Grant Keddie - Grant Keddie

Random Thoughts on the Concept of Humans and Place

Oct 19, 1999. By Grant Keddie Places are like magnetic beacons on the runway of life. Humans are a product of the symbiotic interaction between mental and biological structures. Humans have developed a network continuum of symbolic features which some call “history”. History in this sense is like an umbilical cord to the world around us. Places provide attachments for the cord. Animals perceive place from the perspective of maintaining their species or individual existence. This involves: (1) a sense of security from injury (physical and psychological); (2) getting food; (3) reproducing (passing on genetic or other information believed to be of value to genetic survival). [One or a combination of the above may supersede the others at any given … Continue reading “Random Thoughts on the Concept of Humans and Place”

On Creating Unhumans

By Grant Keddie This article was presented at the Anthropology of the Unknown conference held at the University of British Columbia in 1978. It was published in: The Sasquatch and other Unknown Hominoids. Edited by Vladimir Markotic and Grover Krantz. Western Publishers, Calgary 1984. The other book published as a result of the 1978 Conference is: Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence. Edited by Margorie M. Halpin, University of British Columbia Press. 1980. By Grant R. Keddie On Creating Unhumans The aim of this paper is to indicate 1) that there are at least two different classes of “humanoid monsters’’ recognized in Indian traditions on the northern and central Northwest Coast; 2) that in some Northwest Coast … Continue reading “On Creating Unhumans”

Marmot Bones

The Archaeology and History of Macaulay Point.

By Grant Keddie. Inspired by the Landscape As Donald Macaulay with his Tsimshian wife Margaret and the first four of their six daughters Mary, Flora, Catherine and Sarah, gazed out at the beautiful ocean view and the fields draped with blue camas, he must have been reminded of his native home on the Scottish Isle of Lewis. It was 1850, and Macaulay was bailiff of the new 600-acre Viewfield Farm owned by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. Macaulay could hardly have known that this landscape would one day be named after him. Or that it would become a popular military camp in the late 1890’s, where Victoria’s citizens flocked to witness regimental demonstrations. Macaulay Point was first named Sailor Point … Continue reading “The Archaeology and History of Macaulay Point.”

Wooden Self-Armed Fishhooks from the Salish Sea.

Chapter in Waterlogged: Examples and Procedures for Northwest Coast Archaeologists. Washington State University Press, Pullman, Washington, 2019. Edted by Kathryn N. Bernick. By Grant Keddie Wet sites contain many artifact types that link the archaeological and ethnographic records. Occasionally they also produce objects that do not match the known record. Here, I expand upon our knowledge of one unusual type, the self-armed wooden fishhook, and examine Croes’ (2003:52—55) hypothesis that the technology survived into postcontact times on the northern Northwest Coast but not in the south. This hypothesis assumes that self-armed wooden fishhooks were used for catching cod in both regions. However, ethnographic and ethnohistoric evidence for the northern coast indicates that self-armed wood hooks were used to catch sablefish rather than … Continue reading “Wooden Self-Armed Fishhooks from the Salish Sea.”

Wool Dogs of B.C.

Originally published in The Midden. Publication of the Archaeological Society of British Columbia, 25 (1), 3-5, February 1993. By Grant Keddie Prehistoric Dogs of B.C. Wolves in Sheeps’ Clothing? Throughout the history of North American we see many varieties of native dogs. In British Colombia we find the Bear Dog of the Northern Interior and parts of the northern Coast used for hunting and packing, and a coyote-resembling dog of the southern Interior and Coast used mostly for hunting. On the southern Coast we also find what has become known as the Salish Wool Dog, kept mainly for the production of wool from its thick soft inner coat. With the use of their hair to make of blankets and capes … Continue reading “Wool Dogs of B.C.”

A Modern Stone Figure on a Lekwungen Landscape

By Grant Keddie 2021. By Grant Keddie In the summer of 2020, I recovered a large 240 lb stone figure with a team of four others from the waters near Finlayson Point on the southern shores of Victoria (see Appendix 1). At the time I looked at the cultural context and physical evidence and determined that I would treat the cultural landscape and oral history as the more favourable evidence that the stone figure was likely to be an old Indigenous ritual figure. It turned out that I initially erred on suggesting that the stone figure was an old one when a modern-day stone carver told the media that he carved the stone. Here I provide a summary of how … Continue reading “A Modern Stone Figure on a Lekwungen Landscape”

Genetics and Neanderthal

By Grant Keddie Genetics, diseases, modern humans and our close relatives. Our Developing Nervous system One of the keys to understanding modern diseases is through their genetic evolution and how that can contribute to where we focus research to eliminate them. One of the latest fascinating discoveries may be relevant to the study of modern common neurological diseases such as parkinson’s, dementia, seizures, strokes and migraine headaches. There is a new field of study that involves a combination of stem cell biology, neuroscience and paleogenomics. This involves the ability to apply the comparative approach of modern human genetics to our closest extinct relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, using brain organoids. A brain organoid is an artificially grown miniature organ resembling … Continue reading “Genetics and Neanderthal”

The Victoria Legislative Building Properties and Indigenous Peoples

By Grant Keddie The properties on which our legislative buildings are now located in Victoria Harbour are within the traditional territory of the Lekwungen First Nations, today represented by the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. There is clear evidence in the form of written documents and maps that James Douglas intended this property to become an Indigenous Reserve as part of the treaty settlements of 1850. (See Appendix 1: The Paper Reserve.) The legislative property is shown on this 1862 map to the left of lot VI belonging to James Douglas. It is located at the southern foot of the James Bay Bridge. (BC Archives 11520A. Part of Beckley Farm No.4.) The Lekwungen people were rightfully compensated, in November of 2006, … Continue reading “The Victoria Legislative Building Properties and Indigenous Peoples”

The 1843 Observations of the Lekwungen People by Jean Baptiste Zacharie Bolduc.

During the first visits of Hudson’s Bay Company officials to Victoria Harbour—William McNeil in 1837 and McNeil with John Work and John McLoughlin in 1839—there was no information recorded about the Indigenous Lekwungen peoples of the area. (Keddie 2003) The first information was recorded in 1842 during the visit of the company’s James Douglas to settle on the location of the future Fort Camosun—later Fort Victoria. It was during Douglas’s second visit in 1843 that he brought along the Québécois Jesuit Jean Baptiste Zacharie Bolduc, a missionary who was part of the Quebec Mission to the Pacific Northwest (fig. 1). The accounts of the Bolduc provide some of the most important observations of the Indigenous peoples in the Victoria region, more so than … Continue reading “The 1843 Observations of the Lekwungen People by Jean Baptiste Zacharie Bolduc.”