The Process of Going Back in Time

When I decided to choose this subject as my project for the roadshow, the first thing that I did was look for a good photograph, preferably one with a date. I wanted to try and depict a tidal weir, used by a community along the Coquille River, somewhere around 600-700 years before present.

One thing that I realized quite quickly, after discovering this awesome USFWS photo, and reviewing some of my background literature, was that it was going to be difficult to recreate all aspects of life along the estuary, due partly to the few remaining records of these communities prior to contact with Euro-American settlers, and partly due to my own abilities. As such, it is important to note from the start that any inaccuracies, whether archaeological, anthropological, or cultural, are entirely of my own doing!

That being said, I had a great deal of fun with this project, and this experience has motivated me to look more into the process of recreative illustration.

Below here is a short gallery that you can click through, showing some of the steps in the process of creating the final illustration.

USFWS Photo - Fahys Outflow

This image was taken on September 30th, 2011, displaying recent mud-flat erosion after some reconstruction of the wetlands in the area. This was the base image that I decided to work from, as I felt it had great compositional value (credit to Roy W. Lowe of the USFWS!), and offered a chance to show off an outflow weir.

First Rough Sketch

This was my first quick-sketch of what I thought some of the major elements in the illustration might be. You see some things here that didn't make it into the final version, such as an earthen oven on the opposite bank, figures on the far bank, and more plankhouses along the opposite side of the river.

Detailed Draft

Here is a more detailed draft that I produced, after tweaking the inital sketch. I did my best, based upon my sources, to try and envision what the area might have looked like around 600-700 years ago, accounting for erosional differences, and so on. This would be the foundation for the final draft.

Final Draft

Here is the final draft of the illustration, really just a refinement of the detailed draft. The plankhouses, cedar-bark clothing detail, the water, and the weir were all worked on quite a bit more. I'll likely always feel like this piece could be much better, but for the scope of the roadshow, I was fairly pleased with how it turned out!

One thing that is important to keep in mind, especially when comparing use of areas like this, is that, generally speaking, a good place to live is a good place to live. Areas such as the Coquille River, which were incredibly abundant, and used for tens of thousands of years by indigenous peoples to support their communities. These resource-rich estuaries and channels were similarly attractive to Euro-American colonists, whose own methods of mass fishing, dredging, and landscaping have irrevocably changed these landscapes, and in doing so, drastically altered the lives of wildlife populations and indigenous communities. It's important to consider how these areas were used in the past, but equally important to consider how they are used today, and to develop a nuanced understanding of how they became the way they are.