NEW PICTOGRAPHS FOUND ON HEGMAN?

Last week Nancy and I were showing some friends from Chicago the wonderful display of pictographs on North Hegman Lake and just happened to run into a dad with his two sons at a campsite on South Hegman. We got to chatting and young Chase mentioned that he had found some pictographs in a campsite across the lake where they usually camp. We all got in our canoes and paddled over to the now empty site where Chase showed us an amazing little display of pictographs nearly in the middle of a busy campsite under the broken face of a 5 foot boulder. Are they real or are they a fake? Check out these photos and tell us what you think.

Chase by the way is an avid BWCAW paddler with several trips under his belt. Here is what he says about the Boundary Waters:

“My favorite part of the BWCAW is the solitude and being able to get away from a very busy city. I like camping there because I get to be with my family. I love fishing. Where I live there are no good fishing spots, so coming up here and fishing is great. When I grow up I want to be a Marine and serve this beautiful country”

If you’d like to see these yourself just stop at the only campsite on S. Hegman L on the west shore. The boulder and the drawings are hard to miss near the middle of the campsite. If you look for a nice dry place to store your wood under an overhanging rock as Chase did you will find them easily.

Steve Piragis.





And Now, as some folks say, the rest of the story? Well, at least, some more of the story:

Steve,

I wanted to follow up on two conversations we have had. Either or both responses may contain more than you wanted, but I did want to follow up.

First, last summer you sent me the information on the South Hegman site and we discussed it briefly. We had not been to that site. Earlier in May when we were in Ely we went to the site. Here is my
assessment:

1. I talked with Walt Okstad, Historian / Heritage Program Manager for Superior National Forest, who is an archaeologist. He sent a team to evaluate the site when they were told of it. These were people with much experience evaluating other BWCA sites. The team said the site was not authentic based on a) location and b) appearance of the images. Their opinion was that they were of recent origin. Mr. Okstad added that had they been authentic there would have been references on maps "60 years ago." He added that, as with all pictograph sites, these are only opinions.

2. When we looked at the images, they are distinctly brown in color. They are not even close to any of the shades of red of the many other sites we have studied. There are known white and red images in canoe country. If you accept the Island River images (BELOW) then there are green (or gray) images. I know of no brown images. That alone does not make them fake, but does make them "out of the ordinary."

3. The canoe on the site is unusual. Images of canoes on known sites are of two kinds. One, the "stick figure" type, is painted with single strokes of the brush (i.e. finger) and all lines are the width of a single stroke of the finger. This kind of canoe image is very common in the area. The other kind has a "thicker" canoe as in "more freeboard" and elaborate figures in the canoe. An example is the image at entrance of Kawa bay on east side. Interestingly, Agnes site 5 (Island in middle of the Lake north of the S-Chain take off) has one of each type of image on the panel. In the image at South Hegman, the canoe is "thick" and the figures in the canoe are "stick figures." I know of no other image in the area or in the New England area that is drawn like this. That does not directly make it fake, but it is unusual. Also, the cross on the panel is of thicker lines than the three vertical lines which are thicker than the figures in the canoe. This is also unusual. In the vast majority of sites, all lines are of the same thickness unless there is a figure that is "filled in."

4. As Mr. Okstad said, the location is very unusual. The rock face is very small, and the rock itself is very small. Location in a clearing away from the water is unusual. But since Montgomery Creek was found, off-the-water sites are certainly possible.

5. It is hard to believe that a site in so commonly traveled a location was not reported much earlier. From the best I can tell, this site was only reported in very recent times. Many very old maps have references to authentic sites, but no known "old maps" reference this site.

Based on all this, we have decided not to include it in our series of Northwoods Pictographs. We are, however, going to include it in the book under a section on sites that are known or suspected to be inauthentic.

The other conversation we had was a brief one in the Chocolate Moose regarding the Island River site. I have several questions about this site:

1. The images are very large. As you know, there are no other images in the area that are more than a part of a foot in size. We have researched the known images in New England, where nearly all are petroglyphs, not pictographs, and we know of some large ones, but none of this size. That does not directly make them fake. I am now studying the Navajo area in the southwest looking for images this large.

2. The pigment color is unusual. Green and black pigments appear to have been mixed, and photographically do not match any other pigment on the rock. I conclude that whatever or whomever made them brought the pigment from elsewhere. We are not authorities in photo analysis, though we are getting a little better with experience. In our area only red and white pigments are used other than here. But I will not yet rule out the possibility of green and black pigment use as both colors are found in mineral washes on many cliffs in canoe country. Black washes are probably iron based and green pigments could be copper based or from other materials. The pigments were certainly available.

3. Of note, to the left and below the three figures are the initials JWC.
The initials are quite large but can be easily overlooked, as one tends to focus on the large images. The initials appear to have been made by scratching plant coverings from the rock. But the initials are not void of plant life. The surface of the initials has plant life growing on the rock and it is of a kind found elsewhere on the rock. I am not a botanist and not an authority on lichens, though I know their basic biology. If the plants in the base of the initials are lichens, these are very slow growing plants, and the initials had to have been there for at least the growth time of the lichens. But they could be other types of plants, like mosses, which grow faster. I would like to find a botanist to examine the plant life on the rock face. Are the initials those of the painter? If so, the images are not Ojibwa. Are they graffiti added some time after images painted? No way of telling. Hopefully folks traveling to any of the known sites will refrain from anything that damages the images. The initials only add to the confusion surrounding this site.

In my opinion, the jury is still out on this one. I don't understand it at all. We are still researching it. As I said above, I would like to find a highly trained botanist with knowledge of lichens and mosses and similar plants to examine the initials and the plant life within and around them. We will include it in our series of bulletins, since it is recognized by the Superior National Forest officials as an authentic site.

We will continue to research these and hopefully have a better discussion by the time we get the book written.

Bob Evans, Northwoods Memories Multimedia Productions L.L.C.

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