Aboriginal Day at Musqueam

As you might know, last sunday, June 21st, was National Aboriginal day, and we celebrated at Musqueam this year. Pretty much the whole team came down and helped out with the RRN booth. Some of our community liaisons working with Musqueam, June and Terry, set up the booth and I have to say it looked pretty great.

It was so much fun being down there - we had a couple laptops set up so people could preview the site and see pictures, which worked out great.

I was at Musqueam's Aboriginal Day celebration last year, and all we had then was two people, one laptop and some printed information sheets. I've said it before, but we are definitely coming a long way!

Aside from the wonderful RRN station, the entire day was a lot of fun. There was an abundance of barbecued salmon, burgers, hot dogs, and even fresh crab. Talk about treating your guests right. There were plenty of performances as well, including the surprising and fantastic show from the Vancouver Police Lion Dancers.

I also had to resist the urge to jump on the huge bouncy castle all day.

I love going down to Musqueam with the RRN because I almost always meet people who have a personal connection to the objects in the database. I've met lots of artists whose artwork is displayed in the Museum of Anthropology, and it's a great experience showing them the RRN.

All in all, it was a great day, there was a great turnout of people and I hope to go back again next year!

-Hannah

RRN Meeting Retreat 2009 : Chilliwack

Well, I think I can speak for almost everyone when I say that I am absolutely exhausted. And yes, this blog entry is a little late because of that. But this past Monday and Tuesday the entire RRN team (now upwards of 20 people) made our way out to Chilliwack to have a yearly meeting. Dave Schaepe, one of our steering group members for Stó:lō Nation and Tribal Council, hosted our visit with lots of food and fun - and an occasional walk through some prickle bushes.

The meeting kicked off on Monday morning with a fabulous Place Names Tour from Sonny McHalsie. He took the whole busload of us up the Fraser River Canyon, from Chilliwack to Hope to Yale. Now, I drive up past Chilliwack a lot. I drive up the Fraser River a lot - I love going to the interior to swim in lakes, and Hick's lake near Harrison happens to be my favorite summer time swimming hole. And I always admire the landscape when I drive up there. But I have never been so enlightened and awe struck as I was on that tour.I think everyone would agree – but it gave me a whole world of stories, knowledge, history and a new fascination with the landscape.

Sonny has such a wealth of knowledge, and the experience was unforgettable. My favorite part, and I think the highlight, was the last stop of the trip in Yale.

We sat atop a hill on the side of a huge cliff face, overlooking the Fraser River and listened to more stories of transformation, fishing, and of course, the coastal raiders. It was the best way I could think of to start of a meeting about the RRN.

After the day in the bus we made our way to a lovely campsite for a great salmon dinner from Big Al's Catering. Dinner was followed by a performance by a group of young dancers organized by one of our liaisons, Darwin Douglas. After the dancing, we played a game of Slahal. I am not good at this game. I think I guessed right once, but it was still a blast.

The next day we all had one big meeting, reviewing different summer plans and getting all the community liaisons together. During our meeting we got into a conversation about the importance of explaining why the RRN was different that other search engines and museum databases out there.

Someone pointed out that this conversation was irrelevant - because of course there is nothing like the RRN. Communities just don't have access to collections in a meaningful way, and they want that. We all know this, but sometimes we forget under a fog of work, conferences and meetings. I think we all took a step back and again realized the importance of what we're trying to do.

When I walked in to my job interview over a year ago - I met with Ulrike Radermacher and Sue Rowley - then to become my future bosses. They introduced me to the project, asked questions about my interests etcetera. Then, I was taken into a tiny archaeology library at UBC and introduced to the two software developers I would be working with over the next summer. Then there were 5, including myself.

Now, fast forward a year. This week I found myself in a boardroom at Stó:lō Nation in Chilliwack sitting around the table with over 22 people working for or with the RRN. I couldn't believe it - here we are closing in on the launch date and we've pretty much assembled a task force of people to do so. It's absolutely crazy and absolutely wonderful. Visiting Stó:lō was amazing, I not only gained a better understanding of Stó:lō people and their history, but of the peerless contributions the RRN can make to communities and museums in the future.

For now – Dinner time. Stay tuned for more updates all this week though – there’s been a lot going on!

-Hannah

RRN Images Working Again

The RRN images should now be working again. We encountered some issues while we were transitioning to a new system which should load pages with many images significantly faster, but they have all been resolved. We apologize for the delay in fixing the problem but one of the members of the development team was on vacation at the time the issue arose. Again, thanks for letting us know and for using the RRN.

Ryan Wallace

RRN Developer

RRN Images not Working

Due to unforeseen events and a problem with the back end of the RRN- all images of objects are currently unavailable. You may be able to see see some images, but it appears that it is getting worse.

We are aware that this is an issue, and we are working on it!

So, never fear, our faithful software developers are on the job. But we realize that this is a huge inconvenience, so for that we are profoundly sorry.

This problem should be cleared up within the next week - a good estimate is by next Wednesday or Thursday. Again, we're sorry. But we're glad you let us know!


Thanks,

The RRN Team as represented by Hannah

Alert Bay, Chilliwack, and community collaboration.

I'm back!

As you may have noticed, the blogging has slowed down for the past little while. But don't worry! I'm back with a couple of great stories and lots of news to share. So get comfy, sit back, relax and keep reading.

Last Sunday night I got my bag packed and hopped on a plane of 15 seats for the wonderful land of Port Hardy. From there, to Port McNeil, and then an hour later I arrived by ferry in Alert Bay, BC. Back at the office, we had decided that we felt pretty disconnected from our community liaisons working in the three co-developing communities of Alert Bay, Chilliwack, and even Musqueam here in Vancouver. After a brief discussion last Friday, we decided to make strides in bringing together the liaisons and our home base - which amounted to my arrival in Alert Bay, 10:00pm last Sunday night. I was sent to give training on the site, answer questions and to meet face-to-face with everyone working for the RRN in Alert Bay. There are only a lucky few who get to go to a place like Alert Bay for work - and I am happy to brag!


Bright and early Monday morning, I met with our liaisons - Lawrence Isaac, David Houghton and Lillian Hunt in the back office of the U'mista Cultural Centre. U'mista, for those of you who may not know, is an amazing place. The cultural centre and the society have an extremely interesting background rooted in ideals of repatriation and language/culture revitalization. It is a museum and learning centre that has an amazing collection. It also sits right on the beach of Alert Bay with a spectacular view! But then again, what isn't on the beach in Alert Bay? I love the collection as a whole, but the highlight for me is the potlatch collection. My point being - it's a great place to go to work to in the morning and I was lucky to be there.

Me sitting outside U'mista - one of the last surviving photos from the trip!

All morning the four of us worked through the RRN, talking about it's history and development and the project's current situation. We also spoke a lot about how to provide outreach for the community. And then, at perhaps the most exciting part of the day (when I was working through a demo of the features on the site) the power went out. The power did not come back on. And of course, no power means zero Internet. Which means that the insightful demonstration I was in the middle of was, most definitely, not going to work. Minor technical difficulties.

However, it gave me some time to think. What was I going to do? Without the Internet the RRN doesn't exactly work. How could I help out Lillian, Lawrence and David without it? And, of course, how was I going to check my email! But, by midnight that night (when the power went back on), I already had plenty of ideas and inspiration. The next day, back at U'mista, we all realized that when our liaisons are travelling to remote places, or even doing a demonstration at the local school, there likely won't be an Internet connection. How can we demonstrate the RRN the way we need to without that?

The solution was pretty simple. We do it with PowerPoint and screenshots. I'm sure many people have already figured that one out, but it took me a little while to realize it. Now, up in Alert Bay our liaisons can properly demonstrate the RRN and get across all of it's features and collaborative values without an Internet connection. Still, to actually browse the RRN, an Internet connection is necessary, but hopefully now we can get the word out about this type of research.

Working in Alert Bay was a great experience, I thought it was absolutely necessary to visit our liaisons there if we are to work hard to engage in collaboration at all levels. And it was nice to get away to Alert Bay, of course. I'm fairly certain I made good friends with the Heron that sat on the deck of my hotel. Aside from the power outages, no Internet, and no camera (I dropped it in the pacific. All my pictures are of course ruined), it was a great trip.

On Wednesday, when I got back from Alert Bay, I headed straight up to Chilliwack for a meeting with our Sto:lo community liaisons. Herb Joe Jr, Darwin Douglas and Frank Andrew all had time to talk, so it was great meeting all of them. Hopefully sometime soon I'll put up short bios of all our liaisons. Now I'm back in the office - catching up on emails, and working on the help pages.

My phone takes fuzzy pictures. I'm sorry!
Left to Right: Lawrence, Dave and I at U'mista

In other news, we have a new community liaison for Musqueam, June Sparrow! A big welcome from the team.

The next big trip on the list for everyone here is the big Steering Group meeting, held in Chilliwack this year. The best part - an all day Place Names tour. I can't wait. This meeting will also be a great opportunity to get all of the liaisons together for the first time.

I'll be updating later this week!

Cheers,
-Hannah