2025 Keynote Speakers

2025 Banquet speaker – Dr. Iain McKechnie

Dr. Iain McKechnie is a coastal archaeologist and associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. His research considers how archaeological records of Indigenous hunting and fishing traditions expand perspective on coastal ecosystems and resource management and conservation. Dr. McKechnie directs the Historical Ecology and Coastal Archaeology Lab as well as the UVic Zooarchaeology Lab and is involved in ongoing research with Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations, the Hakai Institute, Parks Canada, and the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT:
The historic ‘maritime fur trade’ between Indigenous chiefs and visiting Russian, Spanish, British, French, and American ship captains is recognized as geopolitically and ecologically consequential. However, the subsequent half century of Indigenous-enabled Northern Fur Sealing has received less scholarly attention despite its historic importance to coastal economies in Canada and the US. In this presentation, I contrast recent history with ancient archaeological data spanning millennia of Indigenous hunting traditions and technologies across what is now coastal British Columbia (i.e., Canada) and southeast Alaska. Leaning on 70+ years of zooarchaeological research effort across 350 excavation projects, I document geographically distinct patterning in terrestrial and marine mammal use in four corners of the Northwest Coast based on the abundance of four mammal species (sea otters and northern fur seals, mountain goats, and domestic dogs). I argue this millennial-scale patterning illuminates enduring cultural production and circulation of socially significant ceremonial regalia and a larger than anticipated non-nutritional role for mammal in a region lacking terrestrial agriculture and domestic livestock.

2025 Luncheon speaker – Dr. Julia Christensen

Dr. Julia Christensen (Department of Geography and Planning, Queens University, Kinston, ON) is from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and notes it is “my home, but it is not my homeland.” Her upbringing in Yellowknife contributed to her interest in homes and homelessness in northern and Indigenous communities. She is also interested in the value of arts, storytelling, and creative writing in health. She is presently the Project Director for At Home in the North, a consortium of university researchers, Indigenous, and northern community governments and organizations developing solutions and tools to deal with housing crises in the north. Dr. Christensen will be the luncheon speaker Saturday. Learn more about Dr. Christensen’s work here.