Historians in the News / Les historiens font les manchettes

Abstract

History and “field schools” are not often associated with each other. Nor is it common for students to report that their history course changed their lives, or for faculty to report that a particular class is a linchpin in sustaining their research momentum. But since 1998, an unusual history field school has taken place every second spring with the Stó:lõ that is “transforming” the lives of students, enriching the scholarship of faculty, and generating meaningful historical research and analysis for First Nations people. The Stó:lõ [pronounced Stah-low] are the aboriginal people of the lower Fraser Riverwatershed (fromVancouver,B.C. eastward to the Fraser Canyon beyond Yale). The Ethnohistory Field School offers ten graduate students a cultural immersion and introduction to archival research methods common in history along with interviewing and participant observation methods common in ethnography.