Connecting Communities to Place: Public Archaeology at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site

Summary

The National Park Service (NPS) pursues multiple opportunities to partner with community organizations and engage the public in our ongoing archaeological and historical research program at Fort Vancouver in southwest Washington. Our focus is to increase our understanding of the people who lived at this multicomponent historical archaeological site. The park forms a large portion of the Vancouver National Historic Reserve, which is significant for its role as the headquarters for Hudson’s Bay Company (1829 to 1860) and U.S. Army (1849-WWII) operations in the Pacific Northwest, as well as traditional Pre-Contact use of lands along this stretch of the lower Columbia River. Our Cultural Resource staff use archaeological compliance activities, undertaken during long-term rehabilitation/adaptive reuse of historic structures throughout the Reserve, to engage with park visitors. Our programs are designed to involve a wide range of visitors, from primary, secondary and university students, to youth organizations, family groups, community groups, and individuals. This paper will discuss various educational outreach strategies used by park staff to connect with public by creating a sense of place, which is crucial to public stewardship and long-term management of these resources.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Creative Public-Centered Approaches to Compliance Archaeology

Keywords

Spatial Coverage