Life of a Public History Intern

Hi,

I am Katy, a senior at Western Michigan University studying Public History with a minor in Anthropology! I have always been interested in history and wanted to study it more since the sixth grade. I have a couple fields of interest; the 1700s and 1800s being my top two favorite time periods, with the 1920s being a close third. I like finding out the stories behind the artifacts and more about the people who created or used them. The lives of ordinary people, not the rich and famous, interest me more as their stories are not always told or valued. I also have an interest in early hominins and the evolution process over time. My favorite species being the Homo floresiensis, which was found on the island of Flores. The species was nicknamed the “hobbit” due to its short stature, which had been affected by island dwarfism which I think is kind of cool. 

If you can’t tell, I love learning new things and I am beyond excited to experience the archaeology field school at Fort St. Joseph this summer. I started getting interested in the field school and Project through my Intro to Archaeology class on campus with Erika Hartley. I recently began an internship with her through the Niles History Center in the beginning of summer to further my knowledge in the Archaeology/Anthropology field, and further my knowledge upon the artifacts found at the Fort St. Joseph site. I have been helping with the artifact inventory process in Niles and on campus at WMU. My favorite collection so far are the shell beads, as they have a more unique look. I have visited Niles, Michigan many times and have enjoyed seeing the Niles History Center and some of the artifacts that were discovered at the site. I am very excited to begin working with everyone in the field school and bring to light more stories about the people who inhabited the area. 

Some things I like to do outside of school are reading, being outside, gaming, spending time with friends, and spending time with my little brother Joseph. Fun fact about me is that my brother is 11 months old, and I am 21! He is the sweetest little baby and is fun to chase around the house. After I graduate in the fall, I plan on applying to the Henry Ford Museum, as I have always loved the exhibits and the environment there. 

I am looking forward to having a great summer and to meeting everyone and working onsite!  

Katy

Summer at FSJ

Happy summer for followers! 

The summer sun is setting into Fort St. Joseph, and we are ready to get back out there! This is your intern Chloe signing on to tell you some important and exciting updates about the project this summer season and about myself as well! The first thing I would like to announce is that I will be taking the lab coordinator position for Western Michigan University’s archaeological field school! The transition from intern to staff is something I’m very honored to be doing and I cannot wait to continue serving this community and this incredible project. Last year's field school solidified that archaeology was the right career for me. I owe a lot of my successes to Fort St. Joseph, all the incredible staff/volunteers, and you! PS: Featured is a picture of me from last season on my very first field day!

As I am finishing up my internship, I am reflecting on my time as a field school student. My fondest field school memories definitely had to be involving the open house and most excavation days (when it wasn’t raining). Excavation days were always filled with laughter and learning and as much as it’s cliché to say, I miss my field school colleagues! You really do gain lifelong connections and friendships at FSJ. The open house is always such a joyous time to show off all of our hard work and perseverance. I love being able to display the history that I am a part of. Just as a reminder, this year our open house will be held on August 6th and 7th. 

My time finishing up my internship was spent organizing boxes of artifacts, but more specifically beads. During this time studying beads, I decided that doing an undergrad thesis on the beads of Fort St. Joseph would be super interesting. My end goal hopefully is to get my doctorate, so I better get writing sometime! I will be working on it through the course of my senior year at WMU and hopefully will have enough to share with you all by the time I graduate. This Project has given me so many opportunities to write and research that I am overwhelmed with information. Just wanted to say another quick thank you to all the people who support this Project over the years. I definitely would not be here without you, nor would this incredible program. I am very excited to be a part of another successful field school season.

- Chloe Trinka

Spring Has Sprung

 Hi there fort followers!

    This spring season the Project has a lot of exciting events taking place! While the weather seems to have difficulty climbing in temperature, we are not letting that hold us back! This Spring is jam packed with exciting outreach events and other opportunities to connect with the Project before our field season begins.

    One of the major upcoming events is a book signing event taking place at the Niles District Library on May 4th at 5:30 pm. Michael Nassaney, Erika Hartley and other contributors to the newly released Project booklet People of the Post will be holding a small event where readers (like you!) can discuss the material and ask questions. This is a great opportunity for community members to come out and meet the authors, get their FSJ publications signed, and discuss the research with those who did the work. I hope to see you there!

    Another outreach initiative occurring at the Niles District Library is a small artifact exhibit!! Erika and I have spent the last month or so diligently piecing together a spectacular artifact display that was installed last week. This display revolves around our theme 'People of the Post' and will feature some of our more recent finds at the site. I am very excited for people to see this exhibit as it is the first artifact display I have contributed to! 😊

   In addition, we have been working on outreach events for WMU that showcase the Project, our research, and recent discoveries. I recently attended an admitted student event in Grand Rapids where I was able to represent the Institute for Intercultural and Anthropological Studies, and the Project, by showcasing our work to attendees. This was a good opportunity for me to interact with future students, tell them just how important this Project is to WMU, and discuss the opportunities they have to get involved. 

   As our busy summer quickly approaches, I just want to say a simple thank you to our supporters. The Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project has supplied countless students including myself with opportunities so that I can be a contributing archaeologist. Without you loyal supporters and readers, this Project would not be the wonderful example of public archaeology that it is. 

That's all for now! Can't wait to update again soon,

Chloe Trinka

Events, events, and more events!

 

Hi Fort Friends, 

              It’s me, your intern Chloe! The past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind consisting of float samples and artifact displays. I have been diligently working in the FSJ lab on Western Michigan University's campus during the off season. Today, I want to tell you about what I have been up to as well as what we are doing in order to prepare for the annual WMU archaeological field school and upcoming outreach events.

In the past few months, I have been working on sorting through a flotation sample taken from one of the excavated units during the 2021 field season. I am currently separating all of the artifacts and ecofacts in order to for someone to further analyze them in the future. By doing this small and tedious task, we are able to get a better sense of what was happening on the land where this unit was dug. Although I am not quite finished yet, there seems to be a lot of charcoal popping up. What other artifacts and ecofacts do you think I'm finding? Share your ideas in the comments!

The next task that I am involved in is working on alongside Erika to prepare an artifact display for an upcoming event that will be held at the Niles Public Library. On May 4, 2022, at 5:30 pm, the Project will be hosting a "Book Signing and Meet the Authors" event with its partners the Niles District Library and the Niles History Center. The coauthors and collaborators of Fort St. Joseph Revealed and the newly released People of the Post will be available to sign your copies and answer questions. Attending this event would be a great opportunity to learn more about the Project, current research goals, and how you can get involved!

Erika and I have also been working on preparing for this summer's field season. Beginning on June 30, 2022, our annual Western Michigan University archaeological field school will commence! This marks WMU's 46^th annual field school and it will once again be held at the historic site of Fort St. Joseph. We will be bringing back even more events that had been previously cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, the in-person archaeology summer camps are back! Three one-week camps will be held for middle school students (July 18-22), high school students (July 25-29), and lifelong learners and educators (August 1-5). Campers will learn about archaeology, the history of Fort St. Joseph, and our Project's research goals. They will also be able to come work alongside excavating with Project members and university students! How fun is that! Visit the Niles History Center's website to register and for more information. 

We are constantly updating our Facebook (The Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Site) and Instagram (@fsjarchaeology) pages with the latest information on all these events. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter so that you can also follow the events tab and like us on Facebook! Thanks so much for reading and stay tuned for more updates.

Stay safe,

Chloe

Holiday Fun!

 Season's Greetings Fort Followers, 

 Hi everyone! It's Chloe again here with another Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project update on some research that I have been conducting. The upcoming holiday season has made me curious as to what was happening around this time in New France during the 18th century. Specifically, I was interested in some of the traditions that may have taken place at Fort St. Joseph. Here, I have tried to summarize some of the information I found. 

    To start, the holiday season for New France habitants would have been very long. Their celebrations started at the middle of December and went all the way through the first week of January. In the 1600s, Christmas was a religious holiday in New France. It was a time for reflection and prayer. On Christmas Eve, habitants living in Quebec would attend midnight mass, singing carols they brought from France. Popular carols include: Venez, mon Dieu, Te Deum, and Chantons Noé. A Nativity scene, the crèche, would also be displayed.

                                                           Photo by Restoring The Core

After mass, it was time for the Réveillon, the Christmas Eve meal. The French table consisted of turkey, la tourtiere, vegetables, and soup. The dining would be followed by dancing that would last well until dawn. The Réveillon is still observed today among French Canadians, and by many French families in Louisiana.

    On Christmas day, at least two more masses would be held for colonists to attend. Though this may have varied at the forts across New France, depending on whether a Catholic priest was present at the time. It was also a relatively quiet day, allowing families to rest and spend time together.

    A few days down the line there would be another Réveillon on New Year's Day. This feast would be like the one that took place after the Christmas Eve midnight mass. There would be singing and dancing and a lot of eating. I don't know about you, but that sounds delightful to me. In the Illinois country, a celebration called la Guiannee would occur that night. The tradition dates back to the early 1700s where male singers would go from door to door to entertain and ring in the new year. Hosts were expected to give them food and drink. This celebration may have begun as a way for the poor to be given gratuities by the rich, though it also became a community social event for young men to visit with the families of young women. La Guiannee still occurs in Prairie du Rocher, Illinois and Ste. Genevieve, Missouri today. 

                                            Photo by the Fort de Chartres Heritage Garden

    To finish off the holiday season, the people of New France would have celebrated Feast of the Kings or La fête des Rois on January 6th. This final holiday meal would have been shared by the family to end the holiday season. A galette des Rois, a puff pastry filled with a type of almond cream called frangipane, would be served for dessert. A small item would normally be hidden inside the galette and whoever found the “treasure” would receive a small gift. After the meal, friends, family and neighbors would gather to sing, dance and play music.

    Researching all of the seasonal fun that occurred throughout New France has me in the holiday spirit! This month, our partners, the Nile History Center, are hosting an evening open house! The special event will occur on December 11, 2021, from 4 to 7 pm. Visitors will have the opportunity to see the Fort St. Joseph Museum and Chapin Mansion all dressed up for the holidays decorated by various individuals and community groups in our theme for the year: "Winter Wonderland." You can also find some additional information about Christmas in New France. We hope to see you there!

Museums and More

 

Hi everyone !

My name is Chloe Trinka, and I am the newly appointed archaeology intern in association with the Niles History Center and the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. I am a junior at Western Michigan University (WMU) continuing in my path of a BA in Anthropology. Some of you may have read my blogs from this past summer as I was a student in the WMU archaeological field school held Fort St. Joseph. I am so excited to be taking on this role as I continue to work alongside some amazing people both at the Niles History Center and at Fort St. Joseph.

As the fall semester kicks off, we at WMU are continuing our work with the artifacts found over the 2021 field school season. This includes sorting, categorizing, and archiving artifacts. Working in the lab might be considered the boring part of archaeology, but nonetheless it is very important and rewarding. At WMU we have a lab dedicated to the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. The perk of having this space is that we have the ability to fully investigate each and every artifact. This is sometimes tedious work, but I assure you I thoroughly enjoy it.

In the beginning of October, field director Erika Hartley and I attended the MAC/MHAC conference in East Lansing, Michigan. There we presented a poster displaying our 2021 field school finds. This poster covers some of the most interesting finds of the season and the specific field work we did. With the help of Dr. Nassaney this poster was very much a success. I loved hearing all of the questions and comments the other conference attendees had. My first conference experience definitely taught me a different set of skills that I didn’t know were associated with this profession before.

I would also like to take a moment to talk about is Michigan Archaeology Day. A couple weekends ago Erika and I, along with a few past field school students attended this event in order to inform and engage with the public on the knowledge this project has to offer. It was a really wonderful opportunity to interact with the youth that we so dearly missed due to Covid-19. I think the field school students and I can both agree that this was a very rewarding experience. The other benefit of this incredible event hosted by the Michigan History Center is that we get to learn too. It can’t really get much better than that.

        That's all the information I have for you guys right now! I am so thankful to be a part of this Project and I cannot wait to continue posting more blogs updating you on all the exciting things the off-season has to offer. Until next time!

Stay healthy,

               Chloe

Off-Season Updates

 

Dear Fort Followers,

The much-anticipated field season has come and gone, providing time for laboratory analysis, organizational tasks of the collection, presentation of our results to various audiences, and outreach activities. But, before I discuss what the Project has been recently up to, I would like to take a moment to thank you for your ongoing support! It has been difficult for many of people and organizations across the globe since the COVID-19 pandemic began and our Project is no exception. However, your continued encouragement and engagement with our virtual and in-person activities have helped keep us motivated and made this past field season a huge success! …Thank you!

Now that we are heading deeper into the “off-season” as some archaeologists refer to the winter lab months, I wanted to check in with you and share some updates. If you are new to following the Project, I am the field director and curatorial fellow for the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. During the past several years, I have worked closely with Dr. Michael Nassaney the Project’s principal investigator. Since his retirement last fall from WMU, I have maintained my current roles with the Project and Nassaney recommended me to become the instructor of the university’s archaeological field school.

Many people have often asked, “What do Project members and archaeologists do when they aren’t excavating?” The answer is: “lots of things!” A few of the current tasks that I am working on include performing an inventory of the items recovered from our excavations, taking pictures of artifacts, and writing a report on our findings. As the curatorial fellow, I have also been testing a new organizational scheme for the artifacts recovered from this field season and those from 2019. In the past, artifacts in the collection were organized and stored by raw material (bone, copper, iron, etc.). However, after careful consideration, it was decided to reorganize the items based on functional type (beads, buttons, nails, pipe fragments, rings, etc.). This new organization will help us better manage the collection and make it more accessible to staff, future researchers, and the public.

In addition, I have been sharing and discussing some of our recent findings in a few outreach initiatives. In early October, I attended and presented a paper at the Midwest Historical Archaeology Conference held jointly with the Midwest Archaeology Conference at Michigan State University. The paper, coauthored by Tim Bober and Michael Nassaney, discussed the Project and its outreach programs that have occurred since the beginning of the pandemic, focusing on the challenges and prospects that had to be overcome to conduct our fieldwork and host programming events. I also attended Michigan Archaeology Day last weekend in Lansing at the Michigan History Center. A few field school students from this past summer joined me at the Project’s table to engage with the visitors. Though it was chilly, we had a lot of fun!

To assist me in some of these endeavors, the Niles History Center offered to once again support an archaeology intern during the 2021/22 academic year. The internship was an opportunity that Nassaney first arranged with the Museum over 15 years ago. Chloe Trinka, an undergraduate at WMU and 2021 field school student, was selected from the pool of applicants for the position. Thus far, she has been helping me with our outreach efforts and reorganizing artifacts in the FSJ collection. She also participated in the MAC/MHAC meeting and presented her first poster on this past field season with Michael and I as coauthors (Returning to Fort St. Joseph: The 2021 Field Season). Chloe will share more about that experience in her upcoming blog post--stay tuned!

There are a few more outreach items that I am working on, but I can’t spill all of the tea in one blog post. You will have to wait in anticipation of more Project news and updates.

Stay warm, well, and curious,

Erika Hartley