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Preserving Inuvialuit history
Archaeologist talks about saving artifacts in the face of melting permafrost

Stewart Burnett
Northern News Services
Friday, April 10, 2015

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Climate change can be blamed for simultaneously destroying archaeological sites in the Mackenzie Delta and exposing never-before-seen facets of them.

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A large Inuvialuit house was excavated in the Mackenzie Delta last summer. This location was once known as Kuukpak and was populated between 1450 and 1850. - photo courtesy of Max Friesen

Max Friesen, professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto, is coming to the territory for a week of talks about this exact subject.

Warm weather is thawing permafrost and at the same time sea level is rising. That spells destruction for past Inuvialuit settlements that were located close to the sea for hunting and fishing purposes.

Friesen is trying to figure out which sites are worst affected and how to retrieve information from them before they are forever lost. But melting permafrost is also bringing artifacts which otherwise would be forever frozen in time back to the surface. For example, last year his team excavated a house in the community formerly known as Kuukpak, which was populated between 1450 and 1850.

"The house we excavated last summer is without a doubt the largest, best-preserved house ever completely excavated in the Inuvialuit area, where we can actually see the whole thing all at once," said Friesen. "It was an amazing moment."

The danger with erosion and warming temperatures is organic material like wood and ivory will degrade. Friesen said archaeologists love the North because its permafrost is so great at preserving history.

Most Inuvialuit history dates back no later than 1200 AD. Friesen said there is evidence of people living in the North from thousands of years back, but it is only in the form of the odd stone tool, as most of it has sunk into the sea.

"Early on the sites were farther upstream, more southerly," explained Friesen. "As the river silted in and the beluga whales moved farther out toward the mouth, the sites moved toward the mouth of the river."

A combination of factors, including widespread disease in the 19th and 20th centuries, caused centralization among the Inuvialuit people, leaving many communities behind as archaeological relics.

"There are some sites in the process of eroding right now but there are others that you can tell it's going to happen in the future," said Friesen. "There will come a time when there's almost nothing left."

He admits that though the destruction of history is a shame, the exposing of it excites him as an archaeologist.

Frieson will be making a presentation on the impacts of climate change on Inuvialuit heritage sites at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife tonight at 7 p.m.

Tomorrow he will head to Inuvik to speak at the Aurora Research Institute at 7 p.m. and Thursday he will speak at the Aurora College in Tuktoyaktuk at 5 p.m.

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