In my MA I had the opportunity to participate in Saint Mary’s University’s archaeological field school at Grand Pré National Historic Site.   The field school introduced me to a new way of understanding the eighteenth century.  Not only did it offer an intimate relationship with the period’s material culture and an active way of learning about the past, but the Grand Pré program was also integrated into the park’s public programming.  Not only did we dig, but we also engaged the park’s visitors in what we were doing.  We explained the process, and told stories about what we found as we showed the artefacts to the public.

The field school sparked my interest in archaeology; a few years later I was back at it again, this time as part of the public archaeology program at Fortress Louisbourg National Historic Site.  The principal difference between the program at Louisbourg and the one run by St. Mary’s is that instead of anthropology and history student-workers, Louisbourg’s program is focused more on directly engaging the public in the work of archaeologists.  People from a variety of occupational backgrounds, historians and non-historians alike, and from all over North America come to Louisbourg to peel back the earth’s surface and take a peek inside.  Like the work at Grand Pré, participants learn, dig and share what they are doing with the public.

The way that both of these programs engage with the public was both surprising and challenging.  Unlike the practice of public history, where the focus is primarily on disseminating the work of historians through non-academic and more passive mediums (often museums and historical walks), the Grand Pré field school and Louisbourg Public Archaeology Program draw the public into the research process.  For the historian, the equivalent of this level of interaction would be extending an invitation to the public into the archives with us.

To a certain extent many historians already do this.  Oral historians and historians working with specific communities, for example, have long structured their research around collaborative methods which draw interviewees and community members into the research process.  Rarely, however, are these community members full partners in the research process, nor is the focus of these projects broadening people’s exposure to the actual work of historians.

Louisbourg Public Archaeology Program

Similarly, historians who teach often engage students with the practice of history.  But even here, the focus is often more on dissemination of historical research than integration of students into the research process.

Is there a role for the public in historical research?  Is it possible to have a public history program similar to Louisbourg’s Public Archaeology Program, where members of the public could work alongside professional historians?  There are, of course, some major differences between the work of historians and archaeologists.  Archaeologists often work in public spaces where their work can easily be observed; historians usually work in gated archives where even the best known remain obscure to the public.  But this difference makes programs similar to archaeological field schools and public archaeology programs all the more important.  Imagine a place – outside of the classroom – which offered people the chance to engage with primary and secondary texts, develop their own lines of analysis, and discuss aspects of interpretation with the experts who work behind the scenes in determining the stories that are told in our museums, historic sites, and monographs.

Photo by Skeezix1000

The immigration museum at Pier 21 in Halifax provides a glimpse into what this type of public history can look like.  The museum’s research department is located within the museum and is focused on providing additional information for those interested in Pier 21 and Canadian immigration; they are also active in acquiring stories and materials related to the museum’s mandate.  Much like the archaeologists running the programs at Grand Pré and Louisbourg, the research staff at Pier 21 engage the public on a broader and more active level.  According to their website, they “offer reference services to anyone who visits, e-mails, calls or writes. We conduct oral history interviews, scan materials, collect stories, deliver educational workshops and work with countless partners on book, film and research projects.”

Approaching the public in this way reduces the separation between public and academic pursuits of the past.  It demystifies the work that historians and archaeologists do, while also engaging non-historians in some of the more challenging and rigorous aspects of studying the past.  Most of all it emphasizes the varying role that historians and archaeologists have both as teachers of past events and also as teachers of methodology and best practices.

Benedicte Ingstad at the 50th Anniversary Ceremony (Photo by Author)

By Megan Arnott

The main story of L’Anse aux Meadows occurred 1000 years ago, when Leifr Eiriksson (or some other intrepid Norse explorer) and his crew journeyed across the North Atlantic and landed on the shores of North America. It is this story that continues to bring in national and international visitors by the thousand, and it is this story that Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism continues to present to a watching world.

But there is another prominent story at L’Anse aux Meadows, one that is tied to the 1000 year old tale, but which happened in living memory and which continues to shape the lives of the people of the Northern Peninsula. On Wednesday July the 21st, 2010 L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site celebrated the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Norse archaeological site.

In 1960 Helge Ingstad, a Norwegian explorer and writer, arrived by boat to the community of L’Anse aux Meadows asking about Norse/Viking remains. From there a local man by the name of George Decker led Ingstad to the remnants of some old sod buildings. The rest is history.

Alan Latourelle (left) presenting art to Wade Decker (centre). Standing to the right is Kari Hoel of the Norwegian Embassy. (Photo by Author)

On the morning of July 21st the CBC came early to L’Anse aux Meadows to interview some of the important characters, including locals, like Clayton Claybourne, who had been here since the beginning in 1960, members of the Decker family, L’Anse aux Meadows resident story-teller Michael Sexton, Parks Canada archaeologist in charge of the site at L’Anse aux Meadows Birgitta Wallace and Benedicte Ingstad, daughter of Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad.

Fireworks on site at L’Anse aux Meadows. (Photo by Author)

Later that evening a reception was held, and a few of the presenters there were from members of the original archaeological team. Instead of talking about the sagas, or the implications of their finds or work, largely they showed pictures they had taken of the community when they were here in the 60s and 70s, and talked about what it was like to do the archaeology and how it felt to make a find. Their audience was the community that live here and who knew most of the people in the photos, and there was general recognition that scholarly discussions of archaeological or historical theory would not reflect what was being celebrated that day. In the evening festivities were capped off by a bonfire and fireworks.

L’Anse aux Meadows Viking interpreters, going by the Viking names of Finnbogi (left), Egil (right), and behind Egil, Bjorn. (Photo by Author)

To a distant public it is a history that is perhaps slightly less interesting, though just as important, as the millennia old story of Viking explorers. After all, without the discovery we would not know how Newfoundland fits into that epic tale. Yet for visitors who see the landscape around L’Anse aux Meadows, the story of the site’s discovery and the subsequent archaeology is found to be just as gripping a tale of humanity. And for locals, and for everyone who has been involved at L’Anse aux Meadows over the years Wednesday was not just a day to celebrate history, but a day to celebrate their own history.

Megan Arnott is a Masters student with the University of Western Ontario’s Public History program. She is currently on a Public History Internship with L’Anse aux Meadows.

Franklin Expedition, 1845

In 1845 the Franklin Expedition disembarked from coastal England in search of the Northwest Passage, but instead of achieving this goal, the voyage became the source of one of history’s most enduring stories that would continue to spark interest over 150 years later.

This summer Parks Canada has announced its intention to continue its search for the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror – the two lost ships of the Franklin Expedition – that it began in 2008.

In 1845, the Franklin Expedition, led by Sir John Franklin, set sail with a crew of 128 men and three years worth of provisions in the hopes of finding a Northwest Passage. After three years without news from the expedition, and at the behest of the British public, including Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane Franklin, the Royal Navy launched a rescue party in search of the missing explorers. In addition to the navy’s official parties, a number of other rescue parties set out, spurred on by interest and concern, as well as the promise of a £20,000 reward. By 1850, the first traces of the ill fated voyage were found off the coast of Beechey Island in the Eastern Arctic. Searchers found the remnants of a winter camp, along with the graves of three sailors. Still, the search for survivors or answers continued, and by 1854 explorer John Rae had collected the most conclusive proof of the expedition’s demise by gathering information form the local Inuit who told him of a large group of starving white men, as well as stories of cannibalism. The Inuit had also collected a number of artefacts from the expedition that were subsequently passed on to Rae. Rae transmitted these stories back to England and while his evidence was accepted, he was vilified by Lady Jane Franklin and her supporters for daring to suggest that British sailors could have taken part in actions as grim as cannibalism.

In 1857, Lady Jane Franklin commissioned a second expedition that located handwritten messages left by the Franklin crew under a pile of rocks. These messages reported that during the expedition both the Erebus and Terror had been locked in ice for over a year and a half and that twenty-four men had died during this time, including Sir John Franklin. Running out of provisions, the remaining crew members abandoned ship and began to trek south. No man survived this journey.

Ironically enough, while Franklin has been credited by some of his countrymen with finding the Northwest Passage, in truth, it was actually the various search parties that did far more to map the landscape of Canada’s Arctic.

In the 1980s interest in the Franklin Expedition was renewed and new technologies were used on discovered human remains to determine that the crew had likely died from a number of causes that may have included pneumonia, scurvy, tuberculosis, and lead poisoning, caused either by lead in the tinned food or in the ship’s water filtration system. Theories of cannibalism were also confirmed by examining blade cuts found on human bones. Despite these findings, the Terror and Erebus remain lost at sea. It is this mystery, along with the fate of the Investigator, a rescue ship that sank while trying to locate the Franklin Expedition that archaeologists working for Parks Canada hope to solve by using the latest in sonar technology alongside the oral traditions provided by the area’s Inuit.

While a historical mystery underscores this government funded venture, its timing is also no accident. This expedition comes at a time that Canada is reasserting its claims over the Far North. As global warming causes Arctic waterways to open up, there is increased interest within Canada, and globally, about the materials, including vast amounts of oil and minerals that may lie underneath these waters. In the years ahead this changing landscape will continue to be the cause of international interest and competing agendas of national governments, businesses and environmentalists. With this in mind the Canadian Government is reasserting its sovereignty in the area and investing heavily to chart these waters.

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