POLITICS, BUREAUCRACY, AND ARCTIC ARCHAEOLOGY IN CANADA, 1910-39

Until the post-World War II period most of Canada's professional archa eologists and ethnologists were attached to the Anthropological Divisi on of the National Museum in Ottawa, originally founded in 1910 as a b ranch of the Geological Survey. As they were federal employees, their scientific work was largely dependent on, and ultimately limited by, w hat politicians and senior bureaucrats deemed to be in the public inte rest. This paper considers some implications of this arrangement for o ne aspect of Anthropological Division activity before World War II-its involvement in arctic archaeology. While government personnel made a number of substantive contributions to what was then a developing fiel d of research and scholarship, archival sources suggest that prevailin g political and institutional conditions weighed against the division' s continuing participation in northern fieldwork during these years. I nstead, its role was effectively limited to encouraging and, on occasi on, coordinating the research of American, British, and European archa eologists working on problems pertaining to the prehistory of the Cana dian Arctic.