From municipal and federal government to universities, from religious congregations to community organizations, archivists work in a variety of settings. This year, the ACA blog, In the Field, is setting out to talk to archivists across Canada about the unique joys and challenges of their work environments. We will feature a different type of archives each month, with the objective of showcasing the rich spectrum of archival work.

This month we are featuring government and provincial archives. In today’s post, the In the Field blog chats with Ariane Gauthier, Reference Archivist at Library and Archives Canada.  

Q: Can you briefly tell us about your academic and professional path?

Ariane: I signed up for a master’s program in history with the University of Ottawa in 2019 and simultaneously began working as a hostess for the Canadian History Museum and the Canadian War Museum. I had the opportunity to present my major research paper on Canadian nurses during the First World War at the Wilfrid Laurier Military History Colloquium. During the pandemic, I began work with the City of Ottawa on a municipal commemoration policy project that was recently adopted by the city council and permitted to enter its implementation phase. I also had the opportunity to work with the Juno Beach Centre in France for about 6 months during which time I served as a historical interpreter of Canadian military history.

Q: What brought you to the field of archival studies and practice? 

Ariane: Down the line, my academic and professional paths repeatedly led me to Library and Archives Canada. With my main field of interest relating to the First and Second World Wars, I found myself consulting archival documents. While other smaller archival and heritage institutions had relevant material as part of their collection, the bulk of it was located at Library and Archives Canada. 

Q: What does an average day look like in government archives? 

Ariane: The average day is more exciting than it might seem at first glance, though this is entirely conditional on how interested you might be in research. As someone who is invigorated by this work, my days are comprised of exciting rabbit holes seeking questions to answers I might never have thought to have on my own. I scour our vast collection for information that might support researchers who come to our institution, and on select days I have the opportunity to flip through hundred-year-old documents that may be of use to them. 

[Kapuskasing internment camp photograph] Original Title: Detention Camps, Guards and Prisoners 

Reference: Library and Archives Canada, e011196906 

Q: What is your favourite thing about working at Library and Archives Canada? What are some of the challenges that are unique to federal archives? 

Ariane: As a historian by trade, my favourite thing is the opportunity to directly interact with historical documents. It’s one thing to read about or to see in documentaries or historical dramas an event that was pivotal; it’s another entirely to touch and see with your own eyes the correspondence, photos, or whatever else that recorded the moment as it happened. Unfortunately, these documents are not as easy to find as one may think and so the opportunity of working with history comes with the caveat of first having to locate a particular record. Additionally, the sorting system used by one institution is not necessarily the same as the one used by another, nor are the naming conventions of records. 

Q: What do you wish the public understood better about federal archives? What do you wish other archivists understood about federal archives?  

Ariane: An important thing for the public to keep in mind is how recent, all things considered, archival ethics actually are. A standardization of best practices in the maintenance of archival documents can be traced back to the last 20 or 30 years. However, the documents most people are interested in are much older. This inevitably means that they existed, for a time, in a sort of Wild West period that impacted not only the way they were catalogued, but also whether they were ever deemed worth preserving. More records than we would like to imagine were thrown away under the erroneous assumption that no one would ever find them useful. As an unfortunate result, not all of our questions will be given satisfactory or direct answers. 

Q: Can you tell us about a project you’ve been working on lately? 

Ariane: I have had the pleasure of working on a research guide that will help to shed light on the internment camps (for prisoners of war and civilians) that existed in Canada during the periods of the First and Second World Wars. Few people are aware that this ever happened in Canada and fewer still have any idea where to begin such research. The guide will serve as a starting point for what Library and Archives Canada has as part of its collection and will be available on our website soon. 

[Fort Henry being used as an internment camp]

Reference: Library and Archives Canada/PA-046178