New archaeology alumnus’s interdisciplinary approach to learning opens new possibilities

Mckenzie Strath has some advice for students starting their first year of university.

“Do not be scared of exploring new classes,” says the new archaeology and English alumnus. “Take the daunting ones, the ones that pique your interest or that you didn’t even know are real subjects. You will be surprised by what you enjoy when you broaden your learning experience.”

This is a lesson Strath learned first-hand. When she first began studying at SFU, she was majoring exclusively in English with a certificate in creative writing and was not familiar with archaeology as a field of study.

“I assumed it was something you saw on TV, not something you studied to get a degree,” she says. “It was not until my second year, when I took a class in shamanic rituals, that I realized my passion for learning about the past and all of its mysteries.”

Strath, who dreams of becoming a professional writer, decided to do a second major in archaeology after realizing what a career doing both might look like, especially with archaeological expertise and lived experiences to “fuel her creative fingers.”

She already has plenty of lived experiences to draw from.

Last year, she attended a bioarchaeological field school hosted by the University of New Brunswick in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, where she worked in the Fortress of Louisbourg cemetery to assist with its removal due to coastal erosion.

During the field school, she met direct descendants of the French and New England settlers who were buried there, who came to the site to talk about their relatives.

“To be able to share these moments with the public is something I cherish,” she says, reflecting on the experience.

This year, Strath was also instrumental in establishing SFU’s new Experimental Archaeology Club, which aims to create a fun learning environment for students to chat with archaeology professors in a less formal and academic setting.

“It is something I thought about starting for quite a while; I just didn't know how to do it,” she shares, adding that there had been talk about starting it up with a few professors for some time.

Strath got the club up and running with the help of Laura Walker, the undergraduate advisor for the Department, and says two passionate archaeology undergraduates are taking the lead now that she is finished her degree.

She hopes that in the future, the club will become a large part of the department, “and even branch out into the public to teach other students about the fundamentals of archaeology,” she says.

As for Strath’s future, she is hoping to gain some real-world experience in cultural resource management over the next couple of months and says that she would like to eventually do a master’s degree in either soil micromorphology or bioarchaeology next.

Of course, she hasn’t forgotten her passion for writing; this month she published a book of poetry inspired by her field work and studies called Inconsistent Cemeteries (Aboveground Press) and is also working on a potential research paper analyzing archaeological children’s literature.

“I started my university experience with the sole goal of becoming a distinguished writer,” she reflects. “Looking back on that now makes me laugh at how closed-minded I was about what makes a person a professional writer....to be able to explore what I like and dislike and bundle it up into my personal academic experience has changed my outlook on what is possible.”