As animal rights efforts have been making strides in recent years, animal history is becoming a necessary field to ensure all beings have a place in historical memory… Cemeteries are sacred spaces and essential archives for understanding the past.
-Brianne Machan, CURL Fellow
What can you do with a CURL Fellowship? Ask Brianne Machan!
Throughout the summer of 2025, Brianne collected and curated a scholarly record of Happy Woodland, the oldest known Canadian pet cemetery, located in Aurora, Ontario. Her record includes a StoryMap and selection of pet biographies on a public website–resources which support, and were supported by, Aurora Museum and Archives’ ongoing efforts to restore the once-abandoned cemetery.
Pet cemeteries are lesser-known to much of the public, and according to Brianne, this relative obscurity makes them all the more important to study: “As animal rights efforts have been making strides in recent years, animal history is becoming a necessary field to ensure all beings have a place in historical memory… Cemeteries are sacred spaces and essential archives for understanding the past.”
As with most research projects, collaboration was key to the creation of these resources: Brianne worked closely with Aurora Museum and Archives to create the website content, and she also credits ongoing support from her CURL Faculty Mentor, Dr. Kendra Coulter, for the project’s success and her development as a researcher. “My previous historical training has been focused on human stories,” says Brianne. “Dr. Coulter introduced me to new historiographical methods used by animal historians and helped ensure the animals’ stories were at the centre of my work.”
Brianne’s CURL Fellowship has made her feel more secure and directed in entering her Master’s studies: she gained experience creating a proposal, collaborating with the community, and writing for the public using accessible language and sources. Importantly, she says, the Fellowship also helped her learn to overcome (inevitable!) challenges in the research process: “When I proposed this CURL project, I hoped to offer a walking tour of the site and create a brochure for people to do self-guided tours. However, this was impossible because the site is still undergoing restoration efforts. I needed to rethink how to present this history to the public in an engaging way.” She also describes facing “dead ends” in her research process and having to move on due to time constraints and project scope–all struggles that are extremely common in Master’s and PhD-level research. Still, her project is making a real impact: in addition to being featured in an upcoming documentary, it will be used to support Aurora Museum and Archives’ application to make Happy Woodland a designated heritage site.
“I would absolutely recommend the CURL Fellowship program to any undergraduate student,” affirms Brianne. “It’s an amazing way to follow your passions and see the value of your work outside of the classroom setting.”
Her advice to future Fellows? “The support that you receive from CURL and your faculty mentor is vital to the success of the project. Take advantage of their support and do not be afraid to ask for help. Working with your team will help you and your project succeed. Take a risk and apply–you have great ideas that the world needs to hear!”
Congratulations on your fantastic work, Brianne! We are so grateful for your kind words and honoured to be a part of this project.