My current research interests lie in the archaeology of homesteading in western Canada with specific focus on the adaptation of immigrant groups to the social and economic environmental there.  For example, I am interested in the ways by which people on isolated farmsteads overcame distances by the maintenance of ties with their community and the wider commercial world.  Aspects of household archaeology, gender and consumption studies all play a role in this research.  My interests in early Western Canadian settlement have also included such site types as an 1870s Metis wintering village site and various Anglo-Canadian settlement sites dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Outside of settlement, I have done extensive historical and archaeological research into the late fur trade (i.e. the buffalo robe trade) on the northern plains but also maintain an interest in the earlier fur trade, especially through the work of my graduate students.