dark tourism and great excursions case study

8/12/2019 Dark Tourism and Great Excursions Case Study

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The Dark Tourism Forum A Practitioners Perspective

Case Study Two:

Dark Tourism and Great Excursions: An Initial Insight

I would identify myself as a dark tourism practitioner in Canada, although it is not an

exclusive field of endeavour for me. Throughout most of my professional life thus far, I

have been a journalist/producer employed at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

(CBC), bringing to the attention of other Canadians stories from the fields of science,

agriculture, heritage and current affairs in general. Though I am now employed through

Great Excursions, I am still involved with CBCs French and English language networks

as a freelance heritage columnist.

I am based in Saskatchewan. This central province of Canada is not generally perceived

as having much clout nationally, especially on the tourism scene. Saskatchewan has a

population hovering around 1,000,000 souls. Rural communities, here as elsewhere in the

world, are facing major sustainability challenges. Yet visitors are always charmed by the

experiences our province offers. From small town rodeos and guest ranch stays, to

wilderness canoe trips in the boreal forest of the Canadian Shield.

Overseas operators do not consider this a mature destination. In the provincial capital,

Regina, all our museums are still free. Therefore tour operators cannot sell them. The

most popular tourism attraction is the casino, developed in the old 1912 Canadian Pacific

Railway Union Station, and frequented mostly by Saskatchewan residents.

In Canada, long-haul tour operators tend to focus on the British Columbia/Alberta or the

Ontario/Qubec/Maritime provinces corridors. Manitoba is known mostly for Churchills

polar bear watching experiences, which are hardly typical of the provinces offerings. In

Saskatchewan, the tourism industry is a work in progress, which means we have the

opportunity to do things right.



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Saskatchewan was established in 1905it is a very young province. It was initially part

of the Northwest Territories and part of Ruperts Land before that. From the middle to the

late 19thcentury, dramatic events unfolded that would change forever life in the Great

Plains.

The decimation of the bison populations, through uncontrolled culling, brought starvation

and poverty to First Nations that had been relying on the bison economy for as long as

10,000 years. This forced aboriginal people to agree to sign treaties, starting in 1870s in

Saskatchewan, that would turn traditionally nomadic societies into sedentary plains

inhabitants, confined to reservations.

Industrial interests in Eastern Canada were looking for economic expansion

opportunities. Ten years later, in 1883, they built a railway across our land and enticed

settlers to come and prosper in this new land of opportunity.

In the Great Plains region, dark tourism sitestraditionally involve aboriginal peoples

and tragic events such as the Cypress Hills massacre of 1873, which led to the creation ofthe North West Mounted Police. The events surrounding the 1885 Riel Rebellion of the

Metis people (descendants from the union of fur traders and aboriginal people) generated

new sites of commemoration through battlefields at Batoche, Fish Creek and Frog Lake,

to name a few. Some of these sites are now National Historic Sites. In many cases, the

stewards of these sites are making remarkable interpretive contributions to bring out

untold perspectives about the significance of past events.

Stories of cultural genocide are still fresh in the collective memory of Saskatchewan

residents as well. We are reminded almost daily of the forced assimilation of thousands of

aboriginal children through government-sponsored residential schools, because victims of

countless abuses are still seeking compensation to help alleviate the wrongs of the past.



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I believe that these stories of drama, hardship, and remarkable bravery will contribute to

the development a more compelling tourism image for our part of the world in the future.

However, the issue of cultural appropriation must be addressed. Fortunately, there is an

increasing awareness of the risks of cultural appropriation and interpretive legitimacy

among tourism stakeholders.

There is not a field ploughed in Saskatchewan that has not yielded a projectile point, a

teepee ring, a stone circle or alignment of some kind. The agricultural producers who are

now the stewards of the land have historically played an important role in the

development of avocational archaeology here, and our heritage legislation recognizes

their contribution.

This phenomenon is likely experienced elsewhere, but I feel that our fascination for the

exotic aspects and artifacts from other cultural groups who have used the territory before

the arrival of European settlers has prevented us from interpreting Euro-Canadian

heritage with the same dedication.

There are museums that preserve and interpret Euro-Canadian heritage here. They play an

important role in providing visitors a basic framework of understanding of settlement

practices. I feel there is a need to tie what is inside the museum to how we live outside in

the places we inhabit. The ecomuseum concept and the way it allows the territory to

become a laboratory for the exploration of identity, landscape and perceptions is a very

attractive one to me.

This is where I am hoping Great Excursions can make a difference, through the adoption

of an archaeological approach to the interpretation of our patterns of settlement. For

instance, the morphology of railway towns reveals many distinctive patterns about on



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how inhabitants and visitors have perceived dwellings, yards, streets, neighbourhoods

and the Great Plains territory itself through time.

From GIS analysis of the built environment and human patterns of mobility during

settlement activities, as well as interpretation of maps and early photographs, Great

Excursions is able to share some fascinating aspects of the city as a Southern

Saskatchewan population-distributing machine.

These findings are now used as a basis for themed urban explorations or tours that

interpret heritage in a new engaging way, based on events or specific aspects of Euro-

Canadian settlement activities in Saskatchewan. For instance, in 1912, a tornado

ploughed through Regina. We invite participants to relive the anguish felt by boaters and

bystanders near Lake Wascana as they witnessed the tornados fury and impact on the

east side of the new Legislative Building. The tornado veered slightly westward as it

angled over the lake. And it moved northward again, ploughing through the modern day

Transition neighbourhood along McIntyre, Lorne and Smith Streets, to downtown, across

the CPR line, to the Warehouse District and beyond city limits.

As winds picked up debris as large as houses, toppled elevators onto railway tracks and

tore apart elegant multi-storey stone and brick buildings, a new map of the city emerged.

Based on exclusive archaeological research, we provide answers to questions like: what

was the true extent of the damage? How did the city and its population overcome the

tornado so quickly? Our analysis brings to light previously unknown facts about how the

layout of the city, the resources within its midst and the environmental challenges thatensued affected local livelihoods. The experience provides exclusive insight into human

adaptability in the face of large-scale disasters.

As we follow the footsteps of event witnesses, we become investigators who experience



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minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, how the forces of nature affected this community and

brought out the best in times of hardship.

I should add to that we are now working with the Regina Plains Museum to create a

virtual museum exhibit on the Tornado, sharing our resources with them. In addition, I

will be curator for an exhibit on the 1912 tornado at the Museum this spring, for which

my company will also be staging a redeveloped public tour/interpretation about the 1912

Tornado, staged in partnership with the Museum.

Claude-Jean Harel

The Dark Tourism Forum


dark tourism and great excursions case study

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