallery, the history of the building, some sweets, and a stroll down to the beach to see the whaling station on the shore, dated back to the beginning of the 20th century, with Turpin’s Island visible across the water.
Later that night, we went to the Trophy Lounge for some GARYOKE! Before we began karaoke, Brendan, a familiar face who worked on the site last year, was playing is best song for the locals. Everyone had a great time singing; we could have stayed the whole night!
Fig. 10 GARYOKE!!!
We are hoping for another packed week on site. Feel free to drop by; we would love to chat with you! Also, do not miss the end of excavation presentation Thursday June 18th, 2026 at St. Lawrence Recreation center at 7pm.
Bonus: Catherine Losier, Interview at Le Réveil Nouvelle-Écosse et Terre-Neuve June 11, 2026. Begin at 45 seconds:
Bonus 2: Flight over Turpin's Island
References:
● Drake K.L. (2026). « An investigation of human activity and environmental change at Turpin’s Island through palaeoenvironmental and historical archives », MA thesis, Memorial University
● Losier, C., Ledger, P., Whitridge, P. (2024). “Turpin’s Island, Little St. Lawrence, CfAu-05. Small Scale Archaeological and Paleoenvironmental Excavation” Provincial Archaeology Office 2023, Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, p. 95-109.
● Losier, C. (2025).“Turpin’s Island, Little St. Lawrence, CfAu-05. Survey and Identification of Features”. Provincial Archaeology Office 2024, Archaeology Review, Vol. 23, p.188-201.
● Losier, C., Drake, K., Burgess, N. (2026) “Turpin’s Island, Little St. Lawrence, CfAu-05. Scaling Up Data Collection. Memorial University Field school 2025”. Provincial Archaeology Office 2025, Archaeology Review, Vol. 24, p.39-54.
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