Dana Lepofsky

Research

Dana Lepofsky is a professor in the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University. She conducts archaeological and ethnoecological research that spans disciplines and communities and that situates the knowledge and experiences of the past in current social and ecological contexts. She believes strongly that studying archaeology is a privilege and that this privilege is squandered if we do not fully embrace the degree to which the practice of archaeology is intertwined with current social issues.

Dana’s brand of archaeology involves working with and learning from Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest to document how their past interactions with their lands and seas are recorded in memory, language, and the ecological, paleoecological, and archaeological records. Her teams seek to educate broadly about these interactions and to apply this knowledge to current social-ecological issues. Her current work largely centres around cultural keystone species and ecosystems (Pacific herring www.pacificherring.org and clams www.clamgarden.com) and cultural keystone places (Húy̓at www.hauyat.ca and Laxgalts’ap). She is also committed to bringing together settler and Indigenous populations to promote Indigenous heritage conservation and respect (www.sfu.ca/rem/lasqueti.html).

These interests have led me to be one of the coordinators of the Herring School (www.pacificherring.org) and the Clam Garden Network (www.clamgarden.com). These are collectives of people from Indigenous and academic communities and a variety of government and non-governmental organizations who are passionate about two of the cultural keystone species (CKS) of Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest: Pacific herring and clams. We recognize that such CKS have always played a central role in food security and food sovereignty, and that the ability to sustainably harvest and eat these foods is linked to a range of issues including cultural identity, governance, and emotional and physical health.

Our entry point into the social-ecological study of clams, specifically, was through interest in one of the clam management features created by coastal Indigenous people from Alaska to Washington state. These features, locally known as clam gardens, consist of rock-walled terraces built in the intertidal to increase clam production through habitat enhancement and expansion. Combined with other ways of managing clams, clam gardens ensured that clams were a staple food for coastal communities for millennia.

The “School” and the “Network” encompass a range of projects, all of which are grounded in and motivated by the needs and interests of today’s coastal communities. Many students have contributed to these projects (e.g., Alisha Gauvreau, Ginevra Toniello, Travis Crowell). All blend perspectives from the past and present, Indigenous and western, and global and local to get at current social-ecological issues, including culturally and ecological appropriate resource management. A fundamental component of the projects is on-going communication and discussions among researchers and community members; such communication takes place in casual conversations, community presentations, newsletters, and conferences.

At the landscape level, I am so fortunate to work with the Heiltsuk and Gitga’ata First Nations in two of their cultural keystone places (CKP): Húy̓at and Laxgalts’ap, respectively. Elders in both communities grew up in Húy̓at and Laxgalts’ap and remember speaking their language, gathering foods in the traditional way, and living the ways of their traditions. Both CKP are imbued with history and meaning as reflected in the oral traditions, memories, rock art, place names, archaeological sites (e.g., culturally modified trees, clam gardens and fish traps, intertidal root gardens, berry gardens, and historic and more ancient settlements). With Dr. Nancy Turner (University of Victoria), Jennifer Carpenter (Heiltsuk First Nation), and Spencer Greening (Gitga’ata First Nation and University of Victoria), we are documenting the eco-cultural history of these places as represented in peoples’ stories, songs, language, place names, and in the ethnoecological and archaeological records. Much of the work in Hauyat was conducted by former PhD student Julia Jackley. In Laxgalts’ap, former PhD student Dr. Spencer Greening explored the connections among his people, place, and language, while former post-doctoral fellow Dr. Bryn Letham documented the complex sea level history of Laxgalts’ap as well as the early Holocene archaeological component of the watershed.

Our goal in these landscape level projects, like with the CKP projects, is to bring together multiple voices to tell about the importance of these places. To this end, Mark Wunsch of Greencoast Media (greencoastmedia.ca) and I, with many others, produced an interactive website about Húy̓at, “Húy̓at: Our Voices our Land” (www.hauyat.ca). Based on more than eight years of research, the website documents 6000 years of Heiltsuk connections to Húy̓at. A large touch screen with the site has been placed in the Heiltsuk Community School in Bella Bella, and we had a small exhibit on the website at the Bill Reid Center at SFU. The website won several regional and international awards. We are in the final stages of completion for the Laxgalts’ap website. It promises to be a beautiful and engaging representation of the deep history of the Gitga’at in Laxgalts’ap, as reflected in memories, ecology, archaeology, and archival documents of this culturally signficant place.

With planner Sean Markey in Resource and Environmental Management, I am co-directing a complex communities-centered project on Xwe’etay (Lasqueti Island) in Northern Coast Salish territory. Fourteen Nations have historical ties to the island, but today no descendents from these communities live on the island. Yet they have deep ties to this place, as do the more recent settlers who live on the island today. The goal of the Xwe’etay Lasqueti Archaeology Project (XLAP, www.sfu.ca/rem/lasqueti.html) is to bring the settler and First Nations communities together to co-create through policy and daily actions, more respectful and enduring ways to honor, respect, and conserve Indigneous heritage on Xwe’etay. Together with Sean and myself are several SFU graduate students from REM and Archaeology, as well as local residents and First Nations collaborators, who form the core XLAP team (www.sfu.ca/rem/lasqueti/our-team.html). After three years of intense archaeological survey, countless inter-community events, interviews with planners, land owners, and representatives from neighboring Nations, and archival work, the settler community on Xwe’etay has largely embraced the deep Indigenous history of the island. For our First Nation collaborators, the archaeological discoveries and the rich on-island community events have meant a renewed connection to this place that holds their deep history. Currently, there is an exhibit on our project at Ingenium Museum in Ottawa (ingeniumcanada.org/agriculture/exhibitions/the-island-in-the-middle-of-everywhere). The exhibit will travel to small museums and communities next Spring. It will open at Xwe’etay at the same time as the unveiling of a large “Welcome Mural” and inter-community celebration.

Publications