Patricia Sutherland

Patricia Sutherland (born 1948 or 1949) is a Canadian archaeologist, specialising in the Arctic. Much of her recent research has focussed on evidence of a long-time Norse presence on Baffin Island in the 11th to 13th centuries CE and trade between them and the now-extinct Dorset people of the region.

Sutherland holds a PhD from the University of Alberta. She is an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and as of 2012/2013 was also an Adjunct Professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, in St. John's.

Until April 2012, she was also employed at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, now the Canadian Museum of History, most recently as curator of Arctic archaeology. She was the only female archaeologist working there. It has been speculated, including by the CBC programme The Fifth Estate, that she was let go because her research no longer fit with the changed focus of the museum on Canadian history, and some have suggested that the political motivation extends to a fear that her research will undermine Canadian sovereignty claims in the high Arctic. Other speculation points to her having been one of six staff of the museum who wrote a letter objecting on moral grounds to its acquisition of a collection of artefacts taken from the wreck of RMS Empress of Ireland. The museum itself stated in December 2014 that the reason was harassment of former colleagues. When Sutherland was fired, her access to her research materials was cut off and many were dispersed. There have been calls by fellow archaeologists and a petition for her to be allowed to resume her research.

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