Hello everyone! This
past Monday and Tuesday, Julie Stein from the University of Washington came to
visit Western Michigan. She is an alumna of the Department of Geosciences and
Anthropology who now works as a geoarchaeologist out of the University of
Washington and is the director of the Burke Museum of Natural History and
Culture. On Monday, Julie was greeted with bagels by graduate students of the
anthropology department and she gave two lectures. First she spoke about gender
in the sciences and later in the day she spoke about the archaeology of the
Lewis and Clark expeditions. On Tuesday Julie, Dr. Nassaney, Austin, and I made
a trip down to Niles to show Julie where we work. We started out by touring the
floodplain, stopping at Father Allouez’s cross, the commemorative Fort St.
Joseph boulder, and then went up to the Lyne Site. We then headed over to the
Fort St. Joseph Museum and Chapman House for a tour there. We ended the day by
grabbing a bite to eat at the Nugget in downtown Niles. We exchanged stories
about Fort St. Joseph and Julie’s experiences and I learned some pretty
interesting things from her. I enjoyed spending the day in Niles and I’m
getting excited to be back this summer!
-Liz Mantyck
