About Us
Emily Sakariassen, M.S. Historic Preservation
Emily Sakariassen is the owner of South Fork Historical Research. Born and raised on the plains of North Dakota, but with family ties to the Rocky Mountain Front, Sakariassen has a true passion for local history and historic preservation of the vernacular built environment.
With an M.S. in Historic Preservation (2014), a B.A. in History (2012), and a B.A. in Anthropology (2012), she is qualified per Secretary of Interior’s standards for History and Architectural History (36 CFR Part 61) and has extensive experience conducting specialized architectural surveys, inventories, National Register of Historic Places evaluations and nominations, and visual impact assessments throughout the Northern Plains.
South Fork Historical Research specializes in:
- Resource identification, evaluation, and management
- Section 106 and 110 compliance
- National Register of Historic Places evaluations and nominations
- Meaningful mitigation measures/plans for addressing adverse effects on historic properties
- National Park Service’s Certified Local Government Program, Historic Preservation Guidelines, and the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties
- Archival research, technical, and interpretive writing
- Grant writing and project management
Project Experience
Sakariassen has been working in the cultural resource management field for over a decade. As a permitted architectural historian, she brings valuable experience in regulatory compliance, having worked with numerous federal and state agencies on projects across the Northern Plains and Intermountain West, including the FCC, FAA, DoD, State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO), the Montana, North Dakota, and Idaho Transportation Departments, and local governments including Historic Preservation Commissions in the cities of Bismarck, ND, Grand Forks, ND, and Bozeman, MT.
She is active in public outreach and education efforts in historic preservation, including organizing research and preservation projects as a former project manager for the Northern Plains National Heritage Area, and as a board member of the Bismarck Historical Society and Friends of the Rail Bridge non-profits. She has served two terms on the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Review Board and is active as a grass roots advocate within the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
About the South Fork
"I chose to name my business for the South Fork of the Teton River in north-central MT. The South Fork winds through the greater Rocky Mountain Front, whose east face rises abruptly from the flat and semi-arid Great Plains. It is a dramatic and memorable setting, and one with special meaning to me both personally and professionally.
Raised on the plains of North Dakota, I visited this place each summer to see my grandmother whose home was nearby. I have spent my lifetime hearing stories of this place: the Metis families who settled here in the wake of the Red River and North-West Rebellions in Canada, the Dude Ranchers who built an industry that fostered a conservation ethos, and a cadre of writers who defined a generation of western literature. These stories stirred my imagination and inspired me to work toward the preservation of the important cultural resources there.
Log cabins associated with the 1930s Circle 8 Dude Ranch that dot the canyon floor were the subject of my first architectural survey. As I became more entrenched in the South Fork community, remnants of the Metis settlement and the lives of its descendants became the subject of subsequent explorations of place identity through my master's thesis on Traditional Cultural Properties with the University of Oregon.
It is on the South Fork of the Teton River where I have learned the true value of historic preservation. As Joseph Kinsey Howard wrote in his seminal work of Metis history, Strange Empire:
'People like to have one sure and certain loyalty. It is place. It may be as tiny as a burial ground where the bones of their forefathers rest; it may be half a continent whose landmarks bear the names their progenitors bestowed. Acre or empire, they will fight for it until the spirit is dead.'"
-Emily Sakariassen, owner, South Fork Historical Research LLC