This week Time Travelers Gary Spikberg, Brooke Batterson, and Sarah Scarlett presented their work at a conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba hosted by the Three Centuries of Francophone Migration in North America (1640-1940) project (Which the Keweenaw Time Traveler is a partner). 

Gary presented his work entitled The French-Canadian Migration Experience in the Keweenaw.  His work mapped the outmigration of French-Canadians from the Keweenaw as the region deindustrialized from 1910-1940.  The map below shows where the majority of French-Canadians migrated to, largely the industrial cities of the Great Lakes Region.

Sarah and Brooke presented their work entitled "Materializing Social Mobility in the Houses of Francophone Migrants in Michigan's Copper Country".  In their work they highlight how to use homes as a way of understanding how socially mobile (ie- better off) Francophone's were when they arrived in the Keweenaw versus where they came from.  Brooke discussed her oral history project where she has been conducting interviews with French-Canadian descendants with the help of the Chassell Heritage Organization to understand how the French language has disappeared in local families over time.

​This week, Don Lafreniere (Project Director) traveled to Ghent, Belgium to present at the Spatial Humanities Conference. He was able to introduce the Keweenaw Time Traveler to many European researchers, including the contributions of citizen historians and how it can be used both for storytelling and research in the humanities and social sciences.

​This was also a time to look forward to what’s coming next! We’re continuing to work with local schools to bring local history to life, both by creating curriculum for teachers to use and by putting on a Summer Youth Program (SYP) this summer focused around Time Traveler stories! Finally, in the upcoming months we plan to launch a mobile version of the Explore App and begin a webinar series for other communities to learn about (and replicate) our process!

From August 28th through September 3rd the Keweenaw Time Traveler team and members of Michigan Technological University's Social Sciences Department attended The International Committee for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage Conference in Montreal.  Presentations included: Big-data geospatial heritage infrastructures and industrial heritage by Dr. Dan Trepal, Dr. Don Lafreniere, Dr. Sarah F. Scarlett, and Dr. Timothy Scarlett; Company suburbs: how pastoral ideas and real estate investment extended corporate hierarchies into neighborhoods that continue to define North American Cities by Dr. Sarah F. Scarlett; and Scalar sustainability in UNESCO's industrial heritage: community geographies of the slate landscapes of Northwest Wales by Dr. Mark Allan Rhodes, Brooke Batterson, Dr. Kathryn Hannum, James Juip, Larissa Juip, Zoe Ketola, Timothy Maze, and Wandipa Mualefhe.