Historic / Industrial / Metal Specialist

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Dr. Fred Sutherland is devoted to exploring new ways we can engage with our shared cultural legacies. As a registered, professional archaeologist with over 15 years experience in our discipline, Fred has led teams in archaeological research, fieldwork, and laboratory analysis. He helped to found the Great Northern chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology and is the secretary to the Council for Minnesota Archaeology. Dr. Sutherland’s doctoral research involved leading a team of residents from a former Minnesota iron-mining district to document over 450 historic properties and sites. His master’s degree research helped a state park by documenting an 1840s iron smelting furnace complex, recommending conservation priorities, and suggesting better site interpretation methods.

As an educator, Fred has integrated his love of archaeology within K-12th grade lessons, community-college programs as a professor, and in his role as lifelong-learning lecturer. He has collaborated on production of blogs, multi-media presentations, and orientation videos for historic sites. Fred also had the pleasure of engaging with the public in the roles of 1820s soldier, cook, and blacksmith at Historic Fort Snelling for five years, including work in their archaeology summer camp program.

Currently, he is exploring involvement in several types of cultural heritage work including an expansive historic bottle conservation and collection effort, on going relationship building with historical societies and avocationalists in central and northern Minnesota, and exhaustive research into the ammunition of Fort Snelling.