Classroom in a Cemetery

This guest post is from ANTH395: Heritage and Historical Archaeology, where students are getting hands-on experience documenting and mapping the Jewish cemetery associated with Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-el. Congregation Emanu-el is the oldest surviving synagogue in Canada; the associated cemetery was dedicated in 1860 and remains in use today.

Read the class blog to learn more about the project.

My reflections two weeks into fieldwork

Guest post by by Vanessa Tallarico

The class hard at work doing a variety of recording tasks (Photo by Vanessa Tallarico, 2016)

Today marked the end of our second week doing fieldwork as a class in this beautiful cemetery. I can’t believe how quickly time is flying!

So far, this has been one of the most interesting and hands-on courses I have ever taken in my three years at UVic. It is both sad and a little stressful to think that we only have a few official days left in the cemetery.

I remember contacting Dr. McGuire a mere few weeks ago, asking her if I would be ready to take this course having not completed the suggested prerequisite. She assured me that as long as I didn’t mind hard work, I would be fine. Two weeks in, I’ll tell you that she was definitely right about the hard work!

With so much recording to get done, and so many small field tasks to learn throughout the journey, I can’t help but feel a rush of excitement mixed with anxiety as the last week approaches. There seems to be so much to get done in such a short period of time. That being said, our group of determined students, staff, guest speakers, and volunteers have been working relentlessly to complete the goals of this field course.

A drizzled on field manual (left) and a recording sheet that was soaked in the rain (right) (Photos by Vanessa Tallarico, 2016)

A few of us began the day today with some early morning recording while waiting for our fellow classmates to arrive. The weather has been kind to us over the past three field days, but today the sky was threatening us (and the state of our precious note pages) with approaching rain clouds.

Usually the hours spent in the field go by so fast, but today definitely felt like the full five hours. We were lucky enough to only get a few mild showers of rain, but the suspension and possibility of having our notes ruined in the rain kept everyone on their toes throughout the day.

Today’s focus was to continue recording as much monument data as possible while simultaneously learning new field skills such as GPS and monument cleaning.

Jeremy (our TA) taught groups how to operate the GPS and obtain northing and easting monument positions, while Angela from the Old Cemeteries Society taught others how to properly and gently clean the monuments. Angela taught us that biodegradable livestock soap, toothbrushes, chopsticks, and small circular scrubbing motions are our best friends while cleaning a monument and leaving behind no further damage.

A monument freshly cleaned by my group (Photo by Vanessa Tallarico, 2016)

Our whole class seems much more confident going about the fieldwork now than when we started. I glanced up from whatever I was busy doing a few times throughout the day and remember thinking about the diversity of tasks being done throughout the cemetery.

While I observed my classmates, everybody seemed to know exactly what they had to do in that moment in time to contribute to our goal of expanding the cemetery records. We have definitely progressed from the group of unsure and inexperienced students we were at the start of the field course.

I wish the university offered more hands-on courses like this. I think as a class we can all agree that we have grown and gained more confidence in these two weeks than we have in the beginning of any classroom based lecture. I look forward to the remainder of the time we will spend working in the cemetery.

Time is going by so quickly, and amongst the hustle and bustle of monument measuring, recording, and note taking, it is nice to stop, breathe, and reflect on the good we are doing for ourselves as students, and for the Jewish community in Victoria.

Erik recording an inscription (left) while Taylor sets out the tape measure (right) (Photos by Vanessa Tallarico, 2016)

Michaela taking a wide shot photo of a monument (left) while Cole takes a close up (right)