00:00.97 archpodnet And we're back, um with with chance. So we just finished up the last segment kind of talking about um chances at Fort Lewis college working with Southern Duke Wood's canyon out is what's canyon out of Durango or is it out of yeah so just a little bit little bit west. 00:14.17 Chance Um, they're out of cortez colorado yeah, a little past Mesa Verde 00:19.11 archpodnet Um, old old cortez. Um, so you got your degree in 2018 um and then you started at Boulder in 2021 00:35.77 Chance Yes, what. 00:38.22 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, so and then in that time you were consulting and working for Southern New in the in the na office as well as working both for Woods Canyon as a crm tech. But then also when you didn't have field work. You were also full timing at home depot so what? busy busy guy man. 00:55.90 Chance Um, yeah. 00:58.40 archpodnet Um, what drove you to look at Master's degrees. So I mean like what you know what was that realization they wanted to go to grad school you know and then on top of that What institutions were you looking at and you know how come you ended up on boulder. 01:07.91 Chance You know or. 01:16.56 Chance Um, I think after my you know, starting the first year at crm it kind of seems like the dream job of Colorado you know you get paid to hike and camp and the kind of. 01:31.40 Chance Romance is there where like Wow I get to walk out in the forest and walk through the trees and through the mountains and areas that most people probably won't walk through because it's 100% off Trail I get to set up a camp and cook outside and. Hear the coyotes howling at bedtime and all that fantasy type stuff which and it was great. But I think after after the second year I started feeling pretty plateaued about it like this is just. Way It's going to be forever and I started thinking you know I want to do something that has a little bit more meaning to me and as fun as it was to be out hiking and looking for artifacts and features on the ground. I wanted it to be more meaningful and if that was to become you know the crew chief of doing this doing what I was doing survey work if I could write the reports at that point I thought that would be even a step up for what I wanted to do. Like I want to be the crew Chief I Want to write the reports. Um, and I kind of look for advice from a few other native people that were in crm that already had Master's degrees. 03:04.19 Chance And I told them that I was looking for something more meaningful and all of them kind of gave me the same advice. You should go to grad school and get a master's degree and that I'll open up a few more areas that you want to get in for what you're looking for. So. So I ended up um, inviting myself to this discussion in in Durango it was between see you boulder and Mesa Ver day but the meeting was held in Durango on Fort Lewis campus 03:40.87 Chance And another archeologist from another indigenous archeologist from Crow Canyon told me about it that he was invited Wilcox he's like you should go to this I said I don't know if I can I wasn't invited. 03:50.33 archpodnet So what was that is that will will ah Tim Wilcox yep 04:00.20 Chance He's like you should email the person in charge and invite yourself so I did I sent the email I said this is who I am what I do what I want to do and I would like to be involved so they added me to the email roster and said just show up tomorrow and your name will be on the list. So I did so I showed up and. Um, I think there was only 4 other indigenous people there everybody else was was non-native and they were from national park service. They were from Colorado parks and wildlife they were local archeology. People local museum people. Um, and of course see you boulder seem to be kind of the facilitator of this and these discussions they were asking for views and perspectives on the landscape of the area because they were. Essentially trying to redo their chapin mesa museum because it was pretty old and outdated. so so I ended up partnering up with ah Dr Woody Aguilar and he kind of stayed with me and me and him went to these different discussion rooms and. 05:14.61 Chance We were kind of giving the in indigenous perspective on these questions landscape sacred spaces sacred objects displaying items all these different things and in one of these rooms. Ah. Facilitator was a guy named Dr will Taylor and he was asking the questions to the group and he ah was asking questions and we're answering them and you know we did this throughout the whole day and when it was. Done and over you know he kind of caught me before I left and he was asking me about what we're talking about. You know it had to do with archeology and you know I kind of gave some native perspectives on horses and animals being considered sacred and like. Group discussion and he asked me if I was interested in like working together or doing something together and I said yeah, that'd be. They'd be pretty great so he gave me his contact information and we kind of parted ways there and then that's right when and a few days few weeks later I think. All the covered shutdown started happening so we never really got to do anything over the summer but in the fall you know he was asking me if I ever thought of applying to grad school and they said yeah I would I do plan to so actually applied. 06:49.46 Chance To see you boulder because of our interaction with him and then I applied to Northern Arizona university at the same time. 07:01.73 archpodnet And so um, what program did you apply for at and Nau and then on on the flip side. How come you chose the museum and field cities program it you boulder and not like anthropology. 07:05.98 Chance Are on me. 07:17.93 Chance Um, when I applied to and a you It was for their archeology program I had some discussions with some of the people that were there and they pretty much told me that I would be accepted. But. They were lacking the funding to provide like grad student funding for me in the fall and they essentially asked me if I would wait a year and a half before I would go and see you boulder offered immediately and said we could take you right now, but it's the museum program and I Said. Ah, will go with the museum program and at the time I I thought I wanted to be. You know a a P I or a crewchi for a C or M group which is why I went with the archeology Program. Ah in a you and I didn't know much about the. 08:14.69 Chance Museum side yet at the time but I'm a hundred percent happy that I went with the museum program at see you Boulder. Um. 08:26.62 archpodnet Yeah man I know they were really really excited to ah to get you? Um, ah I know that that for for sure. 08:36.83 Chance Um, so and a you lost out because they didn't want to offer me right away. Um. 08:42.20 archpodnet Yeah, they missed out. Yeah mean and I I agree with that one hundred a percent um sweet and then so that's you boulder in that Mfs program. Um, you've also started to get involved with. Um, your your will Taylors Dr will Taylor's um research assistant. You've been working on um his in his zoo archeology lab. Um and 3 d scanning and a bunch of other ah projects that Dr Taylor has you on. 09:15.62 Chance Um. 09:18.17 archpodnet Um, but then you've also become involved in. You know the plains anthropological society with the student affairs committee and then working also at History Colorado um and so as you've. 09:33.79 archpodnet You know we've already touched on this right? like you, you wanted to go to any of you because there was this crew Chief aspect that you were looking for and then you go to this museum program. How is being in the museum program at at see boulder like changed your trajectory in this career and. 09:45.35 Chance I think being in the museum program. It kind of gave me a little more insight into what can actually be done from within the museum I had no knowledge or experience before I came here pretty much in museum. Work other than the nagpra part which I had very little to do with leading up to the nagra consultations. But you know being a grad assistant I get to. Work on a grant in the museum and I get to work with funnel bones follow funnel remains from archeological context and it's and Dr Taylor focuses on horses. So I get to help him analyze some horses horse bones from. North Dakota South Dakota and we also got some from a pueblo group in New Mexico and you know in 1 of his classes was on 3 d printing and augmented reality virtual reality and we got to ah. I got to 3 d print a horse mandible a horse jaw and you know we had it prepared by somebody in the fossil prep lab to kind of give it a realistic color and look and texture and and you know they're. 11:14.61 Chance Side by side. You can obviously tell the real one from the three D print but from a distance you know from with the untrained eye. They look pretty identical and you know at some point I want to use those. Ah, to take to tribal communities and talk to them about horses within the culture and if 3 d printing is even ethical. You know those are kind of discussions that I would like to hear learn about talk about. 11:48.97 archpodnet And absolutely. 11:50.99 Chance And yeah, and um. 11:57.98 Chance That was the first part of your question. What was the other part. 12:03.31 archpodnet Oh how was your? um how is your? how's your trajectory changed after being the museum. So like yeah. 12:07.69 Chance Um, oh yeah, that's right, um, so being in the museum program. You know I kind of got a better understanding of what can go on. In museums um I've completely gave up on the archeology fieldwork part right? now you know I'm focused on on the museum research. I want to expand more on the involving the indigenous voices in museums in collections in nagpra. Ah that type of thing. So right now. My academic and career trajectory is. To be a museum professional and I don't know what that looks like yet. But you know I spent the summer interning at History Colorado in downtown Denver they're formerly the colorado historical society but they change their name. To history colorado it's a 4 story building downtown denver they have a big museum. They have big collections I got to tour 1 of 9 warehouses that house their entire historical artifact collection in the state and. 13:39.51 Chance You know it's just full of chairs and tables and sofas and bed frames and mirrors and there's even you know toilet balls from eighteen hundreds and all this stuff. You wouldn't think about collecting but you know. Lot of taxidermy and they even had a they told me a story. They even had missiles from like desert storm in there and they weren't even sure if they were live or. Or not but turns out they they had the Denver Bomb Squad come and look into them and like 4 of 6 were still alive so they took the four out and detonated them over in Colorado springs air force base. 14:17.99 archpodnet Ah, okay. 14:31.43 archpodnet Good night. Okay. 14:36.95 Chance But my internship there was you know I don't want to say it was what I wanted it to be because we just ran out of time but I was the nagra um coordinator assistant and tribal consultant liaison. 14:54.77 Chance Assistant to their that person. She was my supervisor and you know I got to go through unmarked burial cases from the state got to see a lot of documents and photos of nagpa cases a lot of human remain. Archeological human remain photos and police reports. A lot of these were somebody found it in the garage or their grandpa just has been hanging onto it for the last sixty 7080 years and they inherited it and they didn't really know what to do with it so they're finally calling law enforcement or the coroner's office to try and figure out what to do with it and that's where history Colorado comes in is once the law enforcement and call and coroner's office determines. It's not. Somebody recent that it is archeological. History Colorado then takes over. We can go pick it up and then start tribal consultation on repatriation and eventual rebuial and being exposed to that. You know it kind of let me know what that what I could be involved in in the museum world. You know I can I want to be a consultant on archeological archeology and museum items for my own tribe someday. But until then i. 16:28.67 Chance I can stay local here. 16:34.50 archpodnet Yeah, all right man that sounds great. Yeah, that was really, it's been really cool to see how connected you've become with the greater like indigenous like yeah like front range indigenous community in the Colorado archeological professions like you've been. It's been really awesome to see how um. 16:40.20 Chance Um. 16:47.31 Chance In latin. 16:51.85 archpodnet Desired you are by like ccpa the Colorado Council professional archeologist Colorado archaeological society and all these other professional groups that recognize your what you know your contributions to the field. So that's been like really cool to see and with ah on that note, we're going to go ahead and take our next break. We'll be right back with chance ward here on life ruins podcast.