BCHF president Rosa Flinton-Brown (pictured) presented a speech at the awards dinner at the annual conference in Williams Lake on May 5. 

Rosa's recent remarks reflect her understanding of the critical nature of our work, the current threats to the historical record and how we can support each other in it.  An excerpt is below.

Rosa will remain with the BCHF in her role as past president/treasurer for the next three years. She is very excited to support Sarah Ling, an excellent historian and experienced leader, as she takes over the presidency of the BCHF.

While I am not a historian myself, my involvement in this organization has deepened my appreciation for the members of the BCHF. Public historians are the architects of our social fabric. The work you do transcends academic interest—it weaves together the disparate threads of individual lives, community experiences, and cultural traditions. When you recover forgotten voices and overlooked narratives, you help create a more complete understanding of who we are as a society. In an era of fragmentation and division, this work of connection and contextualization has never been more essential.

As we learn more about what has been happening across the border over the last 100 days, we are reminded, once again, of a very sobering reality.  We must confront an uncomfortable truth: history is fragile. It can be lost, altered, or deliberately erased. We have witnessed this in our own province, where certain narratives—particularly those of Indigenous peoples—were systematically suppressed by government policies. The residential school records that disappeared. The documents regarding the Chinese Exclusion Act that are just now becoming available for the first time. The countless women's stories never deemed worthy of official record.

These are not just gaps in our archival collections; they are wounds in our collective memory. They remind us that history is never neutral—it reflects power structures and priorities. Current events underscore the ethical responsibility that comes with this work. When we preserve the past, we are making a statement about what deserves to be remembered.

Archives and record-keeping are acts of resistance as much as they are acts of preservation. The digital revolution has transformed our field in ways that expand our reach and capabilities, allowing us to safeguard deteriorating materials and make collections accessible beyond physical walls. But these advances also create new vulnerabilities—digital decay, format obsolescence, the overwhelming volume of information being created daily. Meeting these challenges requires not just technological solutions but institutional commitment and public support. 

And now a terrifying new challenge, that a government can choose to erase large swaths of these digital archives with relative ease. How do we, as a historical community, speak out and act to avoid the mistakes of the past?  How do we build meaningful relationships across borders to allow for a replication of records, a duplication of archives to ensure that the historical record cannot be “disappeared”?

Throughout this weekend, we have experienced together that peculiar mixture of sadness and revelation that comes with uncovering difficult histories. There is genuine grief in confronting the violence and exclusion that mar our provincial story.

Yet there is something profoundly healing in this work. When you recover silenced voices and forgotten experiences, you open the possibility of a more honest reckoning with who we have been—and who we might become. There is redemption in truth-telling, even when the truths are painful. There is dignity in remembering, even when the memories are difficult.

This tension between sorrow and enlightenment is at the heart of what historians and storykeepers do. You dwell in this space not because you enjoy discomfort, but because you believe that a society can only move forward when it has fully acknowledged where it has been.

Tonight, as we celebrate achievements in your field, let's also celebrate each other and the community you've built together. In a profession that often involves solitary hours in archives or behind computer screens, you sustain each other. As we enjoy this evening and the year ahead, let's continue supporting one another in this vital work. Let's share our successes, learn from each other's approaches, and remember that while our individual projects matter tremendously, it's our combined effort that truly preserves the fullness of British Columbia's story.

Thank you all—not just for being here tonight, but for the work you do every day to ensure that our history endures in all its complexity, challenge, and wonder.