I am excited to join Freedom’s Way this summer as a Cultural Resource Associate Intern based at Minute Man National Historical Park (MMNHP).

I have been lucky to intern at MMNHP for several seasons over the past four years. Through these internships, I have worked on a wide range of projects, from garden restoration, natural resource public programming, archaeological surveys, and landscape rehabilitation projects. My experiences at MMNHP have heavily shaped my academic path and future career aspirations.

I first came to MMNHP as a Horticulture Intern in 2022, the summer after my freshmen year at McGill University. I had just declared a major in environmental studies and arrived with a life-long love of art and gardens. That summer I got my first taste of cultural landscape rehabilitation work. I spent the season cataloguing the historic iris collection in the Buttrick Gardens, learning about the long, layered history of MMNHP’s North Bridge unit. By the end of the internship, I had mapped the existing conditions of four gardens and drafted planting plans to rehabilitate the collection.

In the summer of 2024, I returned to MMNHP, now an art history major with a minor in geospatial information science. While interning I had the chance to assist with the archaeological survey of a 1775 battlefield. This was my introduction to archaeology and taught me first-hand how intertwined natural and cultural resource conservation could be. I assisted with invasive vegetation clearing one week, then got to try metal detecting and digging up musket balls in those same cleared areas the next. Through the preparation of survey planning maps, I learned how the landscape had evolved since 1775 with changing human settlement and shifting natural ecosystems. I came away that season with a solidified interest in cultural landscape management, archaeology, and object-based history.

I graduated in 2025 with degrees in art history, international development studies, and geospatial information science. Following graduation, I returned to MMNHP as a Cultural Resources Preservation Intern through the National Council for Preservation Education. During this internship, I revisited the iris rehabilitation project, revising the planting plans I had begun in 2022. Over the course of several months, park staff, interns and volunteers implemented new planting plans across six beds in the Buttrick Gardens, adding over thirty new modern and historic iris varieties.

In the fall, I switched focus and began developing a landscape rehabilitation plan for a 1775 battlefield site at MMNHP. Drawing on existing plans, ongoing historical and archaeological studies, and the knowledge of park staff and local experts, I began outlining a framework for making the site more accessible to the public. I leveraged my map-making and digital design skills to visualize what the site might look like after rehabilitation. With these graphics as a starting point, I led two treatment workshops with park staff to gather ideas and feedback.

This summer with Freedom’s Way I will continue development on this landscape rehabilitation plan at MMNHP. Beyond MMNHP, I will also conduct research on landscapes across the greater Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area. I will be taking a closer look at remnants of historic landscapes that persist in towns across the Heritage Area. The end goal of this research will be to produce public education materials to share the evolving story of these landscapes, building upon the cultural landscape preservation,
map-making, and design skills I have developed thus far at MMNHP.