An ancient Nisga'a village

With the support of Wilp Wilxo'oskwhl Nisga'a, the Ancient Spaces development team is working with Dr Nancy Mackin (e-mail) and Dr Linc Kesler, Director of UBC's First Nations Studies Program, to enable the reconstruction of an ancient Nisga'a village in 3D, with special focus on the relationship between the architecture and the social structure of the village.

When the "beta" version of the program is ready for download from this webpage, it will enable students in the university's First Nations Studies Program and members of the Nisga'a community to log in to a common network and transform the three-dimensional space in dialogue. As the platform develops, interactions might include story-telling, oral culture, social structure, conversation, etc.; in the future, a linguistic component may be built in to the program (using pre-recorded voices, or text display). Some preliminary images from the "modeling" phase of the project are now available on the Wiki.

Please contact Dr Nancy Mackin directly with specific questions about this project, and visit Wilp Wilxo'oskwhl Nisga'a, the Nisga'a House of Wisdom, located in the Nass Valley of Northern B.C.