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Dr. Lorne Hammond, retired curator at the Royal British Columbia Museum, takes us on a journey through the Cariboo, following the legends of the packer, “Cataline.”
Cataline (Jean Caux) was one of the most famous packers who ran trains of horses or mules in British Columbia. Pack trains delivered materials required to live and work, and were vital to the building of railways, roads, and telegraph lines. Hammond explains how the pack trains followed trails created by Indigenous peoples and later by fur trading companies, to reach settlements in rugged terrains including Barkerville.
Presented at the BCHF Conference in Williams Lake, May 2025.
Watch the full video here.
Art by Reiko Pleau for "Umami"
From Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre:
"In our 25th anniversary year at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre (NNMCC), we celebrate artists of Japanese ancestry with the Umami: Savouring Artistic Nikkei Identity exhibition from February through September in the Karasawa Gallery.
Just as “Umami” represents the rich and complex layers of flavour in cuisine, this exhibition delves into the depth and richness of nikkei artistic identity. Featuring a diverse range of artists, from emerging to established, including Japanese Canadian Legacies Art fund awardees. From traditional to contemporary art practice, the Umami exhibition shares the rich essence of our Japanese Canadian creative community.
Anchoring the full run of the exhibition is an interactive heritage inspired contemporary multi-media installation by Annie Sumi and Brian Kobayakawa called Kintsugi. Kintsugi is best known as a traditional Japanese technique of mending ceramics with gold. Annie and Brian’s Kintsugi conceptually mends broken and shattered experiences of what it means to be Canadian of Japanese ancestry through original music and spoken word activated by the visitor manually manipulating a Singer sewing machine that survived the era of Japanese Canadian internment and dispossession.
In Part 2, we introduce Molly JF Caldwell, the estate of Yoshiko Hirano, Marlene Howell, Vivien Nishi, and Reiko Pleau. All of the artists investigate Japanese Canadian experience in their own style and media. Caldwell reimagines vintage textiles. Hirano, a long-term resident of Nikkei Home honed her skill in sumi-e. Howell paints for the love of her heritage and sometimes dark history. Nishi honours her father’s internment era experience with manga-like illustrations, and Pleau mines the complex history and connection to her maternal ancestors."
Visit the exhibit's website page here.
Author Eve Lazarus describes the shocking tragedy of the Empress of Ireland, which sank near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in 1914 with the loss of more than thousand lives, and her connections to the story, including her deep-dive research into the victims and survivors from all across Canada.
Watch the full video from the Vancouver Historical Society here.
Marion McKinnon Crook received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Seattle University (although a Canadian from the Fraser Valley) and worked as a public health nurse in the Cariboo until 1986 and in the Fraser Valley until 1989. Those were the days of treacherous roads, severe and dangerous weather and wide-spread populations. Her original nursing district encompassed 3,600 square miles. During her nursing career in the Cariboo, she wrote and published with trade publishers: ten novels for young adult and middle grade readers. She also researched, wrote and published non-fiction around teen problems such as suicide, eating disorders and adoption.
Her memoirs Always on Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching and Rural living and Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin have proven to be popular reads. She is presently working on a biography, Bloomsbury to Barkerville: The Life of Miss Florence Wilson.
Marion presented at the British Columbia Historical Federation's annual conference in Williams Lake, May 3, 2025.
Half of the Museum of Vancouver’s galleries have been closed since September 2024 as HVAC upgrades were implemented in the 1960s-era building. But on June 20, 2025, three new exhibitions will open:
To learn more about each of the new exhibits visit the MOV's website.
Maurice Guibord from the Société historique francophone de la Colombie-Britannique makes a presentation at the annual conference of the British Columbia Historical Federation, May 2, 2025.
In 2019, the SHFCB received a grant from Digital Museums Canada to launch onsite research in the Cariboo and the Okanagan on the history of Francophones who launched ranches in those regions in the 1860s-70s, to hold oral history interviews with the descendants of these families, and to create from the results a bilingual digital exhibition available on the website of DMC, in both official languages.
The eight families that became the focus of the project are, in alphabetical order: Boucherie, Guichon, Isnardy, Lequime, Minnaberriet, Patenaude, Pigeon, and Versepuech. They were not the only Francophones to have established ranches in the B.C. interior, but they stood out in the research, both in their historical presence during those decades but also in the contributions of their descendants in a wide array of fields.
The history of these ranches, it must be stressed, is a history of colonization, of the establishment of businesses and industries, then of villages and towns, on lands appropriated from First Nations. Still, you will see how the Indigenous members of these families found their respective places, then as well as more recently, during their historical journeys. It is indeed from these families that we have been directed to disseminate the facts unearthed during this project.
The presentation includes new and sometimes staggering facts that came to light during the project, where members of mixed ancestry triumphed over a succession of difficult paths.
It's that time of year again, applications are now open for the Terry Reksten Memorial Fund (TRMF)! The Friends of the BC Archives (FBCA) administers the Terry Reksten Memorial Fund, which honours the popular BC historian who passed away in 2001. The Terry Reksten Memorial Fund offers two (2) grants of $2000 each to community archives, historical associations, or museums. The grants are intended to assist in acquiring, preserving, indexing, and/or disseminating archival material relating to BC and its regions. For application information or to learn more about Terry Reksten and her legacy, visit the FBCA Website.
Applications to the TRMF will be accepted until June 17, 2025.
Just over six years since she began speaking her truth full-time, Phyllis Webstad shared her story during her keynote speech for the 2025 BC Historical Federation Conference in Williams Lake.
“Life can be understood backward but must be lived forward,” said Webstad as she spoke about coming to peace with the past.
Webstad presented to about 35 people in the afternoon of the conference’s first full day of events. She shared stories from her childhood and talked about living off the land with her granny before attending residential school.
Read the full article here.
Cheryl was a good friend to many within the BC History of Nursing community. Her enthusiasm for participation, wearing costumes and setting up displays at nursing events was already appreciated. Cheryl was a true, thoughtful, kind friend and advocate for Nursing.
Cheryl entered Regina General Hospital School of Nursing and graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1965. Following graduation, she accepted a staff position at Riverview General Hospital in Calgary. Cheryl moved to Vancouver in 1978 to take up a faculty position at the University of British Columbia. During her UBC years she was a Lecturer, Clinical Instructor and Director of the Learning Resource Centre. Cheryl completed her Masters Degree in Education in 1984. Following graduate studies she was rehired to UBC faculty, serving in various management positions. In the final years of her distinguished teaching career, she was appointed Director of the Post RN Program. She retired in 2009.
Cheryl’s professional involvement included executive positions with the British Columbia History of Nursing Society (BCHNS) and with the Canadian Association for University Schools of Nursing (CAUSN). She made valuable contributions to these organizations and planning of national conferences. Cheryl was largely responsible for the presentation of the opera Florence Nightingale, The Lady with the Lamp in 2006 and coordinated the joint presentation between BCHNS and The Canadian Association for the History of Nursing to an international gathering of nurses from around the world. Cheryl was also involved and contributed to the National Organization of Nurse Educators, the Distance Education Organization, and the Nursing Laboratory Educators. Many nursing colleagues and students have benefited from Cheryl’s deep commitment to professional nursing.
The BCHF extends its heartfelt condolences to Cheryl's friends, family, and the many people who mourn her passing.
This year, Belair Insurance Company Inc. (“belairdirect”) is pleased to offer 50 scholarships worth $1000. To apply, the student must be:
Applications are due by July 15th, 2025. For more information, and how to apply, please download this PDF.
British Columbia Historical FederationPO Box 448, Fort Langley, BC, Canada, V1M 2R7Information: info@bchistory.ca
The Secretariat of the BCHF is located on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish speaking Peoples.
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