#archaeology Here is a wall profile from a site on the Yukon River, not too far from the border of Yukon/Alaska. In vertical relief it depicts the entire colonial history of the Americas. In that tiny space between archaeological components the Russian Empire assumed sovereignty

over Alaska, then sold it the America in 1867. The dominion of Canada was formed in the same year. The Northwest Territories (including Yukon) were purchased (from HBC) by Canada in 1869 and the Indian Act passed in 1876. Two colonial states established on the Yukon River,

and a people legislated, with out a single visit by an official colonial representative. By 1885, there was a gold mining town that was soon followed by a NWMP garrison. By 1898 Yukon is fully under colonial rule absent of any treaties, sales, compensations or negotiations.

It took the First Nation people who lived at this site 100 years of turmoil to reclaim a measure of self determination. Yet today we see the amazing +14,000 year archaeological record of these lands being mythologized and weaponized by racists against indigenous people.

People who are exercising their RIGHT to protest Canada Day, and the methods through which this country was formed. And it makes me, an archaeologist, sick to see it. The people who occupied this site in precolonial times were completely self reliant and self determining.

In Yukon today, almost everything I need to live is shipped in. Is it so hard accept that First Nations people lived rewarding lives in stable societies without department stores and news stories about how billionaires will blast themselves into space? Is this progress?

Let them protest. Celebration can be healthy, but premising celebration through the willful ignorance of Canadian History is damaging. Don't tell people to get over it. I have no answers but... listen, learn, accept, #change.