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 Indigenous archives. In today’s post, the In the Field blog chats with Karen Ng, former Archivist & Librarian for the Squamish Nation.

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

Karen: I double majored in English and Medieval Studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and I was particularly interested in histories of the book. I worked a few student jobs at various units at UBC Library, and I was encouraged to apply for the dual Master of Library and Information Studies and Master of Archival Studies at the UBC iSchool. I pursued the First Nations Curriculum Concentration, and throughout my graduate studies I tried to take advantage of as many experiential learning and professional opportunities as possible. I think that was really helpful to me, but it was still really challenging graduating in spring 2020 into the pandemic. I’m grateful for the Young Canada Works program because it allowed me to move to Victoria again where I did my co-op during school, and then eventually I was able to come home to the Lower Mainland when the job with the Squamish Nation opened up.

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

Karen: Anxiety about what to do with a Bachelor of Arts.  

I like being organized, researching, and thinking about how things can be categorized and grouped together—and of course I like books and paper. To be honest, I didn’t really know very much about archival studies at all until graduate school. I was partially aware of what archives were when I took a class about medieval record-keeping and when I worked as a student at UBC Rare Books and Special Collections during my undergrad.

Q: What does an average day look like working with Indigenous archives? 

Karen: I was the first full-time Archivist for the Squamish Nation. Every day was different. I spent my first season moving boxes and getting to know the community, and then the next season trying to establish procedures and infrastructure for a functioning archives that worked best for the Nation. There was a summer that I spent writing multiple grants that had nothing to do with archives directly. Some days I would be at community events or out on the water or land if there was a spot for me. Other days I would find office rooms, shipping containers, or dilapidated sheds full of records that I had to figure out how to take care of. There were days when I was invited into community members’ homes to talk about the work they had done for their Nation and how they wanted their records preserved. 

Q: What is your favourite thing about working with Indigenous archives? What are some of the challenges that are unique to Indigenous archives? 

Karen: The people are really special to me. I’ve never experienced such belly-rumbling laughter at work. 

Unfortunately, colonial trauma was the most challenging aspect of the work, and it wasn’t surprising, but it was still difficult. 

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

Karen: Relationships take time. 

Q: Can you tell us about a project that you worked on? 

Karen: I’m proud of the CollectiveAccess database I implemented with the Cultural Collections Manager. I still think it’s a work in progress, but I think it was good enough for where we left off in terms of proceeding to use it to figure out how else it could be improved. I’m excited for more records to be processed and organized into the database. 

I’m also proud of the grant the linguist and I worked on for the Language Nest. The Squamish Nation’s Archives is part of the Language and Cultural Affairs Department, which also has a Squamish language immersion program for babies and their caregivers. Somehow I ended up on this project to apply for a grant that would continue to fund the Nest and the teachers. It was an incredible amount of work to understand the functions of the Nest and to translate it into a way that would convince the grant funders that we needed this. Even though it meant I took a big pause on my regular work with the archives, I think it’s still related in many ways to memory-making and memory-keeping.