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Robert Coutts
History Team
Robert Coutts worked as a historian with Parks Canada for over thirty years researching historic sites throughout western and northern Canada. He is the author or co-author of three books on the history of Manitoba including (with Flora Beardy) Voices from Hudson Bay: Cree Stories from York Factory (second edition, 2017), and has published articles and reviews in journals in Canada, the U.S and Great Britain. Robert has studied Indigenous history in the West for many years and is editor of the journal Manitoba History. He has recently completed a doctorate in History at the University of Manitoba.
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Chris McEvoy
Archaeology Team
Christopher McEvoy is an archaeologist, researcher, and professional photographer from Thunder Bay, Ontario. With his first archaeological dig dating to 2009, Chris completed a HBA in Anthropology (2014) with a research focus on the study of gunpowder residues on artifacts recovered from northwestern Ontario. In 2018, Chris graduated from Lakehead’s MES program where he examined the capabilities of consumer-grade sonar for documenting inundated archaeological sites.
As part of the Six Seasons project, Chris has been working with Dr. Scott Hamilton, Professor of Anthropology at Lakehead University, and Kevin Brownlee, Curator of Archaeology at The Manitoba Museum. He is tasked with helping create 3D models of artifacts, as well as performing residue analysis on artifacts associated with the Six Seasons project.
In his spare time, Chris enjoys scuba diving, photographing wild places, and kayaking.
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Barbara Mitchell
History Team
Barbara Mitchell, Department of English, Trent University. Professor Mitchell is the author of the biography of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s first interior surveyor, titled Mapmaker: Philip Turnor in Rupert’s Land in the Age of Enlightenment. The History Team draws on Barbara Mitchell’s expertise with Hudson’s Bay Company Records, especially in regard to ethnographic information on Indigenous Peoples who interacted with the HBC.
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Jill Taylor-Hollings
Archaeology Team
Currently, Jill is an adjunct professor and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Lakehead University with the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak SSHRC partnership grant project. She works on building archaeological information for interpretive sidebars in the books, teachers’ guides, and apps. She is also researching some of the pottery from the Manitoba Museum that was found in Asiniskaw Īthiniwak traditional territory.
Since moving to NW Ontario in 2001, Jill has been working for Lakehead University in different capacities including sessional lecturing and research assistantships while occasionally taking on cultural resource management projects. She is also President-Elect for the Ontario Archaeological Society and previously was on the executive of the Thunder Bay Chapter since 2007.
Jill is passionate about studying, protecting, and promoting Canada’s heritage. Her PhD (University of Alberta, 2017) focused on archaeological research with Lac Seul, Little Grand Rapids, and Pikangikum Anishinaabe communities and Ontario Parks personnel along the Miskweyaabiziibee (Bloodvein River) in Woodland Caribou Provincial Park, which is now part of the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage site. She also completed a Masters of Arts at the University of Saskatchewan and Bachelor of Arts Honours at Brandon University in archaeology. Her research interests include precontact pottery, Indigenous archaeology, and lithic raw material studies. Jill also enjoys replicating traditional technology such as pottery, other containers, textiles, beading, and leatherwork. She has over 25 years of academic, CRM, and museum experience in four Canadian provinces and Tasmania.
When not working, Jill enjoys raising champion Standard Long-haired Dachshunds and drivable artifacts - owning a rare 1969 Acadian 350 SS car. She is married to Peter Hollings, who is a geology professor at Lakehead University. Jill has a mixed Euro-Canadian and Indigenous background, originally hailing from southern Manitoba.
