Negotiating Memories, Negotiating Publics: Defining the Historic Past at Birch Island, Labrador

EN The site of Birch Island, within the Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador and along the Mishta-shipu (Churchill River), has been the focus of a conservation and heritage project by the non-profit Healthy Waters Labrador (HWL). The work entailed the construction of a boardwalk, an outdoor classroom, fencing, two new parking lots, and enhanced streamflow around the landform that is also home to a resettled World War II-era community. Archaeological research on this site included a mix of tangible and intangible heritage documentation in the form of a heritage resource impact assessment and graduate research to contextualize the artifacts and features present. In this paper, we explore our years of engagement with the material and the various publics surrounding the project through a lens of drift to wholistically encapsulate all material and social interactions there. We summarize the work at Birch Island up to this point and focus on the renegotiation of space throughout these changes rooted in the analysis of material culture, archives, interviews, and the use of social media. By focusing specifically on the unexpected, unintended, and ambiguous encounters with objects and publics, we emphasize the need for public archaeologists to be open to unforeseen developments that inevitably arise as part of such work.