By Heather Spaulding

Journal reporter

The smell of salt and decay wafting off trash piled high on tables fills the San Juan Historical Museum’s resource center.

What may seem like an unappealing scene for some, is a wealth of knowledge for Candace Gossen, who teaches cultural anthropology at Skagit Valley Community College, San Juan Center.

“What we find tells us a lot about our society. For example, not that long ago we would have never have seen these,” Gossen said, pointing to a pile of plastic cigarette filters.

This fascination with litter led Gossen to host Garbage Archaeology Day at the museum on Feb.19 to give the community a glimpse of what is washing ashore at Deadman’s Bay. Her anthropology students have been analyzing beach garbage collected over the last year. To wrap up the project, the class wanted to give the public an opportunity to view the 12,000 pieces trash and data for themselves.

Gossen had been picking up trash while walking her dog on Deadman’s Bay for environmental reasons, when the scientist in her realized what an amazing project it could be for her students. The students  named themselves the Sasquatch Archeology Militia, or SAM, and spent the next few months trash bags in hand, collecting their data.

According to SAM’s statistics, 55 percent of what they found was plastic. Syringes have been found frequently, and she brings them to the sheriff’s office. According to Gossen, it isn’t uncommon to find drug baggies stamped with a dealers coded sign. She explained that since these bags often wash up from unknown areas they are not usually helpful to law enforcement.

The final garbage tally showed shot gun casings collected doubled, 266 from June to February, as opposed to last spring, 157.

“We can actually trace where they originated, both the manufacture and the store they were purchased from,”Gossen said, “They all came from the U.S.”

Gossen added that there are theories that most of the casings came from guns fire around Skagit Valley and wash down the Skagit River, but she isn’t entirely convinced.

“I think it’s possible at least some of them came from somewhere closer,” she said.

The class has not found anything from the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan, and according to Gossen, most of it will wash up on Vancouver Island before the San Juans.

Of the trash collected from Deadman’s Bay however, the students determined that 30 percent, just under one third, originated in Canada and off Chinese ships passing through.

According to Gossen, a trade good item was found from African American slaves, whose escape route into Canada took them through the Salish Sea during the Civil War era.

“Pirate Kelley used Chinese slaves,” she said. “When he wanted to get rid of them, he chained them together, tied burlap bags over their heads and threw them overboard. The bodies would wash up on Deadman’s.”

Nothing as gruesome as a body has been found by the students, but much of the debris has a story to tell about the island’s past and present.

This March a the students will present their findings to the Northwest Anthropological Conference in Tacoma.

For more information about this project, contact Candace Gossen at info@blackcoyotemedicine.org.

This story has been updated to reflect recent information submitted to us by Candace Gossen.