Métis Landscapes of Visiting

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Landscapes of Care: Exploring Heart-centered Practice in Historical Archaeology", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Archaeologists have long since acknowledged the complexities of historic landscapes but explorations into the ways relationality shaped and continues to shape these landscapes are still relatively rare. We can study the landscape with various technologies and methods but never really be able to understand the way past peoples interacted with it if we don’t consider the relationships people had with each other and the landscape itself. For the Métis, the practice of visiting is intrinsically linked with relationality. Visiting allows for the sharing of knowledge and the strengthening of relationships within communities and with the land. This paper discusses the ways the Métis practice of visiting may have influenced the landscapes of different Métis sites during the 19th and 20th centuries. I look at two types of Métis sites in the Canadian Prairies – overwintering sites and river lots – and question the ways visiting may have influenced site layouts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• Landscapes of Care: Exploring Heart-centered Practice in Historical Archaeology

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow