Collecting Chert

Buckets of rock are heavy

On the way back from the Craft Council AGM in Corner Brook, I took an extra day and collected stone and wood for Elfshot.  I've been running low on chert for quite a while and had originally planned a rock collecting trip for last fall, but I couldn't schedule it.  I've been getting a lot of my chert lately from an abandoned gravel quarry north of Botwood in central Newfoundland, but there is even better quality chert on the Port au Port Peninsula on the west coast of the Island that I've been missing lately.

Port au Port chert outcrop

In the decade or so since I've visited the Port au Port chert sources, I found that access had been cut off to one of the locations by roads blocked with boulders, gates, and private property signs from cabin development in the area.  However, the main source was still there and in good shape.  One of the challenges of collecting chert for my knapped reproductions is finding a stone that looks like those found at archaeological sites, without disturbing actually quarry locations.  Flintknappers today need to find chert sources that were not exploited in the past in order to avoid contaminating the archaeological record.

All of those nodules are chert

I know that other knappers have collected rock from the Port au Port outcrop since I started using it in 1997 and I was a little concerned that signs of that use would begin to create the look of an archaeological site, as cores are tested and flakes are produced.  But that wasn't the case.  I was there when the tide was quite high, so I couldn't see all of the beach, but at the base of the actual chert cliff I didn't see any sign that flintknappers had collected or worked stone at this location either recently or hundreds of years ago.  At this site, if I test a core and get a nice flake, I collect both the flake and the core, so that I don't leave worked pieces behind.   It looks like the other knappers who collect here do the same thing, which is great.

Chert nodules surrounded by fractured chert and sedimentary rocks

Conchoidal fracture in situ

The chert at this location is extremely fine grained and although it is prone to fractures like all Newfoundland chert, it is possible to get sizable cores with enough integrity to make 4 or 5 inch long bifaces.  The chert is all grey, with some subtle swirls of lighter, darker, or bluish grey throughout it.  There is also sprinkling of pyrite crystals throughout the chert, which doesn't impede its knapping, but add an interesting metallic sheen to many of the pieces knapped from it.

Ready to haul rock to the other end of the province

On very rare occasions, I've actually hit pockets of oil inside this stone.  It was the weirdest thing, I removed a flake and it felt wet and sticky, which usually means that I've cut myself, but this time it was a little puddle of oil encased inside the chert.

Gravel quarry of vertical chert beds

The other location that I collect chert from is a little closer to St. John's and has a lot more variety in colour, but its slightly tougher to work and is a little more prone to internal fractures than the Port au Port material.  Its an unused road gravel quarry located north of Botwood and the entire pit was excavated down through beds of chert that range in colour from green and black to red, blue, aqua, grey, buff, and purple.  Its so highly fractured that its difficult to find workable pieces in all of those colours, but the shear volume of stone that is exposed in the pit makes collecting stone fast and easy.

Chert in the quarry north of Botwood

The debris in the quarry is growing

Since my last visit to this location a couple years ago, it seems to have become a party place.  There were toppled shelters, and piles of debris and fire pits peppering the floor of the pit.  Chert is basically silica, so this quarry is like an enormous pit of broken glass.  I can't imagine a more treacherous place to have a party.  I was wearing gloves and steel-toed boots and felt lucky to get out without serious injury.   Its not a place that I'd want to be in the dark with alcohol.  Someone had spray painted "GRAD PART" in enormous letters at one end of the pit and I can't help but wonder what happened to them to prevent them from finishing that last letter.

Chert in the quarry wall

I'm a little worried that if this trend continues the next time I try to collect rock here I'll find boulders across the road blocking access, like the location that I couldn't get to on the Port au Port Peninsula.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast