Patricia Roussel
Candidate, M.A. Public History
| Degrees: | B.A. (Honours) in History and Religious Studies (Queen's University) |
| Email: | patriciaroussel@cmail.carleton.ca |
Current Program: MA Public History (2024)
Supervisor:
Academic Interests:
Northern Canada, Yukon History, National Parks History, Indigenous Stewardship, Tourism & Public Engagement, National Narratives
Select Publications and Current Projects:
Roussel, Patricia. “The Equivocal Presence of Photography in History: Reclaiming the Colonial Intentions from the Late-Nineteenth Century Photography of Australian Aboriginal Peoples.” Living Histories: A Past Studies Journal 3. (May, 2024): 51-62. https://doi.org/10.24908/lhps.v3i1.
Roussel, Patricia. “My Grandma from the Island, My Mother from the Farm.” Text and Type, California State LA University. (2023). https://journals.calstate.edu/textandtype/article/view/4000/3365.
Select Conference Contributions:
Roussel, Patricia and Marissa Little. “Tracing Wolfe Island Social History Through Archived Diaries.” Research presented for the Wolfe Island Historical Society Speaker Series (Wolfe Island, ON), April 2024.
Roussel, Patricia, and Marissa Little. “Personifying the Archives.” Research presented at the Inquire@Queen’s Undergraduate Research Conference (Kingston, ON), March 2024.
Teaching Experience
Introduction to Public History (K. Smith), Fall 2024.
The Historian’s Craft (M. Hogue), Winter 2025.
Description of Research:
My Master’s research investigates the development of Parks Canada’s visitor experience offerings at Klondike National Historic Site (NHS) in Dawson City, Yukon, specifically as they relate to Indigenous involvement and representation. Located on the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, this site has historically represented settler-colonial interpretations of the Klondike Gold Rush, in which some 30,000 hopeful prospectors ventured to Dawson City between 1896 and 1899.
My research will follow the recent calls for this change for Klondike NHS’s interpretive narratives following the 2023 designation of the Tr’ondëk-Klondike UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 79th Call to Action promising to build a reconciliation framework within Canadian heritage commemoration, and Parks Canada’s 2019 plan of the Framework for History and Commemoration. I will analyze these changes to create a report on the processes of engaging in Indigenous community collaboration, the considerations of international and national legislation, and the overall outcomes for the visitor experience.
I acknowledge my positionality as a settler-researcher studying these narratives and will work with an awareness that Indigenous voices should be acknowledged and centred in such research.