Could be that it's an either-or trigger, although I've asked Ferro stuff myself and don't remember ever getting a journal notification.I do know, however, that my first time through the game I went into the away camp I had my artifacts with me but I stashed them in a chest to cut down on unnecessary weight for awhile. A bit later I got stuck somewhere and just reloaded from my save only to find to my complete horror that it reloaded to just the regular Wilderness Clearing!
Fortunately I had a save from just before I entered the area where I still had the artifacts and was able to revert to it but I nearly completely screwed up my game by dropping off those stupid things in the chest. Guess the designers never thought anyone would so stupid as to do that. Leave it to me to find a loophole they didn't think of.