The rescue archaeology operations conducted in 1997 lasted 11 weeks, 2 of which were spent installing the site, 8 digging and the last reburying the remains of the shipwrecked vessel in a lake in the Anse aux Bouleaux region.
In addition to Marc-André Bernier, the members of Parks Canada's excavation team included: project director Jim Ringer, Peter Waddell, Chriss Ludin, Daniel La Roche, Nicolas Cadieux and Érik Phaneuf. Kateri Morin acted as field conservator and was assisted by Louise Dupuis, Christine Brisson, Gaétan Deroy and Chantal Bouchard.
As in 1996, about 40 volunteers, sponsored by the Groupe de préservation des vestiges subaquatiques de Manicouagan, made a significant contribution to the success of the expedition. They helped not only with the underwater excavations but with the conservation work conducted in the field laboratory at the old fish farm in Baie-Trinité.
Objectives
The main goal of the 1997 season was very simple: to complete the excavation. However, a number of major challenges awaited the researchers. For example, certain parts of the site contained concretions, or very hard masses of ferrous material which form around iron objects that spend a long time in salt water. Removing these concretions is a lengthy process, mainly because they are so large. Moreover, since they are very heavy, they are hard to lift and require considerable preparation if they have to be transported. But these problems are nothing in comparison with those that await conservators in the laboratory!
The other major challenge of 1997 was to raise the remains of the hull. As mentioned earlier, the purpose of the excavation was to save the structure, which was located in very shallow water. If the hull had been left where it was, it might have been washed away during a storm or when the ice broke up in the spring. One solution was to raise the wreck in one piece, a procedure that would have required a considerable amount of money, not only to take the structure out of the water but also to preserve it once it had been removed from that environment. However, the archaeologists opted for another solution that involved disassembling the ship's structure and bringing the timbers up to the surface in order to study each one in depth. The method also involved reburying the timbers in another location more suited to protecting them over the long term. This approach, which is becoming more and more common in underwater archaeology, proved highly effective during the excavation of a 16th-century Basque whaleship in Red Bay, Labrador, and more recently, during the excavation of LaSalle's ship, the La Belle, which went down in the waters off what is now the state of Texas in 1686. During the Anse aux Bouleaux project, this method allowed researchers to gather as much information as possible about the hull.
