GRANT KARCICH Webpage Summary
Welcome to Grant Karcich's website. I believe that knowing our past helps us understand ourselves. I hold a Master's in Biological Anthropology and a second in Library and Information Science. I have worked in public library administration in Virginia, as well as in Inuvik and Iqaluit, and have also served as an information consultant and archival researcher in Ontario. I am interested in the origins of people in the historic and prehistoric past. In particular, my interest focuses on the identity of the indigenous people of eastern North America. In this regard, I have worked as an archaeologist and a genetic anthropologist. Currently, I serve as the newsletter editor for the Association of Professional Archaeologists of Ontario.
Grant Karcich has written articles and books on Canadian anthropology, archaeology, history and genealogy and has given presentations on local history and genetics over the last twenty-five years. His background is in library and research services. His focus is on better understanding the past, both the historical past and prehistory. Human origins is part of that passion. By understanding our past, we gain insight into ourselves.
Genetics
Grant completed a Master of Arts in Biological Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, concentrating on molecular anthropology and comparative anatomy. He completed his dissertation on "The Origin of Great Lakes Algonquian and Iroquoian Populations: Use of Mitochondrial DNA to Define Middle Woodland Populations" with graduate advisors Joyce Sirianni, Andrew Merriwether, and Ted Steegmann, for which he did his laboratory analysis at the University of Binghamton, New York. He has received additional training in laboratory methods in Molecular Biology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and in laboratory techniques involving ancient mitochondrial DNA at Lakehead University. --> Master’s in Anthropology (University of Buffalo) with research in mitochondrial DNA from prehistoric Great Lakes sites. Recent publication: Cranio-facial and genomic evidence from Late Archaic to Historic Algonquian and Iroquoian Populations of Northeastern North America.
Archaeology
He is the editor of the APA Newsletter, and previously Director of Publications (2012-2017) for the Ontario Archaeology Society (OAS). Prepared and arranged for archival storage of OAS files and updated the OAS publication website pages. He is a past board member of the Ontario Archaeology Society and a founding member of its Peterborough chapter. rant has worked for Golder Associates on sites from salvage archaeology near the Grand River in Haldimand County and the Late Woodland site containing Pickering ceramics at Jacob Island on Pigeon Lake.
In previous decades, Grant briefly excavated at Cactus Hill, a pre-Clovis site in eastern Virginia, while volunteering at the Virginia Museum of Natural History and taking courses at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. He visited the Thule site at Cache Point, Northwest Territories. His first archaeology experience was in 1979 at a Saugeen site near Grand Bend, Ontario, and at the colonial French-era site of Fort Rouillé in Toronto. He worked at the Howard Savage Faunal Lab at the University of Toronto. Also, he studied comparative anatomy at the Smithsonian, as well as laboratory methods in Forensic Anthropology at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Grant worked to identify the missing Cabane de Plomb, an 18th-century mysterious site on the shore of Lake Ontario between Oshawa and Bowmanville. Using ground-penetrating radar, he worked to locate the fur trading post near the Oshawa Harbour. He examined the archaeology of portages in The Legacy of Vanished Trails and the Scugog Carrying Place and also explored early fur trading cabins in an article entitled "The Archaeology of Three Fur Trading Cabins in Southern Ontario."
History
Grant worked on the Canadian Historical Recognition Program: Italian Canadians During World War II Project for the Columbus Centre in Toronto, where he participated in the research at Library & Archives Canada in Ottawa. He wrote the only book to cover the pre-1850 history of Oshawa and the former Ontario County in Scugog Carrying Place. Grant served a term on the Heritage Oshawa Board, a consultative group for the municipality of Oshawa. --> He also wrote a biography of a prominent fur trader whose family were the first to settle in Oshawa, Toronto, and Hamilton. His book Jean Baptiste Rousseau, St. John: a Canadian Interpreter and Trader covers the life of this fascinating man who worked for the British Indian Department and interacted with Algonquians and Iroquoians, whose language he spoke beginning as a teen at the Bay of Quinte.
Genealogy
For individuals seeking to explore their Canadian and Croatian family heritage, Grant offers genealogy services. He wrote Finding Your Italian Ancestors for English speakers, helping them trace family records in Italy. It was written for Heritage Productions and went through two editions. He has also written about the Mississaugas of Balsam Lake, tracing present-day families back to their aboriginal roots in the 18th Century. He edits the Croatian Genealogy newsletter and continues to be contacted by people seeking information about their ancestors. His other European genealogy-based books include From the Apsyrtides Islands to the New World (1st ed., 2023; 2nd bilingual ed., 2024), available from Red Handprint, and Kvarner Cemeteries.
Library & Information Services
Grant obtained his Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) training at the University of Western Ontario. He then started working in special libraries at the Canadian Gas Association and the Industrial Research and Development Institute. For the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources unit on forest health, he developed a bibliographic database with text search capability using Oracle and SQL*Text Retrieval.
Grant also did contract work as a map librarian for the Toronto Reference Library and as a manager of the central resource centre for the Durham District School Board. He also carried out contract work in records management for clients, including the Regional Municipality of Durham, Save the Children, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and the Addiction Research Foundation.
Later, Grant worked in the public library systems, first in the U.S. and then in Canada. He worked as an Assistant Library Director and Reference Head for the Rockbridge Regional Library, centred in Lexington, Virginia. Grant was the Head Librarian at two of the largest public libraries in the Canadian Territories, first at the Inuvik Centennial Library in Inuvik, Northwest Territories and later at the Iqaluit Centennial Public Library in Nunavut. Grant also spent six years as a Trustee on the Oshawa Public Library Board. He worked as a library administrator in business and public libraries, and as a records management consultant and archivist in southern Canada, the Territories, and the United States.
Grant has had a fond interest in the history of printing. On trips to mainland China, he studied the technique of stone rubbing, which was a precursor to modern printing before the invention of printing type. He examined the early print shop at the Museum at Antwerp, Belgium. He studied printing technologies at Inmont Inks and worked as a printing ink technician in Toronto.
Canoeing
Grant has enjoyed canoeing. While at university, he began taking group trips from Toronto to Algonquin Park and has continued to visit the Park. Over the last two years, he has participated in the Pinesi Paddle, which attracts participants from Algonquin families. These canoe trips replicated the voyageur experience in 32-foot canoes. Pinesi Paddle has covered the stretch of the Ottawa River from Deep River to Oka, near Montreal, and visited such archaeologically significant sites as Oiseau Rock, Morrison Island, and Alymer Island. In late 2022, Grant visited one of the fur trading posts near Quyon, Quebec, paddling across the Ottawa River. Grant spent COVID from 2020 to 2022, on a group canoe trip on the Mackenzie River and solo canoeing along the Liard and Nahanni Rivers. The combined trips covered the stretch of the Liard River from Fort Nelson to Fort Simpson, and from there to Willow Lake River on the Mackenzie River. Some decades earlier, while living in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, he had his first experience canoeing on the Mackenzie River to the main channel.
Also, feel free to check out my publications.
Copyright © 2025 Grant Karcich