Ran TNC FHS GG A
Michael Wilson: Geology’s triple-talent

This semester, students in the Douglas
College Geology Department faced a
unique triple-talent: Instructor Michael
Wilson, geologist, archeologist and
executive director of the Japanese-

Canadian National Museum and Archives.

When asked how he arrived at this
unique combination, Wilson laughs: “It
started with a classic case of early
imprinting.”

Just five or six when he saw full-size
fossils for the first time at the Calgary
Zoo, Wilson learned the word
‘paleontologist’ at a young age. His
interest in the ancient past gelled when he
read a book about Roy Chapman
Andrews, who spent the 1920s in the
Gobi Desert collecting specimens for the
American Museum of Natural History.

‘He was also the prototype for the
fictional archeologist Indiana Jones,”
Wilson notes. The rest, as they say, is
history .. . or should we say geology?
Archeology? Or all three?

“Because of my interest in the linkage
between geology and archeology, I spent
my undergraduate years constructing a
‘merger’ of sorts.” The result was an
honours BA in Archeology — that
included a BSc in Geology — from the
University of Calgary.

Wilson pursued his interdisciplinary
interests throughout the 1970s, earning an
MA (Anthropology) at the University of
Wyoming and a PhD (Archeology) back
at the U of C. He then taught geology in
Calgary and at the University of
Lethbridge for several years before
becoming an ‘“‘academic nomad” in 1992.

“You may recall the 30% cuts to
education in Alberta at that time,” says
Wilson. “The result for me was that I lost
my institutional base. But I had been
traveling around a lot before then — to
teaching and research sites in China,
Japan, Cameroon and Montana.”

In 1994, Wilson moved to BC with his
wife to consult on land claims issues, and

A

 

Geology’s Michael Wilson and colleague take a moment in the Baja to ponder their

shared reptilian ancestry.

wound up teaching for several semesters
in SFU’s Archeology Department. In
1995, he became executive director of
the newly formed Japanese-Canadian
Museum and Archives (JCMA).

“My work in this area again came
about through a combination of early
experiences and my professional
interests,” he says. “My childhood
minister was Japanese-Canadian — Joy
Kogawa’s sister, in fact. I listened to
Radio-Japan on shortwave radio in junior
high and I taught in Japan.”

More than that, it was Wilson’s
interest in life-long learning, intercultural
issues and the connections between
people and place that convinced him to
get involved. “My experiences over the
last 15 years have convinced me that if
you take people away from their
landscape, you cut out their heart.”

This summer, Wilson will be helping
the JCMA document the pre-war history

of Japanese-Canadians in Steveston. “In
this community, we can see the transition
from a sense of belonging to one of
disruption, displacement and
disillusionment.” With the Richmond
Museum and the Britannia Heritage
Shipyard, the organization is planning an
archeological dig to locate pre-war
materials. For a nominal participation fee,
interested volunteers are welcome to join
the project: Call 874-8090 for more
information.

As for Wilson, he reports that so far
he’s enjoyed his work with the College
immensely, and is looking forward to
mixing it up even more in the next
academic year. “I’ve been able to
introduce a cultural context into my
classes, to make geology meaningful for
all students. In geology, we have the
principle that ‘the present is the key to the
past.’ I believe that the past is the key to
the future. Teaching is a big part of that
for me.” ff