THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA Sept 22, 2000

UVic and Sto:lo Nation team up to offer ethnohistory field school

by Robie Liscomb For two of the past three summers, UVic students have had the opportunity to live for a month in a First Nations community, earn graduate credit, and conduct research that is both academically rigorous and useful to their hosts. The Sto:lo ethnohistory field school is unique in Canada. Several years ago, the Sto:lo Nation, headquartered in Chilliwack, approached UVic because of the strong focus on ethnohistory in the university’s history department (including the work of Drs. John Lutz, Wendy Wickwire and Elizabeth Vibert). They were looking for help with historical research on a range of matters important to the band. It was a good match for UVic. The Sto:lo Nation, representing some two dozen communities, has a rich archive with 30 years of oral history tapes and a staff of 200, including a staff historian and an archivist who both hold UVic master’s degrees in history. The field school is co-directed by Lutz and Keith Carlson, the Sto:lo staff historian. Every second summer, UVic history students spend a month with the Sto:lo in Chilliwack. Seven attended in 1998 and five this past summer. For the first week, each is billeted with a Sto:lo family. Thereafter they stay in one of two longhouses. The students are assigned to a mentor who helps provide introductions and direction for their research projects. They receive an orientation to Sto:lo territory, archeological and historical tours, and a workshop on the Sto:lo language. Directed by the Sto:lo staff archaeologist, MA student Kathy McKay produced a paper on issues related to the reburial of Sto:lo remains, complete with policy recommendations for the Sto:lo to consider. Sto:lo burials customarily include bodily remains and articles interred for the use of the dead. Such policies will be helpful as construction crews and archaeologists unearth Sto:lo burials. “The hands-on aspect was really valuable,” says McKay. “You don’t get that in a classroom. And the field school atmosphere was that of a group experience rather than a competitive classroom situation.” Rob Hancock, another history MA student, researched a plate for a soon-to-be-published Sto:lo atlas. His topic was Sto:lo participation in hop farming in the Fraser Valley, one of two places in Canada where hops were grown for the brewing industry. He created three maps and accompanying text. “Each summer, for about a three-week period, the Sto:lo would travel to the hop farms and help with the harvest,” says Hancock. “It was an important way for them to save some money for the winter; and for many, it was an important social occasion when they could meet up with family members and friends from other communities.” During the 1950s the harvest was automated and now hop farming is no longer practised in the region. “I really appreciated the opportunity to do research that had direct value to someone and had a wider audience than the usual academic paper,” he says. Both students remarked that the homestay week helped them feel more connected and a part of the Sto:lo community, and, says Lutz, “the Sto:lo see the UVic students as role models for their children.”

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