Hello, I'm Dr. Keith Carlson
Professor, Research Chair, and Ethnohistorian
I am a Professor of History at the University of the Fraser Valley where I am privileged to hold a Tier One Canada Research Chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History.
My scholarship is designed and conducted in partnership with communities and aspires to answer questions that are priorities for those communities.
Community Engaged History
Good history helps us find freedom from ourselves
It helps us escape a worldview that is primarily the product of our own personal lived experiences.
In my scholarship I work with Indigenous people to try to understand their history on its own terms, within it's own cultural framings. And to the extent that I am interested in settler history, I am far more intrigued by the history of Canadian and American society within Indigenous histories than the narrative of Indigenous people in Canadian (or American) history.
Meaning always and inevitably precedes experience.
I have been mentoring under, and working with, Coast Salish Knowledge Keepers since 1992. Prior to being a university professor I worked for a decade as research coordinator for the Stó:lō Tribal Council and then Stó:lō Nation. My scholarly activities continue to be anchored in the Coast Salish communities of British Columbia. In the past I also have worked extensively with Hukbalahap veterans in the Philippines, and Metis and Cree communities in Saskatchewan.
Historical thinking helps us see the world through the eyes of different people from different eras
2020s
2024
Gifted the names Xyéytil (He Who Writes) and Stelómetel (Educated Man) at Stó:lō ceremony
2024
Co-authored with John Lutz, "The Smallpox Chiefs: Bioterrorism and the Exercise of Power in the Pacific Northwest,"
Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 55, Issue 2, Summer 2024, 87-104.
Stó:lō naming ceremony (2024)
2023
My book Power of Place, Problem of Time: Indigenous Identity and Historical Consciousness in the Cauldron of Colonialism (2011) translated into Chinese by Jianlan Bo and published by Shandong University Press as 时空•家园
2022
Awarded the “Heritage BC Award” by the BC Historical Federation for setting up the UFV Community-Engaged Collaboratorium
2022
Jointly with Si:yemia (Albert ‘Sonny’ McHalsie), awarded the Inaugural “Advocacy Award” from the BC Historical Federation.
2022
“On the Corner of Hawks and Powell: Settler Colonialism, Indigenous People, and the Conundrum of Double Permanence, Kent McNeil and John Borrows, eds., Indigenous Voices: Cultural Appropriation, University of Toronto Press.
2023
My co-edited book “Call Me Hank”: A Stó:lõ Man’s Reflections on Logging, Living, and Growing Old (2009), translated into Chinese by Xing Chihong and published by Shandong University Press请叫我汉克：第一民族混血儿对伐木业、生存及成长的沉思录
Descendants of Hank Pennier at "Call Me Hank" book launch.
BMO Collaboratorium students (2024)
Standing on the peak of Lhilheqey, Mt. Cheam (2022)
2022.
Co-authored with Albert “Sonny” McHalsie, Colin Osmond, and Tsandlia Van Ry, “The Collaboration Spectrum: Reflections on Community-Engaged Scholarship in a Historical Study of Gendered Territoriality Among the Stó:lō,”
In Benjamin J. Barnes & Stephen Warren, eds., Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country, SUNY Press.
2021
Launched the PARC Community-Engaged Collaboratorium
With Marge Kelly at Soowahlie First Salmon Ceremony (2022)
2022
Appointed Adjunct Member, College of Graduate Studies (UBC).
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2021
“’The Last Potlatch’ and James Douglas’ Vision of an Alternative Settler Colonialism,”
in Peter Cook, Neil Valance, John Lutz, Graham Brazier, and Hamar Foster, eds.,
To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, Vancouver, UBC Press 2021.
2020
“‘Don’t Destroy the Writing’: Time- and Space-based Communication and the Colonial Strategy of Mimicry in Nineteenth Century Salish-Missionary Relations on Canada’s Pacific Coast,”
in Tony Ballantyne and Lachlan Paterson, eds., Indigenous Textual Cultures, the Politics of Difference and the Dynamism of Practice (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020).
2021
Director, Peace and Reconciliation Centre (PARC),
University of the Fraser Valley
2021
Co-authored with with Naxaxalhts’i (Sonny McHalsie), “Myth Making and Unmaking: Indigenous Sacred Sites, Settler Colonial Mobility, and Ontological Oppression.”
In Gesa Mackenthun, ed., Decolonizing Pre-History, (University of Arizona Press).
2020
Co-authored with Naxaxalhts'i (Albert McHalsie) “Stó:lō Memoryscapes as Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Stó:lō History from Stone and Fire,”
in Sarah De Nardi, Hillary Orange, Steven High, and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, London and New York, Routledge, 2020.
2020
Appointed Adjunct Member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies (UVic).
With Mary Malloway, at dedication of the Residential School Survivors pole (2021)
Honouring Ceremony with Kevin Garner (2021)
Picking pine mushrooms with Si-yemia (Sonny) and Robert McHalsie (2020)
2010s
2019
Appointed Tier One Canada Research Chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History, University of the Fraser Valley.
2018
Editor with John Lutz, David Schaepe, and Sonny McHalsie, Towards a New Ethnohistory: Community-engaged Scholarship History Among The People of the River,”
(Winnipeg Manitoba, University of Winnipeg Press, 2018).
2017
Elected to the Royal Society of Canada – College of New Scholars.
2010
The Power of Place, The Problem of Time: Aboriginal Identity and Historical Consciousness in the Cauldron of Colonialism,
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010).
2011
Canadian Historical Association's Clio Award for Best History in BC Region – for Power of Place, Problem of Time,
(UofT Press, 2010)
2012
Best Article in Aboriginal History Prize (awarded by the Canadian Historical Association) for the article “Orality About Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History,” May 2012.
2014
Created the Community-engaged History Collaboratorium where I partner with communities to co-design research projects that are conducted by student summer research interns.
2009-2019
Supervised 10 PhD students to completion of degree. Five secured tenure-stream appointments.
2000s
2004
Receive PhD from UBC. Dissertation is Faculty of Arts nomination for Governor General’s Gold Medal.
2005
My article “The Lynching of Louie Sam” (BC Studies 1996) is made into a documentary film (produced by David MacIlwraith for Wild Zone Films). As a result the Washington State Legislature issues formal apology to Stó:lō people.
2001
Appointed Assistant Professor, University of Saskatchewan
2001
Made an honorary member of the
Stó:lō Nation (Ceremony at Skowkale First Nation).
2002
A Stó:lō Coast Salish Historical Atlas awarded BC Book Prize,
(Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize).
2006
Editor with Kristina Fagan,
Henry Pennier’s “Call Me Hank”:
A Stó:lō Man’s Reflections on Logging, Living, and Growing Old.
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).
2001
Editor with Sonny McHalsie and David Schaepe, A Stó:lō-Coast Salish Historical Atlas.
(Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press; Chilliwack, B.C.: Stó:lō Heritage Trust, 2001)
1992 – 2001
Historian & Research Coordinator for the Stó:lō Tribal Council
Stó:lō Nation, Chilliwack BC.
1990s
1996
Authored book
The Twisted Road to Freedom: America’s Granting of Independence to the Philippines.
Manila: University of the Philippines Press, 1995; University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1996, 176pp.
1992
M.A. University of Victoria, American Diplomatic History.
Thesis title: The Twisted Road to Freedom: America’s Granting of Independence to the Philippines in 1946.
(Co-op Education distinctions). Supervisor: Professor W.T. Wooley.
