CNEHA Annual Meeting Student Competition Winners
Alexa D. Spiwak, (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
A slator or two: Exploring the 17th-century slate industry at Ferryland
The 2018 Student Competition winner paper summarizes the preliminary results of archaeological investigations which aim to explore the slate industry present during the 17th century in Newfoundland. While the use of slate as a building material was not unheard of in the New World, the early 17th-century colony at Ferryland was unique among contemporaneous North American settlements in its large-scale use of local slate for the manufacturing of roofing tiles. While historical documents mention a quarry “in fitting” and include a request for slaters and quarrymen, the manufacturing process used by these workmen and the location of Captain Wynne’s quarry has remained a mystery. Incorporating both archaeological and ethnographic data, recent excavations and surveys have identified potential quarry sites, located manufacturing areas, and shed light on the ways in which this enigmatic colonial industry deviated from traditional Old World practices.
2018 Poster Competition winner
Susan M Bazely, Robert D. Banks, Lena Beliveau, John Grenville, Jennifer McKendry, and Ashley Mendes (RMC Volunteer Research Group)
How Do We Know That? Reimagining the past through a collaborative process: sorting out the facts, letting go of ‘tradition,’ telling a new story
Through a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, a volunteer research team was assembled to assist the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Museum Curator sort out the construction history and use of one of the oldest buildings on the Point Frederick Peninsula in Kingston, Ontario. The late 18th century dockyard, a Royal Naval Dockyard during the War of 1812, was transformed into Canada’s first military college in 1876 and is a rich cultural landscape of archaeological remains and historic buildings. The research team combined the disciplines, knowledge and skills of military History, architectural history, archaeology, historical geography, 3D modelling and visualization, and heritage presentation to answer “How old is the Commandant’s Residence? Is the Old Surgeon’s Quarters inside the Commandant’s Residence? And When Was the Surgeon’s Quarter’s/Commandant’s Residence Built? Because tradition is the Commandant’s Residence was the old Naval Hospital, the story need
ed to change.
