The City of Kamloops is hiring its own archaeologist and one councillor says it will save the city a lot of money.

When Indigenous ancestral remains were found at the West Victoria Street paving project in 2019, contracted archaeologists were called in as construction was halted.

Councillor Mike O’Reilly says having one on staff makes sense on many levels. “Obviously having somebody on staff versus a contractor, the efficiencies that are found will be significant so not only are we saving money but we’re going to be able to do a much better, proactive job.”

O’Reilly thinks the demand for one is only going to increase in the future. “Frankly, archaeologists, we’re going to be needing them more and more. As we’re working closer and closer with TteS (Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc), as UNDRIP (The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) is getting more into play, this is something that isn’t going to be getting less and less from council, it’ll be more and more so this is a forward thinking decision.”

O’Reilly says that’s just one of many examples where city requires that kind of expertise.

“If you look at Riverside Park repaving or building up a sidewalk, there’s an example. Any piece of city land that we own, that we want to do anything on, we have to bring in archeologists and obviously we own a significant amount of land throughout the entire city. We have the largest municipal park in all of Canada actually.”

He was skeptical when the motion was brought forward to hire an archaeologist in house. “When we had first heard about it, I thought, oh boy, is this a path we want to be going down? And I just wasn’t 100 per cent sure it that’s a direction we wanted to go.

“But to give you an example of what we spent in three years on an archaeologist, paying a contractor was $1.8 million dollars.

The new position will cost between $75,000 and $100,000 per year and O’Reilly says that will mean significant cost savings every year.