President's Message
November/December 2007
(as published in Arch Notes New Series 12(6))
This year's Annual OAS Symposium, held in Kingston and hosted by the Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation (along with crucial help from their close partners at Parks Canada), is now behind us. In many respects, this conference, and especially its organization, presented the OAS with good examples of different ways of doing things which worked out extremely well. To begin with, CARF is not part of the OAS. While some of their members may be OAS members, not all are, yet it was CARF that organized the conference for the OAS. For this, and on behalf of all the members of the OAS, we are very grateful.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of CARF and the symposium that they put together illustrates quite well why they have been so successful; they like to think outside of the box. There are several elements that will stay with me from this conference. For example, one is that the OAS need not necessarily be dependent upon its chapters to organize the annual symposium. This is an important point because many of our chapters function with a dedicated, but small core group which could too easily become overworked.
The hands-on workshops worked wonderfully; they were full to capacity. The lesson is that a forum for exchange, that the symposium is, should not be limited to formal presentations from the podium. The annual business meeting, where the affairs of the organization are reviewed and important questions are brought before the membership, was a great success with somewhere on the order of 30-40 people in attendance, in spite of being held during breakfast on Sunday morning. It is clear that people are interested in what's going on with their society and don't mind an early rise to learn about it (free food doesn't hurt either!). The various tours offered during and after the symposium, as well as the receptions were stellar and again, very well-attended. It would seem that many of the people who attend the annual symposium also wish to be cultural tourists and the opportunity to learn from specialists about the city and surroundings they spend the week-end in are always very welcome. So, hats off to CARF!!! And thank you all (organizers, volunteers, sponsors and speakers) for a fruitful and memorable symposium!!!
Now to a subject far removed from Ontario: the search for the Franklin Expedition. It is Sunday morning and I've just finished watching a segment of Sunday on CBC. In it, host Evan Solomon traveled to Todd Island and King William Island last August to join in an examination of human remains purportedly relating to Franklins ill-fated crew who all perished in the late 1840s. Apparently local amateur historian, Louis Kamakuk, has discovered human remains lying on the surface of the tundra and thinks these might be some of Franklin's crew. Interestingly, the CBC crew and the local historian, respectful of laws, do not touch anything as they acknowledge that archaeological permits are needed. So that was good. The point was made more than once during the segment. Still, at the end, both Louis Kamakuk and the CBC folks openly wondered why "the government" was not putting money into resolving this long-standing mystery. My own reaction was two-fold. On the one hand, small fortunes have been expended in the XIXth and XXth centuries to try to find the missing crew and explain what happened to them. On the other hand, I feel that a disproportionate amount of money has been spent to address these questions when there are so many more significant archaeological enigmas across the entire country that fail to receive any attention or funding. The Franklin Expedition was a pompous failure, yet because of the XIXth century searches, the Canadian Arctic was mapped and explored. On that score the Franklin Expedition had very positive long-term implications, at the least the subsequent search expeditions did. But funding for archaeological research in Canada is a scarce resource. While it is easy to understand the attraction of doing an item on CBC about searching for Franklin's men, it would be great if less dramatic, but no less significant archaeology, could garner some of that attention. For example, what of the mysterious fate of the St.Lawrence Iroquoians? Or the first peopling of the Ottawa Valley? Or the question of the ethnic identity of Middle Woodland peoples? There are many other topics or themes very worthy of being brought to the public's attention. So how do we achieve this? Perhaps in our next symposium, we could hold a forum where broadcasters like Evan Solomon and ourselves (and there are archaeologists who do manage to get their messages across in the media) exchange information and frustrations, and perhaps come up with strategies to get archaeological research and archaeological stories to the general public in Ontario and across Canada.
A final thought relates to the curation of archaeological collections; a topic that has been brought up on this page before. In my estimation we may actually have passed a critical point in Ontario. In earlier President's Messages I was talking about archaeological collections in general. These consist of artifacts, but also the field notes and the photographs taken during fieldwork. In fact, it could be argued that the most important components of the archaeological record are in fact the notes and photographs. Afterall, these capture all of the contextual information that we so strongly argue are so critical to understanding what went on at sites in the past; indeed, that is why we have standards, credentials, licenses, etc. Have you noticed lately (for those of us who have such memories) how your slide collection from excavations in the 70s, 80s and even 90s are going through colour shifts? My Severn River slides from the early 80s have a marked blue tone to them. They are now in the photographic vaults of the Canadian Museum of Civilization where the cold conditions maintained there will greatly slow this gradual change. But what of the countless thousands of slides in the "personal" collections of archaeologists across the province? Paul Lennox is currently scanning and cataloguing his vast slide collection pertaining to sites which are now long gone under highways and houses. Is everyone being so conscientious? Have we forgotten about this irreplaceable part of the record which is entrusted to us (by ministerial decree)? Should there be an effort made to capture an essential digital photo record of Ontario's archaeological sites? Where could such a store be kept and how could people access it? Food for thought...as the colours of the leaves outside my home gradually change and the leaves eventually fall to the ground, soon to be covered with a white blanket of snow.
Jean-Luc Pilon