NILES — Thursday morning, a group of Western Michigan University and Niles city officials stood in front of green scenery as they cut a red ribbon, symbolically readying a piece of Niles history to be opened to the public this weekend.

The Fort St. Joseph Archeological Project will host its annual open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The free, public event, located at the Fort St. Joseph site at Bond and Fort streets in Niles, will feature several activities including dancing and colonial music, a historical walking tour, an “ask an archaeologist” segment, canoe rides, artifact displays and more.

The open house is the result of weeks of WMU field school students sifting, digging and recording items found at the historical Fort St. Joseph site, which dates back to 1691 when the French built it. During its lifetime, the fort served as a religious mission, a trading post and a military garrison. For the last two decades, WMU has partnered with the city of Niles to send archeologists to the site each summer to excavate and research the fort site. To date, the project has uncovered more than 300,000 artifacts, many of which will be available for the public to view at this weekend’s open house.

“Everything we do is for the community,” said Miro Dunham, the project’s public outreach coordinator. “We are bringing in the community. We are allowing the public to really get their hands dirty and get involved in archeology and their own history.”

The project’s principal investigator and WMU archeology professor Michael Nassaney said the open house is a community celebration of the importance of the fort and the archeology project.

This year’s project theme is “Curation: Preserving the Past for the Future.” According to project officials, the goal of the theme is to place emphasis the importance of preserving and presenting history.

“I think a lot of people think archeology is all about the digging, but the curation phase begins as soon as artifacts come out of the ground. … Curation is 50 percent of archeology, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort,” Dunham said.

Officials with the Fort St. Joseph Archeological project said they would encourage the public to visit the site during the project’s open house this weekend to see the work that has been done by the archeology students, take part in interesting activities and to learn more about Niles’ role in Fort St. Joseph’s history.

“We are going to have so much fun, interesting stuff to do,” Dunham said. “It’s a very cool way for people to learn about the history [of Fort St. Joseph].”