Christopher Zaste 1988–2024

Colleague, friend, scholar. It is difficult to put into words the profound loss for the archival community of Chris Zaste’s passing in February 2024. The hurt is greater because we never had the chance to say goodbye. Chris was raised in Winnipeg, and he embodied his family’s ethos of modesty, hard work, and good humour. On his last day of work as a digital archivist at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba, he had his colleagues laughing at a story about his father taking him to a local outdoor rock concert and being shocked at the kind of cigarettes being passed around. In 2012, Chris entered the archival studies graduate program at the University of Manitoba, where he attended classes taught by professors Tom Nesmith and Greg Bak, who was also his thesis adviser. Nesmith and Bak both remember Chris as a strong and enthusiastic student. Chris served his internship at the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives at the Archives of Manitoba. Like those at his other workplaces, his provincial archives colleagues describe him as “incredibly productive” in both processing and describing records. It was here that Chris encountered archival records of Indigenous provenance. As Provincial Archivist Scott Goodine remembers, “He brought a real energy and curiosity to his work and was a positive, bright, and supportive person. Chris was a valued colleague, and his contributions to the Archives will be lasting and significant.” Through this internship combined with his volunteer work at several local community archives and the Association for Manitoba Archives, Chris was developing a highly respected reputation across Manitoba archives. Tom Nesmith remembers Chris’s deep interest in history and archival matters. He recalls Chris’s ability to effectively bring archival theory and practice into the digital world. Greg Bak has similar memories. One of the most powerful memories Greg Bak holds of Chris relates to his interest in the relationship between the digital and the human: Classmate Natalie Vielfaure, now digital curation archivist at the University of Manitoba, recalls that even amid the intensity of their first year of archival studies, “I can’t recall a time where he seemed stressed or frustrated. He always seemed to go with the flow, come into the archives and leave it every day with a chill attitude and approach everything with a positive and flexible attitude.” Chris wrote his master’s thesis on digital preservation, after implementing Archivematica at a local community archives. His highly regarded thesis, “Another Bit Bytes the Dust: The Technological and Human Challenges of Digital Preservation,” was a good prologue to his work preserving the statements of residential school Survivors at the NCTR. By the time he graduated, Chris was known around the Winnipeg archival community as a kind, earnest, and accomplished digital archivist, well respected at the several archives where he had worked or volunteered. As head of archives at NCTR, I worked closely with Chris for the last six years, and my memories of him are filled with humanity, kindness, and intelligence. I met Chris during the interview to hire a full-time digital archivist at the NCTR in 2018. Chris came highly recommended by Greg Bak, his thesis raised my expectations for the interview, and he did not disappoint. He arrived meticulously well prepared, and this quality became part of his reputation at the NCTR. During the interview, which was a revealing discussion about the value of open-source archival solutions, Chris demonstrated his ability to avoid dogma, consider all possibilities, and deliver criticism without condescension. It is difficult to read the final line of my recommendation to hire Chris: …