Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• R.G.

  Matson

  - UBC

In 2007 I had a chapter in Emerging from the Mist entitled The Coast Salish House; Lessons from Shingle Point, Valdes Island, B.C. Here I return to this subject, summarizing the earlier work, and then putting it into a larger context, NWC houses in general, focussing on the transformation from small, one family winter dwellings, to multifamily houses.  When Gary Coupland and I wrote the Prehistory of the Northwest Coast, I certainly expected that once they were present, they would continue up to contact times. The archaeological record present in the early 1990s certainly did not appear to show that pattern. Instead it appeared to show variability in houses within the NWC and through time. From this perspective the Paul Mason site appears to be critical in understanding the nature of this important but little understood transformation.  Thus it is evaluated here in some detail.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Peter

  Dawson

  - University of Calgary

In 1997, Gary Coupland organized a session on Households at the CAAs in Saskatoon. He opened his presentation with one of the best one-liners I've ever heard. At the time I had no idea how much his quip would come to define much of my research in future years. Gary’s interest in the evolution of Northwest Coast households has made a significant contribution to our understanding of social inequality and resource intensification among complex hunter-gatherers. Many of these processes played out within immense communal houses constructed from timbers and planks. Historic illustrations by artists such as John Webber (1778) allow us to visualize how the interiors of these houses appeared to European settlers. A more objective understanding of what they “actually” looked like might enable archaeologists to better understand the elusive relationship between house-form and culture. Much of my work has focused on using digital technology to visualize dwellings that no longer exist. The resulting models have served as laboratories for exploring how architecture both constrains and enables the operation of households. In this presentation, I use examples from my work in the Canadian Arctic to illustrate these ideas, as well as pay tribute to Gary’s many scholarly contributions.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Andrew

  Martindale

  - University of British Columbia

As part of this session to honour the remarkable Dr. Gary Coupland’s illustrious career, we’ve been asked to relate amusing anecdotes while commenting on his considerable influence in archaeology. To advance this effort, I employ a robust taxonomic analysis of two key legacies of Dr. Coupland: humor and settlement patterns.  For the first, I create an inventory of Potentially Humorous Events of Gary (PHEGs) and, eschewing the laborious classificatory/hierarchical typologies favoured by comedians, deploy a paradigmatic taxonomic assessment based on the axes of surrealism and absurdity to test the hypothesis that Gary is a funny man. True to science, I attempt to disprove this, my null hypothesis being that he is in fact a sourpuss. Results tentatively suggest a failure, giving us some confidence that the colleague and friend we know and love is indeed warm and funny. I apply a surprisingly similar method, developed with a team of colleagues, to assess village typologies of the Tsimshian landscapes of the northern coast of British Columbia, a landscape where Dr. Coupland’s intellectual contribution is immense.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Colin

  Grier

  - Washington State University

This paper examines the role of landscape construction in shaping the long term history of peoples of the Salish Sea in coastal southwestern British Columbia, Canada. I argue that major construction investments evident at several long-standing village sites following 1000 BP reflect a period of broad buy-in to collective projects by diverse segments of Coast Salish society. These landscape-focused efforts contrast with prior constructions, particularly burial cairns and mounds, which derived from the pursuit of social differentiation by elite in the preceding Marpole period. The key conclusion is that the period between 1000 and 500 cal BP involved a renewed effort in landscape investment focused primarily on the construction of places and the remaking of communities, realizing forms of collective action not evident (or perhaps possible) in prior times.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Trevor

  Orchard

  - University of Toronto Mississauga

In the Fall of 2001 I left the familiar confines of life on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to begin a PhD under Dr. Gary Coupland’s supervision at the University of Toronto. Timing could not have been better, as Gary was set to begin a three-year SSHRC-funded field research project in Prince Rupert Harbour the following summer. As a result, less than a year after my move to Toronto, I found myself driving back across the country to my home province, in a van full of field gear, on the first of three consecutive summers spent doing archaeology on the Northwest Coast (NWC). This provided an opportunity both to work on classic NWC village sites with Gary in Prince Rupert, and to facilitate my own PhD field research in southern Haida Gwaii, in collaboration with other influential mentors from UVic and Parks Canada. In this paper, I reflect on some of the adventures that ensued and the friendships that developed. I also consider how these concurrent field projects on either side of Hecate Straight influenced my understanding of variability in NWC archaeological sites.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Katherine

  Patton

  - University of Toronto

While examining the relationship between people and the sea through archaeological remains has been at the centre of my research career since its beginning, shell-bearing sites became a particular focus of mine during my doctoral studies with Gary Coupland. Under Gary’s supervision in Prince Rupert Harbour, BC, part of the Ts’msyen homeland, I learned how to sample these sites, quantify their constituents, and think about them in terms of building and architecture; I also came to appreciate how stratigraphically variable and complex they can be. These days, I work more often in the Wabanaki homeland (Maine-Maritimes region) also on shell-bearing sites, or shell heaps. In this paper, I consider what it is that I learned from Gary and observe some key differences between west and east coast shell-bearing sites. I also reflect on why I can’t stop reading and writing about these amazing archaeological sites.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Trevor

  Orchard

  - University of Toronto Mississauga
• Andrew

  Martindale

  - University of British Columbia
• Bryn

  Letham

  - Coast Mountain College

This paper brings together collected shorter contributions or anecdotes on experiences, archaeological or otherwise, with Dr. Gary Coupland. Contributors to this collection of anecdotes include past students and colleagues.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Terence

  Clark

  - University of Saskatchewan
• Joshua

  Murphy

  - Simon Fraser University
• Angela

  Burant

  - University of Saskatchewan

Searching for the roots of and defining “cultural complexity” has been the raison d’être of Northwest Archaeology since the 1980s and after decades of debate and critique, are these still worthwhile pursuits? This paper looks at archaeological examples of how and when social and economic processes blend to create something archaeologists would recognize as complexity. Can agency and historical contingency be witnessed in the archaeological record? And can they add meaningfully to the debate?

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• David

  Bilton
• Bryn

  Letham

  - Coast Mountain College

After exploring the relationship between the organization of households and the emergence of pronounced social inequality through archaeology in Prince Rupert Harbour, Gary Coupland - clearly with a lot of strands in his head - moved south to the Sunshine Coast. Research there identified evidence for an early system of wealth-based inequality in the form of strands of hundreds of thousands of stone disc beads. Systems such as these developed and declined through time, and were contingent on both historical processes and long-term, deep-time engagements with the landscape, not simply the harnessing of abundant specific subsistence resources (i.e., salmon). This presentation explores these findings in the context of some heretofore forgotten strands of thinking: the lesser-known and less glamorous unpublished aspects of our graduate research on the Sunshine Coast - shovel tests, 1x1s, and painfully slow zodiac surveys - all of which were facilitated by our advisor, Gary Coupland.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Bryn

  Letham

  - Coast Mountain College

Despite a prolific and influential career, Gary Coupland is not particularly known for his contributions to landscape archaeology and archaeological survey. However, one summer 15 years ago when I was just about to start a Master’s program under his supervision, Gary entrusted me with a leaky boat and instructed me to survey the inlets of the Sunshine Coast. With that first encouragement I found myself pursuing investigations of how and why ancient Indigenous coastal inhabitants of BC settled where they did, along with how they invested in and modified their landscapes; reconstructing how coastlines have changed through time; and chasing the elusive evidence of “First Peopling” of the Northwest Coast. In this presentation I present results of several recent survey projects that elucidate elements of the long-term, deep-time engagements of Northwest Coast peoples with their landscapes. While doing so, I reflect on how – even though he is best known as ‘the Northwest Coast household archaeology dude’ – the wisdom and inspiration of Gary Coupland has shaped how we look at coastal landscapes.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Kenneth

  Holyoke

  - University of Lethbridge

After a long and storied career on the west coast, in his last few years before retirement, Gary agreed to try something new, and take on a PhD student working on the east coast. And despite his love of the Rolling Stones, likely did not appreciate the scale of interest that would be required in actual stones to see this final project through. So it was that beginning in 2017, Gary was involved in a project—and fieldwork—exploring the importance of lithic quarries to Ancestral Wabanaki, and to understanding patterning in settlement, mobility, and technological change. The results of the Carboniferous Chert Geoarchaeological Survey have served to complicate the understanding of bedrock sources for particular lithic materials, while at the same time reinforcing the flexible nature of Ancestral Wabanaki lithic procurement and technological strategies. In this paper, I will present various scales of analysis in the understanding of lithic procurement and technological patterning from the regional to the local, landing where Gary is most comfortable, the household. I argue these patterns point to shifting social landscapes among Ancestral Wabanaki during the Maritime Woodland period, while at the same time demonstrating continuities in place and use of space.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Andrew

  Martindale

  - University of British Columbia
• Bryn

  Letham

  - Coast Mountain College
• Trevor

  Orchard

  - University of Toronto Mississauga

This paper brings together collected shorter contributions or anecdotes on experiences, archaeological or otherwise, with Dr. Gary Coupland. Contributors to this collection of anecdotes include past students and colleagues.

Format: In-Person
Author(s):

• Bryn

  Letham

  - Coast Mountain College
• Trevor

  Orchard

  - University of Toronto Mississauga
• Andrew

  Martindale

  - University of British Columbia

Final discussion and wrap-up for the session "The Dude Abides: Reflections on Professor Gary Coupland’s Career and Influence in Canadian Archaeology".