David Neufeld (d. 2020)
David Neufeld came to the Yukon as the Yukon and Western Arctic Historian with Parks Canada in January 1986. His job included protected area planning, commemorations, historical research and writing, and partnership projects with Yukon First Nations. His particular interests were in environmental history and the intersection of knowledge and practice in Indigenous and settler ways of life. In 2004, David was a member of a team awarded the National Council of Public History’s Robert Kelly Memorial Award. This prestigious international award honours significant achievements in making history relevant to people outside of academia. David was instrumental in the designation of several Indigenous national historic sites in the Yukon.1)
After retiring from Parks Canada in 2012, David formed a consulting business and, with continued enthusiasm, followed his interests in archival research and community oral histories. In 2019, he was chosen as the Yukon representative to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.2)
David was a talented and inspired teacher, known for his patience and good humour. He taught northern history and protected area management at Yukon College, and supervised PhD. candidates in Yukon research from several Canadian and international universities. He was a Governor of Yukon College from 1997 to 2004 and sat on the College’s Research Ethics Board. David was also a cultural interpretation guide for hiking and canoe groups in southern Yukon, working with Road Scholar, educational programming for seniors.3)
David’s publications ranged from academic to popular. His assessment of the Komakuk Beach DEW Line radar station in Ivvavik National Park, including recordings, photographs and documents, was presented in an inter-active format in 1996. David worked with artist Charles Stankievech, a teacher at the Yukon School of Visual Arts, to expand the accessibility of the work as a website in 2009. David’s prize-winning The Landing art installation, shown at the Yukon Arts Centre in 2013, again investigated human relationships with the land and specifically the way an environmental historian goes about his work. David gazed beyond his desk to be in the world he was studying.4)
In 2021, to honour David’s legacy, the annually-streamed David Neufeld Memorial Lecture was introduced to feature the work of early career lecturers, public historians, Indigenous historians, and heritage workers. It is available on YouTube.5)