Les Méduses Dans La Marée De l’Histoire: L’Anse Aux Meadows, Nan Sdins and Cultural Heritage Agendas

Abstract

This paper reflects upon the relation of island communities to global cultural heritage agendas through discussion of two particular examples, the first two island locations successfully nominated by the Canadian government for UNESCO World Heritage listing: L’Anse aux Meadows, on Newfoundland, and Nan Sdins (Ninstints) on SGang Gwaii. This reflection involves discussion of the motives and discourses that led to their formal establishment as cultural heritage sites and those that have come into play in subsequent social inscriptions and interpretations. This line of inquiry intersects with – and is illuminated by - a consideration of the spatial contexts of the island networks that have facilitated particular moments upon which their heritage status is based. In particular, I refer to their relation to sea-lanes and coastal/inter-island lines of contact that are, in turn, predicated on particular moments of climatic, navigational and socio-economic history. The paper concludes by offering a point of mediation between traditional concepts of heritage agendas and socio-cultural development in island communities pertinent to the development of Island Studies as an activist enterprise.