Lafreniere and Barnett Present on GIS and Economic Development at KEDA Membership Meeting

Don Lafreniere
Don Lafreniere
Brad Barnett

Don Lafreniere and Brad Barnett presented a talk titled Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Essential Infrastructure for Economic Development at the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance (KEDA) monthly breakfast meeting on November 7. KEDA Member Meeting breakfasts are offered monthly with different topics and presenters each month. More information about the presentation can be found at the Keweenaw Report.

Wurst and IHA Students Investigate Camp Au Train

On the weekend of September 29, archaeologists from the Department of Social Sciences’ Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program , directed by Dr. LouAnn Wurst, along with the Hiawatha National Forest investigated Camp Au Train in Alger County near Munising. The weekend field work was highlighted in the article, Camp Au Train archaeology,  featured in The Mining Journal.

Our research also focuses on aspects of the everyday life of the CCC enrollees and the German POWs while they lived at Camp Au Train. Historic records and oral histories provide a great deal of information about both camps. Archaeological data adds information about mundane aspects of everyday life by recovering the objects that the occupants had, used, or threw away.

 

Baeten published in Water History

John BaetenJohn Baeten, PhD, Industrial Heritage and Archaeology, recently published an article in Water History titled “A century of red water: mine waste, legacy contamination, and institutional amnesia in Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range.”

The article examines the first lawsuit filed in Minnesota over the pollution of surface waters from migrating mine tailings, and the ongoing challenge that policy makers face in managing and remembering these legacy contaminants.

The article comes from research Baeten conducted while at Michigan Tech completing his PhD. The work was supported by a grant (Toxic Mobilizations in Iron Mining Contamination) from the National Science Foundation.