Climate change is a significant threat to archaeology and heritage in Nova Scotia. We see the direct impacts of sea level rise, intense storms, flooding, erosion, and wildfires on archaeological sites across the province. As these effects intensify, more and more archaeological sites—and the stories they hold–may be damaged or lost.

We can find hope in collaboration and action. Archaeologists are working together to respond to the impacts of climate change on archaeology in Nova Scotia. Between 2019 and 2022, the archaeology sector in Nova Scotia (including representatives from consulting archaeology, academia, government, community organizations, and Mi’kmaq rights holders) worked together to create a climate adaptation strategy for the sector. It’s now being implemented through adaptation projects led by a dedicated team of volunteers from the archaeology sector, coordinated by a Climate Adaptation Coordinator for the archaeology sector and funded by the provincial Climate Plan.

The archaeology adaptation strategy aims to bridge the past, present and future by working with communities to identify, record and preserve sites and resources that are significant to the community and tell our collective story, even in the face of an uncertain climate future.

Kwilmu’kw-Maw-klusuaqn Negotiations Office (KMKNO) and Parks Canada’s Nova Scotia-based field units enjoy a progressive and productive way to make decisions about archaeology, with research, knowledge advancement and community inclusion weighted as at least equal to project completion goals.  Called the Collaborative Archaeology Technical Team, it has improved the flow of formal consultations between the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia and the Crown and has yielded exciting results in the field and lab.  New sites are being found where previous approaches would not have tested, new methods are being used and a special surprise we’d only dreamed of finding showed up.  None of these results would have happened without a willingness to share decision-making power and try new methods.  The latest projects bridge rivers, time, oceans and the distance between historical injustice, exclusionary archaeological practice and reconciliation. This paper will discuss the transformative research scope and results that a Collaborative Archaeology Technical Team model can have when willing parties work together to build bridges.

The windswept sand dunes and grassy plains of Sable Island National Park Reserve appear to be a wild natural landscape but the island has been greatly impacted by centuries of human activity. What was the island landscape before European fishermen and explorers arrived on its shores in the 16th Century and could this island have been visited by Indigenous peoples long before? How has the island changed over time whether due to climate change or human presence? Archaeologists at Parks Canada and Kwilmu'kw Maw-Klusuaqn Negotiation Office are asking these questions to better understand the islands’ cultural history and to help predict the islands’ future. In collaboration with soil scientists at the University of Ottawa, archaeological and paleoecological analyses of the island’s intermittently-exposed paleosols and associated strata are beginning to answer these questions. While this interdisciplinary research is still underway, this paper will present recent findings that shed light on the island landscape before and after European arrival and have identified key stratigraphic markers to facilitate current and future landscape research across the island.