Clara lives in historic Wendake, enmeshed in a layered landscape of Indigenous territories, treaties, colonialism, and the stories told and untold of ancestors (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike) and the generations to come. At home mostly in Toronto and sometimes at her family cottage on the south-eastern shore of Georgian Bay, Clara has worked and researched at the intersection of Indigenous-settler relations for the past decade. Clara received her doctorate from York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (right beside the mid-to-late 15th century Wendat village known now as the Parsons site). In her doctoral dissertation she examined the links between settler-cottagers’ environmental conservation efforts and Indigenous loss of sovereignty in Georgian Bay (Ontario). Clara co-founded, with Carolyn King (Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation), the Shared Path Consultation Initiative, a charitable organisation focused on issues that emerge where land use planning intersects with Aboriginal and Treaty rights, and was the Executive Director until 2021. Since then, Clara has worked for Moose Deer Point First Nation’s Lands Department, establishing their Consultation Worker position, and as a Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Environment’s Indigenous Programs and Policy Unit. During her land use planning Master’s degree at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, Clara focused on Indigenous heritage preservation (including archaeology) in the Ontario planning system.

cfraser@yandataarchaeology.ca