We are a small team of talented professionals with a wide range of skills and experience. We love what we do, and we do it with passion. We look forward to working with you.
Gretchen Albers, PhD
Owner/Principal – Cochrane, AB
Dakota Historical Resources is owned and operated by Gretchen Albers. Raised in Bismarck, North Dakota, Gretchen is the granddaughter of German and Czech farmers whose ancestors immigrated to western North Dakota between 1890 and 1910.
An early fascination with both the Indigenous and “settler” histories that surrounded her eventually led Gretchen to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 2003 to 2005. There, she studied the Prairie Provinces of Canada and the Northern Great Plains in the US as a single ecological region, and explored the impacts that drawing national boundaries had on the processes of settler colonization in both countries.
Gretchen eventually moved to Calgary, Alberta, to pursue a PhD in history (University of Calgary, 2012). Her master’s thesis and later doctoral dissertation focused on missionary and Indigenous encounters and residential schooling in Canada and the United States. As well, she holds a certificate in professional editing from Mount Royal University (2014). Gretchen has taught US and Canadian history to university students, and also worked in academic publishing (acquisitions).
From 2009 to 2014, Gretchen was employed by an Aboriginal-owned law firm as a research associate and eventually as the research director. In this role, she researched and wrote background historical narratives and summaries of fact for land and treaty rights claims for First Nations across Canada, facilitated the procurement of expert witness reports and testimony, and managed the evidence production and exchange of historical documents between clients and the Government of Canada.
In 2014, Gretchen founded Dakota Historical Resources, which largely provides expert witness reports and historical narratives for First Nations clients. By 2018, she had expanded to include subcontractors and qualified research associates to assist with research, transcription, and document production.
Her interests include gardening, cross-country skiing, and walking on primarily flat surfaces. She is a prairie person, currently based in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Contact Gretchen at gretchen@dakotahistoricalresources.ca
Want to work with us?
Dakota Historical Resources contracts with experienced historians in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary and elsewhere as required for archival research and document collection.
Dakota Historical Resources 