Pukaskwa Pits are rock-lined depressions near the northern shore of

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

dug by early inhabitants, ancestors of the

Ojibwa The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

, named after the

Pukaskwa River The Pukaskwa River is a river in Thunder Bay District and Algoma District in Northern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Great Lakes Basin and is a tributary of Lake Superior, which it enters at the south end of Pukaskwa National Park. It is a remote, ...

in Ontario, Canada. Estimates of their age range from as recent as 1100-1600 CE, to as ancient as 3000-8000 BCE.

Description and purpose

These rock-lined pits are dug in

cobblestone Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called Belgian blocks, are often casually referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct fro ...

beaches and are about one to two metres long and one and a half metre deep. The pits came to academic light in 1949, and were studied by the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and

Lakehead University Lakehead University is a public research university with campuses in Thunder Bay and Orillia, Ontario, Canada. Lakehead University, shortened to 'Lakehead U', is non-denominational and provincially supported. It has undergraduate programs, grad ...

. Theories about the purpose of these pits range from hunting blinds to food storage pits to spiritual sites. The larger pits or "lodges" may have been seasonal dwellings with domed coverings. The smaller pits may have been used to cook food or smoke fish, but this seems unlikely, since there is never any sign of a hearth or fire-cracked rock close at hand. Although no archaeological evidence suggests the pits were used ceremonially, their location near spectacular, panoramic views of the lake have suggested a popular theory calling them "thunderbird nests" used for "vision quests". A new theory suggests that Pukaskwa Pits were used as ice houses: in the spring, beach ice may have been piled into them along with fish or game to be frozen well into the summer.
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Pukaskwa National Park

Pukaskwa National Park was established in 1978 to protect a large clustering of these Pukaskwa pits.

Footnotes

References

* * * * * {{refend Ojibwe in Canada Anishinaabe culture Geography of Algoma District Geography of Thunder Bay District Lake Superior History of indigenous peoples of North America Hunter-gatherers of Canada