It is agreed that within the field of historical archaeology in Canada, the focus on African-Canadian archaeology sites and associated subject matter has been thin. As a result, considerable challenge remains concerning building interest in the sub-discipline and promoting specialization within Canadian university graduate programs. This paper reviews efforts over 30 years in Nova Scotia to create awareness and develop interest in the African Nova Scotian past through archaeological fieldwork and research. Upon reflection and despite the challenges, much has taken place over the decades within the small province.  Research topics have ranged from the arrival of enslaved individuals through the eighteenth century, including the Black Loyalist migration, to War of 1812 Black Refugee settlement landscapes and early twentieth-century marginalized communities on the periphery of urban centers. However, it is a recent spirit of collaboration and community-driven, interdisciplinary partnership that has sparked an exciting model which holds promise to take African-Nova Scotian archaeology to the next level.  Information sharing and public engagement is critical to success.  Momentum building and guidance at the community level is key.

Archaeology is not just about recovering artifacts and the debris of past lives, it is also about recovering meaning. When space has meaning attached, it becomes an authentic place, thus providing historical context and greater understanding of a cultural environment. Preserving the physical elements of the past is important – but so is preserving its historical memory. Yet, because many of these historical places represent aspects of heritage that are less material in nature, there is little to help us preserve the memory of meaningful places that have, over time, become seemingly empty spaces. There are numerous lakes in Nova Scotia that were traditionally used as places of baptism for local African Nova Scotian communities. Interestingly, most communities seem to have had their own baptism lake where people gathered for social and spiritual exchanges that contributed to the identity and sustainability of these communities. Indeed, these places reflect the culture, beliefs, values and world view upon which these communities were built – the very things archaeologists struggle to uncover and define.  This paper will discuss the value of mapping, recording and integrating these democratically defined public spaces into the greater archaeology of historic African Nova Scotian communities.

The City of St. Catharines, Ontario has a long history of African-Canadian settlement that began in the early 19^th century. As an Underground Railroad stop, St. Catharines was home to Harriet Tubman for a time in the mid-19^th century; visited by abolitionists John Brown and Frederick Douglass. A CRM project completed in 2015 in St. Catharines near the British Methodist Episcopal Church helped to reveal vestiges of an early black community in the archaeological record. This neighbourhood emerged in the early 19th century and was largely populated by freedom-seekers from the southeastern United States, many of whom arrived in St. Catharines via the Underground Railroad. Artifacts recovered from the site indicated a Euro-Canadian settler occupation and required in-depth research to reveal the historic occupants of the property that could not be learned from the material record alone.

The identification of 19^th-century Black settlement sites in Ontario is a difficulty process that currently relies on in-depth background research. This paper discusses the recent work conducted by TMHC on the Little River settlement near Windsor, Ontario. This community was a planned Black settlement community established by the Colored Industrial Society in the mid-to-late 19^th-century. This paper discusses the archaeological work and background research that has completed to date to tease apart the sites that are associated with early Black settlers from later French settlers. This paper emphasizes some of the archaeological difficulties in identifying site affiliations based on material culture, while also discussing how the integration of the material culture and historic research can recover significant forgotten narratives.