Such is the life of an archeologist, and Deck [MA/89] is one of two working for Parks Canada at their Winnipeg office, excavating at historic and Indigenous archeological sites.

In anticipation of Canada’s Parks Day on July 21, we’re featuring alumni like Deck who live and work in our nation’s parks, historical sites and special places; alumni who get to call these Canadian treasures their “office”.
 
UM Today caught up with Deck at home in Winnipeg as she prepares for her next excavation in the Northwest Territories.
 
UM TODAY: MOST OF US KNOW WHAT AN ARCHEOLOGIST IS, BUT YOU ALSO SPECIALIZE IN PALEOETHNOBOTANY. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THAT IS?
 
DECK: Paleoethnobotany is the study of plant remains, which can enhance our understanding of the material we recover from an archeological site – what season of the year people were there, the types of plant resources they were utilizing and recovering tiny artifacts that we cannot recover during excavation. 
 
For example, from wood charcoal that we find in fire pits we can identify what species of wood is preserved in charcoal and that can tell us people’s cultural selection of wood use, the changes in the environment over time, and all kinds of cool things.
 
I did my honours thesis on charcoal analysis, and that’s actually why I came to the U of M for my masters. At the time, there were only two professors in Canada who did paleoethnobotany, and only one doing charcoal – Dr. Tom Shay. I was his last graduate student. I was so fortunate to have him as an advisor; he was incredibly supportive and I learned a lot from him.

Deck photographing wooden artifacts from the 18th century at Prince of Wales Fort.

 WHAT’S BEEN YOUR MOST REMARKABLE FIND?
 
There’s too many to mention! Everything from a burnt maize cob to a scraper with fish residue that was more than 5,000 years old. I have had such wonderful opportunities. What I’m interested in is not a “goody” but discovering what life was like hundreds, thousands of years ago. 
 
A lot of people think of treasure when they think of archeology, and some people really like finding a fancy ceremonial piece. But I get excited about butchered bone and what it means. For me, it’s all about the stories that go around it. What did people do every day? What was their technology like? How did they interact with other groups of people?
 
When I was at Prince of Wales Fort, we found these barrels that had a rectangular hole cut into the side and a little nail at the top. We couldn’t figure out why somebody would do that.
 
Then I read the book that James Isham – Governor of Prince of Wales Fort – wrote in 1743 called Observations on Hudsons Bay. In his book he draws a vermin trap. They had trouble in the winter with foxes getting into their stores to eat their food. So they would put three barrels in a circle and cut a hole in the middle where they mounted a pistol. Then, a string was tied to the trigger which hooked on to a nail at the top of the barrel and also went to the bait in the middle of the circle. When the fox took the bait it got shot from three directions.
 
To see the drawing and then actually find one of these things discarded in the ramparts was pretty cool.  Oh, there’s so many cool things we’ve discovered at Prince of Wales Fort. 

YOU’VE BEEN IN THE FIELD FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS. WHAT’S THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION YOU HEAR ABOUT ARCHEOLOGY?
 
That we dig for dinosaurs.
 
My brother also said to me years ago: “You have the most selfish job. You get to go on these adventures and recover this stuff and then it sits in a building and no one gets to see it.” That’s kind of true, but I’ve tried my entire life not do that and really share what we find. It’s everybody’s.
 
I feel it’s really important to work with Elders, the Knowledge-Holders, from the communities that are connected to the places that we go. We can excavate artifacts and we can do the Western Science analysis of that material but to really put it into context and understand what life was about, you have to work with Elders. A lot of times the artifacts will bring back stories and you get a more meaningful connection. That’s what I find exciting: to make it all relevant.

Consulting with Elder Elijah Panipakoocho at Sirmilik National Park.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE STORIES YOU’VE HEARD?
 
A couple of years ago I got to work in Sirmilik National Park, which is in the high arctic on the Northwest Passage.  Elder Elijah Panipakoocho from Pond Inlet was with us, and I got to spend a week working with him recording traditional knowledge stories and cultural features on the landscape. Who doesn’t like to talk to their grandparents and hear stories about the past? It was like that with him.  
 
We were excavating a traditional Inuit sod house and he had lived in one until he was 14. All we have is the foundation of these sod houses and he would map the outline and go: “Well, here’s a meat cooler, and a porch. This guy had two wives, there are two sleeping platforms.”
 
He shared amazing stories about how sod houses were constructed, the types of activities he did as a child, and the medicinal uses of plants and animals. There is a little layer beneath a seal’s skin before the muscle that would be used as Band-Aids and medicine. My God, I learnt so much from that man! This was a known archeological site and there were so many things that people hadn’t identified which he did – these rock features were puppy enclosures, this change in vegetation on the land was a blubber storage area.
 
It really drives home the fact that we need to work with people. He brought to life the landscape, features and artifacts with his stories and taught me more than I could have ever hoped to learn through archeological investigation alone.
 
IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE ALWAYS LEARNING NEW THINGS AND VISITING NEW PLACES. IS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR JOB THAT YOU FIND CHALLENGING?
 
It’s hard work and very labour-intensive when you’re excavating soil. I did a trail survey last year where we were walking 12 kilometers for multiple days plus doing our work and it was really hot.
 
When we go up North, we’re taking helicopters or float planes so we’ll work straight through, sometimes for 10 days. You don’t know when you’re going to have a bad weather day and not be able to get back so there’s just a small window of time to get the project done.
 
But I’m so lucky – it never gets dull or boring; it’s a constant adventure. I get to go to places that I never would if I didn’t do this job, and I get to experience nature and wildlife in a setting that I never would. At Prince of Wales Fort we have to cross the Churchill River. We get in a boat and the beluga whales follow us across. Before we get to work, the site is cleared for polar bears. Grizzly bears, polar bears, black bears … there’s always bears where we’re working.
 
THAT SOUNDS DANGEROUS.
 
I have definitely worked where there have been some scary bear moments. In Churchill, we have bear monitors who work with us. They’re watching us because we work with our heads down. If there’s a bear, we’ll go into a safe place and if they have to, they’ll chase them with quads to keep them away.
 
One of the quirky things when you’re up North is you don’t talk about them, you don’t say “bear”. If you call them, they will come. So people have different funny names for bears: “The Unmentionables”, “The Big Guy”, those kinds of code names.
 
IF YOU COULD LEAVE BEHIND ONE THING FOR AN ARCHEOLOGIST TO FIND 1,000 YEARS FROM NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
 
Oh, that’s a tough one. I can’t think of one thing I’d leave behind because I think the technology will be so different. Perhaps they will be looking at DNA signatures of where people were, instead of old journals handwritten on paper. 
 
I’ve seen people do it, though. If we’re revisiting a site that other people have worked at, some archeologists leave a coin with the year on it. I’ve been at a site where an archeologist has left behind a little plastic shovel and pail at the bottom which is kind of funny.
 
JULY 21ST IS CANADA’S PARKS DAY. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO ENCOURAGE CANADIANS TO VISIT OUR NATIONAL PARKS?
 
You don’t have to go far. We have so many national parks and historic sites that it’s easy to find one that’s close to you. Or, if you have the opportunity to travel across provinces, try and integrate a national historic site into your trip because they’re all different – they’ve all been designated for different reasons – and you’ll just get a better appreciation.
 
A lot of the parks I really like, up North, aren’t as accessible. In Manitoba, Riding Mountain National Park is a fabulous place to visit. They have a bison herd there and there’s the lake, lots of trails. The east side of the park is quite different from Wasagaming, the town-site.

It’s a tradition that dates back to the early 1900s. A railway bridge, the Quebec Bridge over the lower Saint Lawrence River, collapsed under the weight of a locomotive loaded with steel, killing 75 people. While being fixed, a section of the bridge collapsed, bringing the death toll to 85.

The cause of the initial accident was determined to be an error of judgement on the part of the bridge’s engineers and, since then, iron rings are given to Canadian engineering graduates to symbolize humility and responsibility.

It’s a message that rings true to Hall, especially now in his current role as COO of SAFE Work Manitoba.

UM Today sat down with Hall to talk about safe workplaces and why he’s made it a priority to reach out to young workers.

I’M CURIOUS ABOUT THE LINK BETWEEN ENGINEERING AND SAFETY. IS THERE ONE?

The connection between engineering and safety is very well defined. In the Engineer’s and Geoscientists Act, it’s very clear about the responsibility we have as engineers for the safety of the public and workers. We have to think about the construction, the operation, or the maintenance of whatever we’re designing so that the safety of individuals who will be working in that system or on that piece of equipment is considered.

YOU BEGAN YOUR CAREER AS AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER. WHY THE CHANGE TO WORKPLACE SAFETY?

The big change that led me down the path to safety was when I led a project at Manitoba Hydro that looked at how we can fundamentally change our safety performance.

At that time – this would have been in the late 90s – one of Hydro’s senior managers stood up at a meeting and said: “we have a history, for over a decade, that every second year someone dies as a result of work. In the years when someone isn’t killed, there’s a terrible accident where someone is injured for life. Are we satisfied with that system or do we change it?”

The resounding decision was that we need to change this. Leading that project really aligned well with my engineering side of using data to make decisions, draw hypotheses, and test the hypotheses. At the same time I was taking my MBA, so I also got to emphasize good management decisions.

WHAT KIND OF DATA ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

A lot of companies, for example, know how many claims they have but may not be aware of what caused them. Is there a commonality or are people being injured in a similar way? Digging deep into that kind of data is critically important.

IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, THERE WILL BE A LOT OF STUDENTS AND GRADUATES GOING INTO THE WORKFORCE. WHAT DOES THE DATA SAY ABOUT YOUNG WORKERS AND THEIR SAFETY?

We have a campaign going right now that’s based on research done between the Asper School of Business and the University of Regina. It looked at young workers and showed two things.

First of all, there’ll be a strong reluctance to speak up, even when they’re facing a hazard. For a variety of reasons: this is my first job, this is money I’m depending on, this is my measure of my independence from mom and dad. The expectation is that I should figure this out on my own. But when you have someone who’s not going to speak up, it short circuits any good work that the company has done to prevent injuries.

The second thing is that young people are motivated more by the paycheque than by the hazards they are facing. They will take a dangerous job if it pays a lot.

DID YOU EVER HAVE A JOB THAT, IN HINDSIGHT, WAS UNSAFE?

When I look back, yes. One summer I worked for a mason on brick houses. He hired me to chisel out all of the mortar between the bricks. There was a time when I got to the peak of the gable house I was working, and I was probably 20 to 25 feet above the ground on a very rickety scaffold that we had just used scrap materials to make it longer. I just remember the fear of working up there but I had to get it done – I was getting paid a lot and it was going to help me pay for university.

So yeah, I’ve been there. I also know that when I was young I’m not sure if I would have listened to a guy like me talking about safety!

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF SAFETY TO YOUNG WORKERS?

We know that it doesn’t matter your age: the time you’re most likely to be hurt is in your first month or two of work. Young people are starting new jobs all the time, so supervisors need to really be aware of this.

When you have a new person starting you almost have to say: “safety is so important that it’s a job requirement here. In this first week you’re going to have a whole new perspective than anyone else. You need to come to me with 10 hazards that you see and ask me how to resolve them.”

Flip it around and make it clear safety is that important. It’s a requirement on the job, not just a nice thing you say during orientation.

WITH YOUNG WORKERS, WE’RE TALKING AGES 15 to 24 SO THERE’S A ROLE PARENTS CAN PLAY TOO, RIGHT?

Yes, and that’s the other thing that makes it real for me right now: I have two teenagers. In this job, I’ve seen too many parents giving keynote speeches about how their child died on the job. One is too many; but I’ve seen lots. I wouldn’t hesitate to tell my son or daughter: “That job is not worth it. The likelihood of you being injured is too great and it’s not worth the rest of your life, either not being here or being injured in some permanent way.”

My daughter is 19 (she’s at the U of M) and she’s been promoted to Program Coordinator at Gimli Bible Camp for this summer. Thankfully, I don’t think it’s a dangerous job but last year we did have a young worker drown at a camp. When that happened, I talked to my daughter. I asked her: “What do you have for water safety? Obviously you’re very focused on making sure the campers are safe, but how are you safe? And how could you get into trouble?”

Anything you’re doing has risk associated with it. It’s not saying don’t get a job, but understand the hazards and make sure there’s a way to reduce your risk of injury from this hazard.

Some jobs are more dangerous than others. Check out Jamie Hall’s top four most dangerous occupations for young workers.