E. R. Billings

Born in 1820 near Bytown, now Ottawa, Elkanah Billings is often described as Canada’s first paleontologist. He began his working life as a lawyer, but his fascination with fossils and natural history gradually took over, and by the 1850s he had turned fully toward science.

Billings became the paleontologist for the Geological Survey of Canada, where his study of fossils helped strengthen the young institution’s early work. He also founded and wrote for The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, helping bring scientific ideas to a wider readership.

His legacy reaches beyond his own lifetime. He described important fossils and named several taxa, and he is still remembered as a key early figure in Canadian paleontology.