Heritage, Parks Canada, and the Narrowing of Western Canadian History.

For decades, national historic sites have played a major role in helping shape the historical narrative in western Canada and throughout the country. In this Forum article I examine how heritage is defined and assess the way the early commemoration of historic sites in the west, including fur trade posts and battle sites associated with the North-West Resistance of 1885, set a conventional direction for what was important in western Canadian history and, just as significantly, what was not. I investigate the changing and at one time progressive role of historical research in Parks Canada, the agency responsible for managing these sites. I consider the later attempts by the agency to refute this innovative research in favour of a return to original, authorized, and archetypal colonialist messages, at the same time narrowing the scope of historical interpretation. Although very recent initiatives have attempted to broaden historic site interpretation in the West, Parks Canada is still faced with attempting to use commemorated and celebrated colonial spaces to communicate post-colonial messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]