Personne

Harlan Ingersoll Smith

• Harlan I. Smith

1872 - 1940

Harlan Ingersoll Smith was an American-born anthropologist who travelled Canada extensively to research Indigenous archaeology and ethnology. Born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1872, Smith attended the University of Michigan and later became interested in archaeological and anthropological activities, leading him to start a career at the American Museum of Natural History in 1895. He is best known for his involvement as the primary archaeologist in Franz Boas’ Jesup North Pacific Expedition, which saw him, Boas, and other individuals travel to Washington State and British Columbia between 1897 to 1899. While a part of the expedition, Smith investigated shell heap archaeological formations, specifically those of the Lower Mainland and the Salish Sea area, which led him to undertake amateur excavations at the ancient Musqueam village site of c̓əsnaʔəm. By 1911, Smith was signed as an archaeologist for the Geological Survey of Canada, prompting him to repeatedly visit multiple Indigenous communities in British Columbia for ethnographic and archaeological work. Living in Canada for the rest of his life, Smith died in Ottawa in 1940.

Information sourced from the Canadian Museum of History and the University of Victoria via Brian Thom.