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Source: Toronto Museums & Heritage Services
T his small white projectile point was found in 1935 by Jeanne Carter, then a 10-year-old schoolgirl on a class trip to Fort York. “I was walking towards a building on a sandy path,” she recalls. “I looked down and saw this little white thing.” Jeanne picked up the souvenir and for the next 80 years kept it in a curio box until giving it to a friend who works in a museum. It eventually found its way to City historian Richard Gerrard. “The material it’s made out of, quartzite, is strange for this part of Ontario,” says Gerrard, raising the possibility of wideranging travel or trade. The artifact is 4000-6000 years old, dating to the Archaic period, making it one of the oldest in the City’s collection and one of only four found at Fort York (the other three were dug up by archaeologists). “Material recovered archaeologically tells the city’s story and reflects the First Nations presence over thousands of years,” Wayne Reeves, the chief curator of Museums & Heritage Services, told the Toronto Star. “No paper record was left by those early inhabitants, so knowing their story through archaeological specimens is essential.” website: www.fortyork.ca The Fife and Drum 17
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