Oregon coast artifacts vs. Drake

[Mike Cleven]

Nadja Adolf wrote:
>
> Actually, I'm a lot more interested in preserving the "original
> pit dwellings" than I am in tracking down Sir Frances Drake.
>
> There are almost none of these dwellings left, and I think the
> "land offered for public sale" should be purchased by the government
> and granted to the descendants of the people who built them.

Agreed.  But if these same ancestors honoured a strangely-attired
visitor in a fat canoe hung with sheets, wouldn't you want to respect
that long-ago welcome, too?  What I meant in my last comments was simply
this; that whatever may have happened since, to be able to locate the
villge - and the descendants of that village - where a world-wandering
adventurer (of whatever extraction) documented his visit to, and was
warmly welcomed by the people there; doesn't that deserve respect as a
mark of distinguishment of THAT village?

I know that pit-house remains are rarer and rarer to find, especially
down oregon-cali way.  Up in the Fraser Canyon and Lillooet they're
still fairly common, and largely unexplored, and all ultimately
threatened by development, roads, or artifact poachers and weekend
archaeologists.  At least the Drake connection with this one location
will see to it that this village is investigated and documented - and
protected.  Isn't that _something_?

MC