Introduction

Memorial University of Newfoundland, located in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, was developed in 1925 to help build a better future for the people of what is now Canada’s easternmost province, whose largely rural fishing communities were rapidly transforming through industrialization and urbanization (Figure 1). Mandated by a “special obligation to the people of the province,” (Memorial University, 2013) university archaeologists embraced applied, community-based projects that encouraged local solutions to the social and economic issues arising from the transformation to modernity. Today, community-archaeology remains integral to our research program and the majority of our research is undertaken in partnership with rural stakeholders and Indigenous populations who continue to be marginalized both geographically and economically. This paper will describe how archaeological research and resources are being used to promote economic and social justice, as well as reconciliation, based on enduring researcher partnerships held with two distinct communities: Ferryland, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Nunatsiavut Inuit Government in Labrador. These case studies demonstrate the ways in which archaeology has the potential to make valuable local contributions that change lives in the present.

Figure 1
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Map of Newfoundland and Labrador showing locations of places mentioned in text

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Context

It seems unlikely that many students enter the field of archaeology with a goal to serve the public good. More commonly students are attracted to the discipline because they have an interest in history, a fascination with ancient artifacts, or a desire for a career that allows them to spend time working outdoors. However, by their second year it should be apparent to most undergraduate students that some aspects of archaeology are less pleasant. Practitioners of the subject have been embroiled in a lengthy internal dialogue questioning the unsavoury colonial legacy of the discipline. As a western cultural science, archaeology has been critiqued for systematically appropriating the pasts of Indigenous and minority populations under the umbrella of academic authority and eroding their ability to conserve and interpret their own pasts in keeping with their best judgement and traditional knowledge-base (Atalay, 2012; Gero, 1989; Jordan, 2016; Lyons, 2013; McNiven & Russell, 2005). Furthermore, critics of archaeology have questioned its sustainability, suggesting that both the language and practice of contemporary archaeological research are inaccessible to the general public and local stakeholders, whose ongoing interest is essential to sustaining the discipline (Atalay, 2012; Little, 2007). By acknowledging and taking responsibility for our role in colonial processes, as well as our privileged and authoritative use of archaeological resources, archaeologists are actively attempting to transform the discipline by democratizing knowledge and promoting fair and just relationships with Indigenous, minority, and other stakeholder communities in an effort to reconcile past inequalities.

Now embraced by many archaeological practitioners, the emergent field of community-based archaeology is considered to be one of the best new directions for engaged, ethical, and socially responsible archaeology. At its core community-based archaeology is about building relationships of collaboration between archaeologists and stakeholder populations. At a minimum it attempts to democratize knowledge by sharing archaeological results with communities who have been disenfranchised from their own pasts and ways of engaging with it (Atalay, 2012: 3–4). But perhaps the potential of community archaeology is as a tool for social justice where archaeology can be used to benefit the daily lives of communities and lead to social and economic change (Atalay, 2014; McDavid, 2007). For this to happen, archaeologists and stakeholders need to develop equitable partnerships that share power; co-create research agendas that are either mutually acceptable or driven directly by the concerns and requests of the community; and ensure that working practices and interpretive frameworks are respectful and inclusive of descendant communities and local groups (Atalay, 2012: 12; McNiven & Russell, 2005: 259). Operating in such a way impacts mainstream archaeological practice, forcing the archaeologist to confront their own authoritative and ethnocentric biases by allowing space for other types of knowledge and voices (Ruzicka, 2013: 32). Most importantly perhaps, it requires the archaeologist to confront the ways that the past informs and impacts the present (Marshall, 2002). While it cannot be used in every situation, there are critical areas where archaeology can be a useful civic tool: encouraging critical thinking, inspiring democratic action, and just possibly changing lives in the present (Moyer, 2007; Schaepe et al., 2017).

This discipline-wide transformation requires a new suite of archaeological skills that affects the pedagogy, research, practice, and interpretation of the archaeological past, but there is no standard set of guidelines for undertaking community-based research, as every community is unique and will have its own goals from partnerships. However, practitioners should note that there are several key issues associated with community-based research and that local consensus must always be considered (Atalay, 2012; Gordon, 2014). Planning is key. Our experience suggests that most community-based research is initiated by communities who reach out because they have a need for archaeological research skills, but their understanding of archaeological practice may be limited. Therefore, it is essential to learn about one another, with archaeologists learning about the needs and context for the request, and communities learning what is archaeologically possible. Thus, community meetings and interviews may be necessary. This process of discovery might help to elucidate what the community really wants, and that may be quite distinct from traditional archaeological research. For example, building local research capacity, and supporting economic development are common requests. As a result, the process of developing a community-based research agenda often revolves around building personal relationships between archaeologists and community members (Ruzicka, 2013: 34).

Before any work begins, agreements must be in place concerning the collection, analysis, interpretation, use, and presentation of research results. Partnerships are about shared decision making and they function best if key details, such as timelines or intellectual property rights, are defined early. However, Atalay (2012: 164) correctly points out that research projects are unlikely to be the sole focus of community members, even when they are completely engaged. Researchers must be flexible and prepared for frequent changes and delays. Because of this it is best to consider community-research as an ongoing process that might be sustained over the long-term (Silliman, 2008).

Training students (both undergraduate and graduate) for a future in community archaeology is a matter of building on current curricula rather than changing an academic program. Students already learn archaeological research skills and critical thinking in traditional courses, but additional coursework in the ethics, principles and benefits of community-engaged archaeology would better prepare students to undertake such work. The best education, however, is participation, which not only helps train students for future careers, but enables them to start to build relationships of trust with communities that will serve both community and students in the future. Experiential learning, allowing students to actively engage with the research process, is nothing new to archaeology, where most students complete field schools. But this process can be expanded to incorporate many other tasks such as working alongside community members, participating in community meetings, and local training, all of which creates beneficial research outputs. These skills not only contribute to community goals but fit well within traditional university platforms of teaching, research and service (Strand et al., 2003: xxi).

Newfoundland and Labrador

Community-based archaeology has become increasingly significant since the start of the millennium, but it is not an altogether new field. In some regions, such as the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) located on the northeast coast of Canada, community-based research has a substantial history dating back to 1949 when the British crown colony of Newfoundland became Canada’s newest province. At the time of Confederation, the population of Newfoundland and Labrador adhered to strict class divides, with the majority residing in largely disenfranchised, rural fishing “out-ports” while more northerly Inuit populations in Labrador were overseen largely by Moravian mission stations. At this time, Memorial University College, originally established in 1925 as a memorial to the many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who perished in World War 1 and the proceeding Spanish Flu epidemic, was renamed Memorial University of Newfoundland and mandated with a “special obligation to Newfoundland and Labrador” (Memorial University, 2013). This mandate was initially conceptualized by the new provincial government as a way to help modernize the province through education and industrialization, which they hoped would entice newly trained rural citizens into larger urban centres with centralized services that would be less expensive to maintain (Bishop-Stirling & Webb, 2008: 126–129; Cadigan, 2017). The “develop or perish” mentality also drove the government to subsidize and/or coerce out-port communities to relocate to larger communities or “growth centres” (Bishop-Stirling & Webb, 2008: 126–129). When few industrial jobs materialized, citizens felt doubly disenfranchised as the resettled populations now lacked connections to home communities and had few prospects for economic advancement. The university mandate was thus re-conceptualized by its academic faculty who saw greater value in finding local solutions to pressing issues (Webb, 2015). From the 1960s on, the primary goals of Memorial University’s community-engaged research were twofold: to record the rural way of life before it disappeared, and to encourage a participatory democracy through which communities could find local solutions to the social and economic issues arising from the transformation to modernity.

University archaeologists, operating largely in rural settings, witnessed this disenfranchisement first hand and integrated training, employment, and tourism strategies into their research to assist the communities in which they worked (Gaulton & Rankin, 2018: 21; Pope & Mills, 2007: 173). This worked in tandem with emerging government policy concerning historical resources. In 1973, the Historical Objects, Sites and Records Act, which governed the archaeological process, became the jurisdiction of the Department of Tourism, reflecting the increasing awareness of the unique history of the province, and the potential of this resource to stimulate economic development through tourism. Today, the NL Provincial Archaeology Office (PAO) is situated within the Department of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation, reflecting the longstanding link between archaeology and the tourism industry. Community-University partnerships supported by the PAO have resulted in the development of several large-scale archaeological tourism destinations, feeding local economies and allowing previously marginalized communities to rebuild and make their own decisions about the future. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and Memorial University both recognize the value of community-based archaeology as socially, economically, morally, and pedagogically valuable in its own right, and continue to encourage the development of partnerships as a response to local social and economic concerns.

The following case studies from Ferryland and Nunatsiavut (see Figure 1) demonstrate the ways that the Department of Archaeology at Memorial University of Newfoundland continues to advance community-based archaeology for the public good. The two examples are geographically, culturally and contextually distinct, yet share many common features. These examples also shed important light on the broad advantages of an engaged, community-based archaeology, the diversity of approaches implemented when academics and community members work together, as well as the complexities and challenges we often face in an effort to build an enduring future by drawing from the past.

Ferryland

Archaeological investigations at Ferryland, 80 km south of the capital city of St. John’s, have a lengthy yet focused history. From the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century several individuals began digging around Ferryland’s sheltered inner harbor, in an area known as the Pool, in search of the English colony established by Sir George Calvert (the first Lord Baltimore) in 1621 (see Tuck, 1985). Notable among these avocational archaeologists was Catholic Bishop M.F. Howley who, in 1880, attempted to find traces of Lord Baltimore’s “Mansion House.” Howley’s motivation was not simply antiquarian in nature; rather, he was guided by a desire to locate the “place in America where Christianity was first introduced” (Howley, 1888: 87, 124). In the late 1960s, Memorial University’s Dr. James A. Tuck became interested in conducting research at Ferryland after being contacted by local resident Arch Williams (Tuck, 2013: 270). Subsequent discussions between Williams and Tuck can be seen as a watershed moment in Ferryland’s rise from an economically and geographically marginal community on the Avalon Peninsula’s Southern Shore to one of this province’s premier heritage attractions, drawing upwards of 15,000 visitors annually. Williams and other residents of the Pool shared their knowledge of local history including oral traditions with Tuck and granted permission to conduct archaeological testing on their lands (Tuck, 2013; Tuck & Robbins, 1986). Local historians Dorothy and Bernard Agresti likewise informed of prior land use and ownership, as well as provided a wealth of primary source documents. It was this local in situ community knowledge that gave purpose and direction to subsequent archaeological investigations.

Following productive test excavations at two locations in the Pool in 1984 and 1986, it became clear that remnants of the early seventeenth-century colony were well preserved—as was evidence for earlier sixteenth-century occupations by migratory fishers from France and Newfoundland’s Indigenous people, the Beothuk. An opportunity for a more inclusive retelling of Ferryland’s popular (English) history thus became apparent. Members of the Southern Shore Development Association began to seek federal-provincial funding to continue the archaeological research. Five years later an agreement was signed. The 1991 Canada-Newfoundland Tourism and Historic Resources Cooperation Agreement included a 3-year funding commitment to investigate the archaeological remains of Ferryland’s buried history. This cost-sharing arrangement was finalized shortly before the imposition of the Newfoundland Cod Moratorium, a federal directive that saw the loss of 25,000 jobs and a centuries-old way of life for rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians (Gien, 2000: 121). In this context of economic and cultural hardship, necessity became the mother of invention.

The nascent community-university collaborations fostered between the 1980s and early 1990s was solidified in 1994 with the founding of the Colony of Avalon Foundation, a not-for-profit, community-based organization. As a group of actively engaged citizens from various walks of life, volunteer members of the Foundation promoted an environment of positive change centered on the rich history and archaeology of Ferryland. The Colony of Avalon Foundation worked in close partnership with Jim Tuck as well as other faculty and staff at Memorial University. A collaborative and dynamic process was born. Displaced fishers, plant workers and recently graduated high school students on the Southern Shore received training opportunities as field archaeologists, laboratory staff and tour guides. Archaeology students from Memorial University worked, learned and gained practical experience alongside members of the community. As a catalyst for social cohesion, the archaeology at Ferryland not only served as a nucleus for renewed pride and optimism by local residents but also brought together people of different ages and backgrounds in ways that were mutually beneficial. The team learned from one another and grew, personally and professionally, through shared experience. It is therefore apt to conceptualize community archaeology as an equitable balance between academic and pedagogical pursuits and the needs and expectations of community members. Archaeologists can, and should, help serve the public good while simultaneously fulfilling a sound program of research. The public good can be served in different ways, often evolving over time.

During the first 15 years of this community-university partnership, the focus was on developing and sustaining what is referred to today as “community capital.” This term can be broken down into key vectors of human/social capital and financial/built capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Callaghan & Colton, 2008; Leonard, 2010; Williams & Pope, 2005; Zekeri, 2013). These components are of course interrelated. Financial and built capital was generated through a series of grant and infrastructure funding applications prepared by the Foundation’s executive director in consultation with board members and Jim Tuck. A good measure of the Colony of Avalon Foundation’s early financial successes is owed to the first and longest serving executive director, Lil Hawkins, a Southern Shore resident whose positive working relationships with Federal and Provincial funding agencies were instrumental in securing funding for various projects.

By the turn of the new millennium, the project’s infrastructure had transformed from its humble beginnings. Originally based in a converted fish plant serving as an archaeology/conservation lab and in two rooms of a former schoolhouse nearby for guided tours and the Foundation’s office, the project completely renovated and repurposed that same school, creating the Colony of Avalon Interpretation Centre. As an accessible, multi-purpose building, the Centre housed a fully operational conservation laboratory where artifacts would be processed and stabilized on site, a collections room to curate the archaeological specimens, and an interpretation centre to display finds that represented the daily lives of all Ferryland’s former residents. The building was also repurposed with an eye to serving the common good. Dedicated community spaces and offices were designed for and provided to not-for-profit community organizations such as the local chapter of the Girl Guides, the Southern Shore Folk Arts Council, and the local knitting group, the Southern Shore Kindred Spirits. The latter’s residency in the interpretation centre fostered a partnered project called Stitching Nine over Time, whereby site visitors would assist in the production of a large hooked rug of nine panels, each portraying an aspect of Ferryland’s history, Indigenous and European, based largely on archaeological evidence.

A derelict bait shed conveniently located between the archaeological site and nearby interpretation centre was completely renovated to serve as a gift shop and reproduction seventeenth-century kitchen room. Strategically, guided tours of the site conclude in the kitchen where costumed interpreters educate visitors about life in seventeenth-century Newfoundland—as seen largely through the lens of our ongoing excavations—by way of a series of site-specific artifact reproductions also available for sale in the adjoining gift shop. Along the same route from the interpretation centre to the site, three themed heritage gardens were built: one containing herbs and medicinal plants common during the seventeenth century, the second a kitchen garden with period “wattle” fencing and vegetables cultivated in 1620s Ferryland, and the third a pleasure garden with symmetrical beds, cobblestoned pathways and fragrant flowering plants. These additional components to the overall visitor experience at Ferryland served to: (1) repurpose existing but previously underutilized buildings in the community; (2) further enhance the experience for visitors who wish to learn about the history and ongoing archaeology at Ferryland; (3) generate funds to maintain the seasonal operations of the Foundation; and (4) provide additional training and job opportunities for local residents.

In addition to integrating other local not-for-profit groups into the daily operations and built infrastructure, human and social capital was further enhanced through skills training in heritage- and tourism-related professions including archaeology, conservation, curation, guiding, retail sales, and historical reenactment (including heritage gardening). At its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the project employed upwards of 50 Southern Shore residents, many of whom resided in the Ferryland area. A significant number of long-time local employees now serve in supervisory and training capacities to oversee the daily seasonal operations in the conservation laboratory and collections room, the archaeology site, the gift shop, kitchen room, and visitor’s desk (guided tours). With the exception of the field director and conservator from Memorial University, as well as a small number of graduate and undergraduate students in various stages of their program, the human resources of this community archaeology project lie firmly in the community.

That being said, Jim Tuck’s importance in building Ferryland’s community capital cannot be understated. His passion and long-term vision for the archaeology undertaken at Ferryland was the primary force in the creation and development of the Colony of Avalon Foundation’s infrastructure and programming. The work, however, was not conducted in isolation. Jim drew on the knowledge and expertise of colleagues at Memorial University including Dr. Gerald Pocius in Folklore and Dr. Peter Scott in Biology for assistance with planning and building the reproduction seventeenth-century kitchen room and three heritage gardens, respectively. Jim sought to integrate community members into all aspects of the research at Ferryland. Skills training was an obvious outcome; a sense of pride and stewardship are the true fruits of his collaborative approach.

The impact of additional programming, increased visitor traffic and an increase in the length of time people spent at Ferryland spurred opportunities for local entrepreneurs and businesses alike. The lasting effect on the economic health of and overall positive outlook by the community is enormous (Sullivan & Mitchell, 2012). Southern Shore artists and craftspeople were commissioned to produce site-specific artifact reproductions and thematically appropriate items for sale in the gift shop. Additional bed and breakfasts were opened in the community, as were two new restaurants (the Colony Café and the Tetley Tea Room) and cultural venues such as the Southern Shore Dinner Theatre. Akin to the Foundation’s plan to redevelop old but existing infrastructure in the community, two local entrepreneurs secured funds to restore and renovate the old Ferryland lighthouse, built in 1870, into the immensely popular Lighthouse Picnics. Embracing the past and its various forms of heritage (built, archaeological, intangible, etc.) has obvious advantages within the context of providing a unique, yet genuine, visitor experience. Outside of the center of activity in Ferryland, residents of nearby communities along the Southern Shore were not simply passive witnesses to the economic and social transformations taking place but were active in promoting their own local venues in the context of increased visitor traffic.

For all of the positive outcomes, the last 10 years of this community archaeology partnership has been its most challenging. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), the main source of funding for the Foundation’s programming, maintenance and staffing needs, ceased financial support for ongoing community-based archaeological projects in Atlantic Canada. Somewhat ironically, a 2001 study by the same agency found that the ongoing archaeological research and associated programming by the Colony of Avalon Foundation injected $926,000.00 annually into the economy of the Ferryland area, in addition to 56 direct and indirect person years of employment (ACOA, 2001: 7–8). A sharp decline in global oil prices since 2014 destabilized Newfoundland and Labrador’s finances, further exacerbating the Foundation’s ability to maintain employment levels and daily operations. The remaining money generated through admissions, gift shop sales, and, to a much lesser extent, private donations provided upwards of 40% of the revenue required for seasonal operations. This number is significant for a not-for-profit, community-based organization; however, reductions in employment and staffing levels were inevitable. Memorial University continued to bolster the viability of this partnership through active research and dissemination by faculty and staff in the Department of Archaeology, through an external federal research grant (SSHRC), as well as through various programs that provided funding for career training and experiential learning opportunities for Memorial University students working at Ferryland.

Collectively, we’ve had to reorganize and streamline our operations while simultaneously diversifying our programming in an effort to better market the activities of this community-university partnership. A greater variety of experiences and opportunities for visitors and locals of all ages and interests is one solution. While still maintaining our core programming relating to the ongoing archaeological research and affiliated infrastructure in the kitchen and gardens (see Gaulton & Rankin, 2018), additional educational and participatory components have been added. One new direction has been to highlight ongoing graduate student research as part of the visitor experience. This opportunity provides a double benefit. It allows students to disseminate their research to the public on a daily basis, honing their presentation skills, building their confidence, and learning to respond effectively to questions. As such, it is a means of enhancing their pedagogical training. For the public, it provides a more inclusive, behind the scenes look at various stages of the research process, often involving large or diverse archaeological assemblages spanning from architectural remains to artifacts to ecofacts. For those interested in learning practical applications in field and laboratory settings, the pilot project “Archaeologist for a Day” was trialed starting in 2012. With four participants in the first year, the archaeology team approached this potential opportunity with cautious optimism, ensuring the integrity of the site through careful supervision and thorough recording. By 2018, the numbers had increased to 46, necessitating a dedicated archaeology student to oversee the program and restricting participants to plough zone deposits along an actively eroding section of the site (Figure 2). The program now contributes to our ongoing mitigation efforts necessitated by climate change (Gaulton, 2019) while simultaneously generating much needed revenue for the Colony of Avalon Foundation. The 2019 program allowed further flexibility in the form of half-day and one-hour training opportunities, and thanks to social media postings and positive feedback by participants, registrations have increased by 59% over the previous year. This type of experiential learning opportunity for visitors (individuals, couples, and families) has also resulted in further partnerships with local businesses in the form of package experiences with the Lighthouse Picnics or nearby sea kayaking adventures.

Figure 2
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2018 Participants in the Ferryland Archaeologist for a Day program

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Further participatory components have targeted unique culinary experiences, cooking challenges and on-site children’s activities. The Great Colonial Cook Off provides an interesting spin on seventeenth-century recipes and food preparation, inviting weekly sampling of period dishes prepared in our kitchen room by interpretative staff. The general public is also challenged to recreate these weekly recipes at home and submit pictures for the chance at a weekly prize. Young children (who often groan at the idea of visiting a heritage site) are now engaged during guided tours through the Baltimore’s Backpacks program, working to complete an on-site scavenger hunt in return for a candy treat awarded in the gift shop. Increased visitation by families is also facilitated during annual Colony Day events, which include archaeologically inspired activities such as a Junior Archaeologist sandbox activity and a reading of the children’s book The Great Ferryland Dig. Finally, in the last 2 years the Foundation has welcomed increased interest and participation by youth programs such as Shad Canada and the Duke of Edinburgh. In each case, small groups assist in cleaning and cataloguing archaeological specimens and/or participate in the Archaeologist for a Day program.

Today, the activities and programming associated with the community-based archaeology project managed by the Colony of Avalon Foundation in partnership with archaeologists from Memorial University is quite different than initially envisioned in the early 1990s. It’s a project that has evolved over time, in good times and bad, but one whose programming is ever changing to meet the desires and interests of various stakeholders. Together we are challenging the notion that archaeological research is inaccessible to the general public, while simultaneously building a community of actively engaged citizens who take pride in their heritage and in the buried past that is being revealed in the present.

Nunatsiavut

Our second, quite different, case study is drawn from a much more recent community-university partnership between Memorial University and the Inuit Government of Nunatsiavut. The self-governed Inuit territory of Nunatsiavut includes five separate Inuit villages, a substantial territorial land-base, as well as a joint management agreement in two Canadian National Parks that buffer the northern and southern edges of this territory. The entire Nunatsiavut region is located on the northern coast of Labrador several 100 km from the capital city of St. John’s (see Figure 1). Memorial University archaeologists have a history of research in the region dating back to 1969 (Tuck, 1975), but the formation of the Inuit government in 2005 precipitated changes to the way that archaeological work was undertaken. In 2015, archaeologists helped establish a significant federally funded research partnership between Memorial University and the Nunatsiavut Government known as Tradition and Transition Among the Labrador Inuit. This interdisciplinary partnership was created to respond to Nunatsiavummiut requests for research that would enable them to implement a number of wide-ranging Inuit-driven territorial policies that had not been developed during their first decade of self-governance. Nunatsiavummiut required academic help with research skills, skills training for youth and middle generations, as well as a system of data archiving to be installed in places like the new Illusuak Cultural Centre, located in Nain. Memorial University would in turn be allowed to reinvigorate social sciences and humanities research in Northern Labrador in a respectful manner, by publishing extant data and creating new academic content, while training a new generation of community-minded scholars to replace scholars of Labrador Inuit culture nearing retirement age.

To date, the vast amount of archaeological research resulting from this new partnership has been associated with the development of the Nunatsiavut Government’s 2020 Tourism Strategy (2014). In all five of the Labrador Inuit communities in Nunatsiavut there is an increasing interest in the development of Indigenous Tourism. Contrary to early forms of tourism which capitalized on difference and exoticism, and from which Indigenous communities were disenfranchised from both economic gain and the dynamic nature of their own traditions, the Nunatsiavut tourism model has at its core cultural sustainability. To achieve sustainability, the Nunatsiavut strategy (2014) declared that tourism opportunities must be Inuit owned, locally conceived, culturally driven, provide cultural education and economic benefits for each of its five constituent communities.

Developing a profitable tourism industry was a significant component of the Nunatsiavut Government’s 2020 Tourism Strategy, but overall, the document prioritized the celebration of Labrador Inuit culture and history. When developing this strategy Nunatsiavut allowed each of its five hamlets to develop tourism goals specific to the local context. Two communities, Rigolet and Hopedale, identified the development of local archaeological sites as essential to their plans, citing an interest in archaeology and cultural history among the expedition cruise passengers who were beginning to arrive in their communities each summer, and other tourists making short community visits, en route to or from the two national parks now buffering Nunatsiavut lands.

Two of the primary archaeological initiatives to date include the excavation of the Double Mer Point site near Rigolet, and the Agvituk site located in Hopedale. However, conducting community archaeology requires much more than simply excavating sites. The goal is to assist communities to undertake research they find particularly significant and disseminate the research in a meaningful, culturally appropriate manner. As a result, each community-archaeology project is essentially distinct.

Rigolet

We were invited into the community of Rigolet by Melva Williams, then the Tourism Development Officer for the Rigolet Inuit Community Government, which represented a village of approximately 250 people. Ms. Williams asked if we had an interest in excavating a well-known archaeological site known as Double Mer Point. The site, a late eighteenth-century Inuit winter village, located on the outskirts of the current village, had been selected by the community for reconstruction and interpretation, and was part of a small suite of activities being developed for tourism, which was forecast to increase in the Rigolet area. The coastal ferry, connecting all Nunatsiavut villages during the summer months, already stopped in Rigolet for several hours en route north or south from Goose Bay—a major hub for local travellers and an increasingly important national and international tourist market. Furthermore, expedition cruise ships were increasing their activity on the Labrador coast, while the creation of the Mealy Mountain National Park was about to be announced. The National Park was a particular concern as it was to be co-managed by Nunatsiavut, The Innu Nation, and Nunatsiavut. Rigolet was to be a gateway community for tourists to access the Park’s backcountry. As a result, the tourism strategy developed by the community was based largely on anticipated day trippers—people spending a few hours waiting for a ferry to depart, while on anchor during a cruise, or about to embark on a wilderness adventure. Rigolet’s strategy was to focus on tourism activities near the community that would celebrate Inuit culture while offering benefits to the current residents.

The tourism plan began with the construction of a 9-km coastal boardwalk which terminated at the Double Mer Point archaeological site. Tourists could easily pass several hours along the boardwalk, learning about regional Inuit history and culture. In order to reconstruct the archaeological site for public consumption, the Nunatsiavut Government’s Archaeology Office required that the site undergo full remediation so as not to lose any significant historical data in the process of development—a costly scenario if the town were to hire a private company. Instead they turned to Memorial University for assistance. We were able to cover the costs of excavation through the Tradition and Transition partnership grant, though the process would take several years longer than private industry. Between the summers of 2014 and 2019 we worked in partnership with the community to use the ongoing excavation to bring as many benefits to Rigolet and the fledgling tourism industry as we could. First, the excavation itself became a destination for tourists coming to watch the process and examine daily finds. The community government and local heritage committee allowed the data collected from the excavations to form the basis of several graduate student theses so that the site was well-studied, but more importantly the information was fed directly back into the community to help develop interpretive narratives about the daily life of site occupants to be used for tourism purposes. This information could also be used for local education and provided a conduit for knowledge exchange between local elders and youth.

Recently we were asked to develop a series of interpretive panels concerning the site, the boardwalk and other important sites in the area, that would be valuable to locals and tourists alike (Figure 3). Local students were hired to work alongside university students providing income, training, and the skills to interpret the site to visitors, and a two-part Aboriginal Peoples Television Network series called Wild Archaeology highlighted not only the site, but the role the excavations played in the community. The broadcast brought many inquiries about the community from across Canada, and our understanding is that the program was much enjoyed in Rigolet as well. Perhaps the most significant though unexpected outcome was the way that the excavation brought the community together. The vast majority of lab work associated with the excavation took place at the town’s museum known as the Netloft. Initially, the community allowed us to open this lab, which is located by the ferry dock, daily in order to provide visitors to the community with a destination. But the archaeology lab quickly became a hub of local activity. Community members of all ages would stop by each day to review new finds, helping the archaeologists to understand how artifacts were used and telling stories about life on the land. The archaeological materials themselves therefore became a conduit for knowledge exchange and the celebration of culture within the community and between the community and archaeologists.

Figure 3
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Plaque designed and produced by the Tradition & Tradition Research Partnership for display at the Double Mer Point archaeological site

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Not everything has worked out so smoothly. The primary challenge concerns the removal of artifacts from the community at the end of each season. This is done for two reasons: conservation and long-term, climate-controlled storage, the specifics of which are mandated by the Nunatsiavut Government. At the moment there is no appropriate long-term storage facility in Nunatsiavut so the artifacts must be taken to St. John’s, removing them from the context in which they best serve the community. As a necessary stop-gap, we have initiated a program of 3D printing replica artifacts selected by the community for exhibit in the Netloft as well as significant social media outreach largely through the Facebook page: Rigolet Community Archaeology, which documents not only the excavations, laboratory, and conservation work, but also serves as a digital archive of finds until the material can be returned to a repository in Nunatsiavut. These are not the best solutions, but for now they are the best we are able to do. Finally, the lengthy process has allowed the Rigolet community to evaluate its Tourism Strategy: while the archaeology has been ongoing, they have had the opportunity to reflect on its success and concentrate on other developments. Most recently this has manifested in attempts to provide experiential tourist experiences about contemporary Inuit life through crafts and cuisine with the potential for new land-based outings. The inclusion of contemporary cultural practices as part of their tourism strategy is insightful. By experiencing both the archaeological and present-day Inuit culture, tourists can be educated about long-term connections of the people to the region. Without the inclusion of contemporary culture, tourists may be left feeling that Inuit culture is something that happened in the past, rather than something that is very much alive and vibrant today.

Hopedale

In 2017, after witnessing the success of the archaeology program in Rigolet, Memorial University was asked by the Inuit Community Government of Hopedale to develop an archaeology program in their community—also in association with their tourism strategy. Hopedale’s approach to the tourism strategy was unique from Rigolet’s. Hopedale was already well-known for the beautiful historic structures associated with the Moravian mission station constructed in this community in the late eighteenth century. This designated National Historic Site with associated museum draws many tourists each year, but the Hopedale community wanted further exploration of the pre-Moravian Inuit history of the area. Their primary goal was to garner further information in order to apply for UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Of equal importance from the start was the community’s specific desire to use archaeology to provide a means of knowledge exchange between elders and youth.

Hopedale’s UNESCO Heritage Site application focuses on the three ages of Hopedale: the first being the initial Inuit occupation dating from the sixteenth century; the second from the eighteenth-century Moravian Mission and associated Inuit village; and the third, the contemporary role of Hopedale as legislative capital of Nunatsiavut. Like Rigolet, Hopedale has chosen an educational narrative which links Inuit culture in Hopedale from the distant past to the present. However, the archaeological work here is not as straightforward as that undertaken in Rigolet. More information was required for the UNESCO application about the initial Inuit settlement of Hopedale—an Inuit whaling village originally known as Agvituk. Finding the remains of that village has been our primary concern, yet it remains elusive as much of the settlement has been destroyed by the development of the modern town. As a result, we have developed a strategy that devotes more time to recording and interpreting the many smaller Inuit settlements in the Hopedale region, which also demonstrate the significance of the entire bay as an Inuit whaling centre. Finding these sites requires a lot of research, much of which has been undertaken by local youth. Post-doctoral Fellow Laura Kelvin has worked diligently to teach teams of local youth the fundamentals of filmmaking, editing, and interviewing, armed these teams of youth with cameras, and encouraged them to interview elders about life on the land including the places and activities essential to local culture. This much-loved series of videos, available on our YouTube channel (Agvituk archaeology), facilitates knowledge exchange between youth and elders, celebrates tradition, and provides a solid base for ongoing archaeological exploration; while our Facebook page, Agvituk Archaeology Project, is used to keep local residents apprised of the ongoing research and finds.

A second request of the Hopedale community was to have Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) applied to the eighteenth-century Moravian mission cemetery. Unlike other components of the Moravian Mission complex, the cemetery had fallen into neglect, was overgrown and likely missing a number of headstones that were removed over the centuries for local building projects. Clearing the cemetery and conducting GPR work has allowed the community to reclaim this space, locate unmarked graves to be cared for and interpreted for tourists. This element of the work has been particularly successful and resulted in a request for similar work to be undertaken at the Moravian cemetery in the community of Nain, which began in the summer of 2019. Significantly, Nain also requested GPR work to be undertaken on the paths leading into the cemetery in order to establish the placement of Inuit non-consecrated burials associated with local suicides, thereby serving to help heal the community of a difficult past.

Finally, we would like to draw attention to two projects being undertaken with PhD students as part of the partnership. Ph.D. student Jamie Brake, who was until recently the Nunatsiavut Archaeologist, has been holding community meetings to develop a new archaeological and heritage policy for Nunatsiavut based entirely on Inuit interests and beliefs. This work will enter an upcoming Nunatsiavut Government policy cycle in and if accepted, will become the first Inuit-driven legislation on heritage in Canada. Fellow PhD student, and assistant Nunatsiavut Government archaeologist, Michelle Davies is exploring the potential for archaeology to address mental health. She is working alongside the Nunatsiavut Department of Health and Social Development to assist Inuit relocated from their home community in Hebron in 1959 to return to their abandoned village each summer and map the site and the local resource gathering areas. The archaeology is therefore playing a direct role in healing a community from a tragic grief that was thrust upon them by the colonial state—a relocation that removed Hebronimiut from traditional hunting territories resulting in deaths and starvation, as well as ostracism by those communities in which they were resettled, and multi-generational trauma among the families who were moved. These particular examples by two extraordinary Memorial University graduate students demonstrate that community-based archaeology has untapped potential to help communities build a brighter future.

Conclusions

Community-based archaeology, while drawing upon many of the traditional techniques of archaeological research, has at its core the desire to create substantial economic and social outcomes for the stakeholders it serves, rather than just new data for practitioners. It is engaged, driven by local concerns, and when done well, provides opportunities for both archaeologists and stakeholders to tell the stories that they believe are important. While the research partnerships themselves will be unique because they are based on local situations, they hold in common a desire to create a better future for those involved. One reviewer ably summed up our research in Labrador stating “lots of people are conducting research about how to improve economic situations, but you have found a way to make the research itself improve their situation.” We think this sums up the potential for archaeology to serve the public good.