The 2022 Public Archaeology Field School at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site: Decolonizing the Hudson’s Bay Company Schoolhouses

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Digging Deeper: Pushing Ourselves to Engage the Public in Our Shared Heritage through Outreach and Education" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Public Archaeology Field School at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, in Vancouver, Washington, is a long-standing partnership between Portland State University, Washington State University Vancouver, and the National Park Service. The program teaches archaeological field methods to undergraduate and graduate students while providing opportunities for visitors to learn about archaeology and the site’s colonial history. Students are trained in interpretation skills and are required to interact with visitors, answering questions about how archaeology can explore colonial period history. The 2022 field school excavated at sites of the ca. 1836–1849 Hudson’s Bay Company schoolhouses to test previously unexcavated portions of the park and to further the park’s efforts to decolonize the interpretation of colonial history. Public archaeology included training for staff and students on the difficult history of these schoolhouses and wider national importance, dialogue with visitors, social media posts, web articles, the Kids Dig program that engages children in archaeology using mock excavations, a formal “schoolhouse tour” led by the park’s interpreters, and special tours for agency and tribal groups. The project uncovered evidence of two schoolhouse structures and related activities, and revealed the challenges of expressing difficult stories at NPS sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Digging Deeper: Pushing Ourselves to Engage the Public in Our Shared Heritage through Outreach and Education   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37261.0