IN DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION
"It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up only to be shattered again, and that new worlds were built from the fragments."
- Franz Boas, 1898
What is Anthropology, and how can it remain vital and relevant?
An archaeologist for her Tsleil-Waututh Nation in Vancouver, BC, Karen Rose Thomas aims to start and finish her Anthropology PhD. but has doubts. Some past theorists warned scholars of "going native" and losing scientific perspective while doing fieldwork. Karen sees a future where indigenous peoples will curate their own cultural histories and instead wonders "Will I go Anthropologist?"
This one-hour educational documentary will follow her journey to understand her chosen field by retracing one of North American anthropology’s very own “origin myths,” in the very footsteps of the father of American anthropology, Franz Boas.
The Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) was billed as "the greatest thing undertaken by any museum" and still said to rank "as the foremost expedition in the history of American anthropology." Yet it's academic star, Franz Boas, was really remaking anthropology on the fly with a diverse supporting cast. Boas, working for the American Museum of Natural History, used the expedition as the first time he could steer all his new ideas for the field simultaneously into action, from Siberia across the Bering Sea and down British Columbia to Washington State. Every vital issue to confront Anthropology in the coming century would be involved in its trailblazing tale.
The massive (and fascinating) material and ethnological collection gathered during the Jesup Expedition was an unsurpassed resource but seemed to open more questions than it answered. Was the Jesup Expedition the precedent, the seed of transformation of the field into a humane science that Boas so desired, or simply another educational/commercial venture without "dazzling results?" Can it, as Boas himself wondered, stand the criticism of later times?
Today, Karen sees racism, nationalism and colonialism not as absent as many would have hoped. So, by clarifying the exemplary as well as the dubious theories and practices employed by Boas and his team, she will gauge the roots of the discipline and how they have grown.
Can new worlds be built from the best fragments of the old? In the first of many publications of his Jesup Expedition results, in 1898, Boas stated on behalf of Anthropology: "Our aim has not changed, but our method must change."
It's 2024, and Karen Rose Thomas could not agree more.
Method
“Our Method Must Change”: Retracing the Jesup Expedition will appeal to specialists and academics in the Anthropology, Indigenous Studies and History disciplines. Revealing of the tenets of Anthropology through the expedition’s eventful narrative, it will target university Anthropology students, but also appeal through festivals to a general public intrigued by North American history and Northwest Coast Indigenous culture and art.
Across the wild Pacific Northwest and all the way to the expedition's heart in New York City, Karen Rose Thomas will meet with First Nations representatives and anthropologist historians alike to trace the paths of Franz Boas and his committed Jesup team.
Near her Vancouver home she will visit the Musqueam Ancestral Village site, c̓əsnaʔəm (known to archaeologists variously as the Eburne Midden, Great Fraser Midden, and Marpole Midden), that was first excavated both openly and in stealth. She will address how culturally-fluent fieldwork by locals such as James Teit improved Boas’ anthropological interpretation. In Haida Gwaii she will re-listen to origin myths told by Haida poets Skaay and Ghandl to translator John Swanton and see the art and totems as impressive today as when Boas was transfixed by them in the nineteenth century. On Vancouver Island, she will visit the sea-faring Kwakwaka'wakw at Alert Bay, home of his most indispensable collaborator George Hunt. In New York City she will plumb the depths of the American Museum of Natural History to shed light on its overwhelming collection of materials from the Jesup Expedition.
Scholars interviewed will feature anthropologists Regna Darnell, Peter Whiteley, Wendy Wickwire, Judith Berman and curator/artist Haa’yuups (Ron Hamilton).
The locales featured remain magnificent, but the stunning archival photographs from the expedition itself, held by the AMNH, as well as archival film footage from the era shot by Boas, Edward Curtis, Marius Barbeau and the Hudson's Bay Company, are equally fascinating.
Our Team
Writer/Producer and host Karen Rose Thomas: A proud Indigenous mother to three young children, Karen is a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, but she has family ties throughout the Coast Salish Continuum, including to Squamish and Semiahmoo First Nations.
After her undergraduate degree in archaeology at Simon Fraser University, she completed her Masters of Arts in anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Karen's MA research involved the geochemical analysis of a previously misidentified toolstone utilized by her ancestors.
She currently works as an archaeologist in Cultural Resource Management and is completing her Ph.D at UBC in Vancouver. Ultimately, she views archaeology as a tool to learn about her Coast Salish ancestors in all of the ways, and she believes that all First Nations should be involved in the respectful management of their cultural heritage.
Producer/Director Robert McTavish has to date made four documentaries with an educational focus: Ghosts on the Land, Fiddler’s Map, What to make of it all? The life and poetry of John Newlove, and The Line has Shattered: Vancouver's Landmark 1963 Poetry Conference. He lives on Salt Spring Island, BC.
Director of Photography Peter Campbell has been a film & television producer and cinematographer for over 25 years. With his partners, he operates Gumboot Productions in Victoria, BC. Mr. Campbell has won many awards and citations and has produced films for CBC, CTV, GLOBAL, VISION, BRAVO, Knowledge Network, The Royal BC Museum and The National Film Board.
Archival materials in the trailer courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, American Philosophical Society, Hudson's Bay Company Archives and Eliot Galán / Galán Films (for Tsleil-Waututh Nation Sacred Trust). Music: Gabriel George Sr. (Coast Salish Anthem) & Sharon Bailey (In Every Star).
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