They hit the mother lode - not of gold, but of something with more historical significance - bones.
A 10-day dig at the Original Humbodt site located southwest of the current city this fall produced a wealth of archeological finds, from horse bones to a complete knife. They were all pulled from an area on top of a sandy hill believed to be a fire pit used by Canadian soldiers encamped at the site during the North West Rebellion of 1885.
"It was a good dig," said Karmen VanderZwan, an archeologist with Western Heritage Services in charge of the excavation. "We found the hearth we suspected was there, and we found a lot more with the horse (skeleton), other skulls, two bottles... (and) a substantial knife... which looks like a utility knife of sorts."
"We are, overall, absolutely ecstatic about the first excavation at Fort Denison," said Jennifer Hoesgen, curator of the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery (HDMG), the body that funded the dig along with the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation.
Fort Denison is the nickname given to the area of Original Humboldt where troops led by Lt. Colonel George Denison, a cavalry officer sent to Humboldt to guard the army's supplies during the North West Rebellion, were camped.
Digging those artifacts out was difficult, painstaking work. Volunteers, staff from the HDMG, and archeologists from Western Heritage Services dug down 10 centimetres at a time in quadrants marked out with string.
Despite the shelter provided by a tent from Discovery Ford, the volunteers still dealt with cold, with wind and moist conditions in the field while they slowly uncovered pieces of Humboldt's past.
The archeologists were guided to the hill in the middle of the Original Humboldt site location by anomalies in the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and magnetometer surveys that had been done earlier.
Those surveys showed disturbances in the soil in a few locations, including on this sandy hill, which experts felt could be fire pits dug by Denison's troops.
They started in one spot a little to the east of where the big finds were uncovered, indicated VanderZwan.
"We originally put a trench in (there) because we thought there were some anomalies (there) from the GPR and magnetometer survey," she said.
After a few days of turning up very little, it was decided to move the dig a little to the west. And that's where they started to run into bone.
First, they found what they think was a badger hole. Then they started finding evidence of burned layers of earth, including a heavy layer of charcoal, indicating a large hearth was once located there.
It appeared to be a large pit, which it would have needed to be to serve the over 400 men who were camped at the site at one time. There were likely other smaller ones around as well, it was noted.
The excavation team then turned their attention a bit to the south, and turned up yet more bones, including skulls of various animals and the mostly intact skeleton of a horse, horseshoes and all.
"It's bone central," one of the diggers commented as they brushed dirt off a recently uncovered skull in one of the southerly quadrants.
Just why all the animal bones were located in the same spot - some burned and some not - is something VanderZwan will be researching.
"It's not clear right now, what's here," she said. "I'll have to take a look at the bones and see if there's evidence of butchering or skinning.... It's a mystery right now, what we've found."
The bones and all the other finds made in the area were dug up, cleaned off a little, bagged and sent to the HDMG, where they were laid out to dry.
The water table at the site was so high, most of the bones came out completely wet, VanderZwan explained.
After the dig was wrapped up, looking at the bones and other finds all set up on tables at the HDMG and organized according to the quadrants and layers in which they were found, the wealth of the find is indisputable.
On one set of tables, there are nails, pieces of leather, a harness buckle, pieces of glass, and a piece of metal they believe could be from a pair of suspenders, along with a plethora of small bones belonging to various animals.
On another set of tables lay the larger bones, including those of a horse, complete with horseshoes, and the skulls of what are believed to be a fox, a coyote and a badger or wolverine.
The horse, it turns out, is missing a few parts, including its head, its hips and his left hind leg, which would have been located closest to the surface.
"The right hind leg was in perfect position," VanderZwan noted. "It didn't move at all."
That makes it more mysterious as to how the rest of the horse went missing. Farm machinery may have dug up those parts of the horse, which was buried pretty close to the surface, or they could have been scavenged by predators over 100 years ago, VanderZwan noted.
"He has three horseshoes, and parts of harness with buckles (were found) under his rib cage, and a horse curry comb... was underneath it," she said.
The copper from the harness and comb actually stained his ribs green in some spots, she added.
After the bones are dry, they will be washed and catalogued and checked for anomalies. The other artifacts will also be cleaned and analyzed. The horseshoes, for example, with some research, could suggest a time period, and perhaps identify it as a military horse.
"They're pretty rusty. We'll see what we get," VanderZwan said.
VanderZwan will write a complete report on the finds, while the museum will determine what to do with all the artifacts, which belong to them.
This dig is just the first of much more research that needs to be done at the Original Humboldt site, Hoesgen noted, as long as funds are available.
Hoesgen had a lot of praise for the volunteers who gave of their time to help with the dig, spending days in the trenches, digging.
"Without them, we wouldn't have been able to do this," she said.
While VanderZwan works on her report, work on Original Humboldt will continue at the site.
"We still need to do more geophysics work at the site this fall," Hoesgen said - the work done previously this summer could not be completed due to the wetness of the field.
The HDMG staff are already working on an event to host at the site in June of 2011.
Hometown archeologist in charge of dig
Karmen VanderZwan, the archeologist with Western Heritage Services in charge of the Original Humboldt dig this fall, actually calls Humboldt her hometown.
Though she now lives in Saskatoon, VanderZwan grew up in Humboldt, and has just wrapped up nine years of post-secondary education by finishing her Masters degree in Archeology.
"It was kind of a surprise... to be able to be in charge of my first excavation and hold my first permit in my home town. It's a unique experience," she smiled.
"I think it's working well for the museum and for me. It's good experience for me, too," she noted.
VanderZwan said she has always been interested in history, which is what led her to archeology as a profession. Her interest in the history of this region - Western Canada and the Plains - is what led her back to Humboldt on her first dig.
"I really like the historical archeology of this province," she said, so she focused her education on that area.
