Contested History, Contested Territories

Also prevalent in the discussions generated during the interviews was the feeling on the part of Aboriginal communities that the province has failed to educate the public about Indigenous politics and interests on a wide range of issues, which has specific

consequences for archaeology. One participant stated that municipalities know very little about what treaties are and how they impact their lands, and therefore, could give little guidance to the developers to whom they granted permits [F06]. Better education for the public and proponents on Aboriginal rights and expectations during the consultation process might ease pressure on archaeologists who sometimes shoulder the bulk of the interaction. In the school system, one community representative explained that First Nations are written off as “pre-historic” or “ancient” peoples, without acknowledgement

of their continuing rights to the land in some areas [F06].

The lack of education has been most obvious in the confusion, on the part of the

proponent, over how to deal with unexpected archaeological finds and, on the part of the archaeologist, in knowing who to engage. When municipalities themselves are unaware

of the pre-contact history of the land on which their town resides, they are unable to educate proponents or archaeologists on the appropriate First Nation to contact for engagement. One community representative with whom I spoke described a nearby site on which s/he had been engaged initially, before another First Nation made claims to it and took over the final stages of engagement [F01]. Such situations, s/he describes, can cause tensions and stress, giving rise to hard feelings between Aboriginal communities when both have interest in and ties to the same area.

Obviously, this raises the question: how do archaeologists know which Aboriginal community to engage? For many, the answer is convoluted and tricky to navigate. While one archaeologist explained that s/he always tries to engage with every First Nation interested in the project, s/he did not explain how s/he managed these competing interests [A04]. Another archaeologist described that his/her company had decided to engage [First Nation X] only on sites from the Woodland period and [First Nation Y] on earlier sites to simplify this problem, though s/he did not elaborate as to why this decision had been made [A03]. Identifying which First Nation to engage can be difficult enough, but in some cases archaeologists additionally must decide which council to engage when an Aboriginal community is divided between elected and traditional councils. In some cases they may be expected to engage with both councils.

Some of the archaeologists with whom I spoke explained that there are community members with whom they engage that, in their view, do not truly understand their own First Nations treaty rights or pre-contact history. One archaeologist confessed that it can be difficult to engage with community representatives who, in his/her opinion,

misinterpret treaty rights and believe that land should be returned to the First Nation or that the First Nation has authority to make decisions over what happens to it:

“But there are plenty of people at [First Nation X] who don’t know that history and think somehow

that, you know, we should move off this land and leave, not realizing that in fact any treaty rights they have is because they were promised hunting and fishing into perpetuity, not the ability to do whatever they wanted with the land, mineral rights and all the rest of it that some people think.” [A02]

Another stated that s/he has had to teach First Nations communities their own historic origins and believes that for sites over two thousand years old it is impossible to establish an ethnic connection between the sites and any modern descendent communities [A03]. S/he wishes that Aboriginal communities would collaborate on advocating for their interest in such sites, but admits that there is too much distrust and tension between some communities for that to happen. S/he further explained that, in his/her opinion, First Nations are in competition over claims to archaeological heritage, in the hopes that it will bolster their own land claims with the province. To serve this purpose, in his/her

experience, First Nations may even interpret evidence differently than the archaeologist would to strengthen their evidence:

“Essentially what we have in that situation are, obviously, traditional [First Nation X] territory, but [First Nation Y] also claim that as a traditional territory and, interestingly enough, [First Nation Z] have also claimed that [. . .] I think you can make the argument that this is more about trying to establish a connection with archaeology for purposes of bolstering land claims and stuff like that, than it is really about the ancestors and stuff like that, you know. That may be a little harsh. That may be a little uni-dimensional analysis, but I think that is a large part of it.” [A03]

Whether or not this is an accurate assessment, the fact remains that it is the archaeologist who decides which community or communities to engage. As we have already seen, one archaeologist reported favouring [First Nation X] over [First Nation Y], out of dislike of working with the latter. Such decisions may account for some Aboriginal community representatives reporting that archaeologists are failing to engage with their communities. With little guidance from the province or municipalities and sparse education about treaty

lands, archaeologists may accidentally (or intentionally) overlook a community’s

interests in the area. Even when two or more interests are recognized, there is little information about how to accommodate and balance engagement with multiple parties, especially if the communities hold competing interests – whether over existing or potential land claim opportunities or for other reasons.

This lack of policy may be viewed as a large failure. If one or more Aboriginal communities are being left out of the cultural resource management process by an inability of the current engagement policy to accommodate multiple interests in one site location or a preference on the part of archaeologists to engage with one community and not another, some First Nation communities may find themselves without information on the heritage resources that they require to maintain a strong cultural identity in the present and an externally-recognized affiliation to the past. Understandably, First Nations may fear what they might lose when they are shut out of engagement through a gap in policy.