Blog & News

Kevin Eastwood and Siren Screen Productions are the recipients of a BCHF Award of Recognition for British Columbia: An Untold History. The award was presented at the federation’s annual conference awards gala online on June 4.

This four-part historical documentary highlights the people, forces and events that shaped British Columbia. The series, which focuses upon under-told and untold histories of marginalized British Columbians, weaves together Indigenous, Asian, Black, and European truths to highlight the past.

The series consulted Elders, authors, histories, families and descendants of historical figures to create a pluralistic and wholistic understanding of topics such as labour and persistence, migration and resilience, nature and coexistence and change and resistance.

The British Columbia Historical Federation announces that Marlin (Marl) Brown of Fort Nelson is a recipient of an Award of Recognition. The award was presented at the federation’s annual conference awards gala online on June 4.

History and Marl Brown went hand in hand. The founder of the Fort Nelson Historical Society in 1977, Marl was a pillar as the first and only curator of the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum until his passing in 2021.

“Marlin [was] the first one at the museum in the morning and the last one to leave at night. The museum, and everything in it is his passion: his life’s work. […] Because of him, the museum will be enjoyed by future generations for many years to come.”

You can watch a short video about him below created by Destination British Columbia.

A story about efforts to rethink a Victoria heritage site’s story has won the Anne and Philip Yandle Best Article Award from the BC Historical Federation. 

Explaning Settlers to Ourselves: Rethinking interpretive narratives at heritage sites by Kelly Black was published in the Spring 2021 edition of British Columbia History magazine. 

Image; Kelly Black

Black is the executive director of Point Ellice House Museum and Gardens in Victoria and an adjunct professor in the department of history at Vancouver Island University.

His article looks at how previous interpretation of the historic site failed to mention owner Peter O’Reilly’s 18 years as Indian Reserve commissioner and focused instead on the romantic aspects of Victorian-era life. In recent years, the non-profit society that cares for Point Ellis House has reassessed and reimagined the site. 

Thirty-five articles published in British Columbia History in 2021 were eligible for the prize, which includes $250 and a certificate. A panel of judges chose the winning article.

One judge called the story “a very readable, well-written, well-argued, eye-opening investigation into how historical sites in BC (and other regions) have omitted open narratives about colonization, and how one site is working to change that.

“It advances big-picture knowledge of BC history by encouraging all of us to think critically about how history is presented to us (or not presented to us), both as historical consumers and historical stewards.”  

“I am grateful to the BCHF and adjudication committee for this recognition,” Black says. “It’s more important than ever to revisit our historical narratives in BC and it was a pleasure to write about this for BC History magazine, a leading source for engagement with the past.” 

The award was announced Saturday at the BCHF’s annual conference, co-hosted by the Victoria Historical Society and held virtually. Black was also a speaker at the conference.

An honorable mention was also presented to Robert Ratcliffe Taylor for his article, Emily Carr, Cartoonist, which appeared in the winter 2021 issue and looked a little-known aspect of the artist’s work and reproduced a number of her editorial cartoons that appeared in a Victoria journal in 1905.

Philip Yandle was the editor, publisher, and distributor of the former BC Historical News from 1968 to 1977 and his wife Anne was also very active in the magazine and was the longtime book review editor.

This year’s recipient of the W. Kaye Lamb $1,000 scholarship from the BCHF is Lydia Kinasewich of UNBC (pictured) for her paper called “From Health Resort to Pleasure Resort: Re-Constructing Harrison Hot Springs as a Tourist Destination, 1920-30.” This was in the third and fourth year category.

Kinasewich says she wanted to examine how health beliefs shaped tourism, “and the attempts to create a pleasure resort at Harrison Hot Spring provided an excellent opportunity to consider how health and tourism converged in early 20th century British Columbia.”

Kinasweich is working on an honors history thesis under the supervision of Dr. Ben Bradley on how food production and distribution was regulated in early-20th century BC, specifically looking at federal and provincial legislation of the province’s dairy industry.

The scholarship announcement was made at the BCHF conference gala on June 4. The W. Kaye Lamb scholarships are presented for student works relating to the history of British Columbia. The work can be on any topic related to the history of BC and must be created by a student for a course taken at a university or college.

The judges decided not to award a prize this year in the first and second year category.

Laila Axén is the inaugural winner of the BCHF Cultural Resource Accessibility Award, presented at the federation’s annual gala on June 4. This award honours excellence in cultural resource management work which aims to help connect British Columbians with their history and comes with a $500 prize.

Axén founded the Swedish Heritage in British Columbia Museum and Archives with “nothing but two empty hands” in 2017. Noticing a lack of archival and museological organizations dedicated specifically to Swedish heritage, she took it upon herself to prevent photographs, objects and cultural materials from being tossed into the landfill.

She started from scratch, recruiting volunteers and board members while locating space for the new organization while purchasing digital cataloguing software, scanners and more to make the holdings publicly available. Today, Axén, now in her 80s, is returning to school to learn about archival practices to ensure ongoing preservation and improved access to British Columbia’s Swedish-related materials into the future.  

The BCHF also presented two honourable mentions in this category.

As more and more initiatives were taken online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vancouver Island Local History Society who operate Point Ellice House Museum, did not shy away from the opportunity to try something new to keep their visitors connected with cultural resources. The society undertook many new projects, including a series of YouTube videos and the transcription of documents related to the O’Reilly family to allow for improved legibility and remote access.

Partnering with graduate students from the Public History program at the University of Victoria, museum staff undertook the digitization and online exhibition of Point Ellice’s calling card collection, providing new resources and biographies for researchers to delve into the social life of the O’Reilly family. The society provided the acceptance video below.

The British Columbia Regional Digitized History project of the University of BC Okanagan and many partner organizations supports digital public access to unique and under-utilized holdings found in collections throughout British Columbian communities.

Originally started five years ago as the Digitized Okanagan History, the project helps “tackle the challenges of digitization on a regional basis across many different repositories” and includes over 43,000 photographs, 22,000 newspaper issues and hundreds of oral histories. Today, 44 partnering organizations across the Okanagan and Kootenay-Columbia areas have joined with plans to expand into the Thompson Nicola region. 

The BCHF has presented its inaugural Advocacy Award to Dr. Albert “Sonny” McHalsie (Naxaxalhts’i) and Dr. Keith Thor Carlson, who are synonymous with Truth and Reconciliation in the Fraser Valley.

The announcement was made at the federation’s annual gala on June 4.

Authors of multiple publications over 30 years, Sonny and Keith work in tandem with Stó:lō communities, Elders and Knowledge Keepers to uncover and share the past about the Peoples and lands of S’óhl Téméxw. Their many publications and teaching resources are valued by scholars, teachers and the public and their work has resulted in the strengthening of resettler/Indigenous relations regionally. 

The BCHF also presented an honorable mention in this category to Tara-Lynn Kozma-Perrin (pictured), a fierce advocate for fulfillment of the recommendations of the TRC and UNDRIP through her continuous work to bring educational opportunities and opportunities for inclusion and connectedness into the City of Abbotsford.

Along with her mother Tery Kozma, Tara-Lynn co-founded the annual Aboriginal Arts and Culture Day, an event which brings Abbotsfordians together to celebrate First Nations, Metis and Inuit culture. A cross-cultural learning and engagement event, the event allows visitors to learn about the past of our Indigenous Peoples, the present and how we can work towards the future together. 

The BC Historical Federation recognized the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre in Burnaby with its first annual Storytelling Award at the federation’s annual gala on June 5.

The award is for the online exhibit Writing Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Protest Letters of the 1940s, which brings together and interprets a significant collection of Japanese Canadian letters written in protest of the dispossession and dispersal of the Japanese Canadian community from the West Coast during the Second World War.

Interspersed with videos and other digital media, the exhibition takes a unique perspective by presenting descendants of original protest letter writers reading letters written by their ancestors, many of whom were unaware of the existence of the letters. The exhibition contains a searchable database of primary source documents in addition to containing diverse voices to share personal perspectives throughout the four-part narrative.

The BCHF also presented an honorable mention in this category.

The Maple Ridge Family History Group of the Maple Ridge Historical Society has worked ceaselessly over the past two years to prepare its new online and travelling community history, On the River: The
Fishing Industry in Maple Ridge.

Produced entirely by volunteer senior researchers who mentored new researchers throughout the development of the project, the history merges teamwork and community spirit with a love of genealogical records, census data, and more, to weave together the evolution of the fishing sector in Maple Ridge between the 1890s and the 1920s.

“Family history is essential storytelling, and the Maple Ridge Family History Group exemplifies the blending of local and family history practice,” the nominator wrote.

A book that links early maritime history, Indigenous land rights, and modern environmental advocacy in the Clayoquot Sound region has won the 2021 Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing, as presented by the British Columbia Historical Federation at its annual conference on Saturday. The award comes with a cash prize of $2,500.

Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey into the Past of Clayoquot Sound is by Barry Gough and published by Harbour Publishing. Centred on Meares Island, near Tofino on Vancouver Island’s west coast, Possessing Meares Island connects 18th century Indigenous-colonial trade relations to more recent historical upheavals and bridges the cap between centuries to describe how the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council drew on a complicated history of ownership to invoke their legal claim to the land and defend it from clear cutting.

Gough is a past president of the BC Historical Federation and won the same award in 1984 for Gunboat Frontier: British Maritime Authority and Northwest Coast Indians, 1846-1890. He becomes the second person, with Richard Sommerset Mackie, to win the award twice.

Second prize, worth $1,500, went to Joseph William McKay: A Metis Business Leader in Colonial British Columbia, by Greg Fraser (Heritage House). The book looks at the accomplishments and contradictions of the man best known as Nanaimo’s founder and one of the most successful Metis men to rise through the ranks of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the late 19th century.

Third prize, worth $500, went to A Journey Back to Nature: A History of Strathcona Provincial Park by Catherine Marie Gilbert (Heritage House). This book looks at the century-long effort to define, access, preserve, develop, and exploit the uniquely beautiful area of rugged wilderness now known as Strathcona Provincial Park on Central Vancouver Island.

The Community History Book Award, worth $500, went to Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin by Marion McKinnon Crook (Heritage House). In this memoir, the author recounts arriving in Williams Lake in 1963 at age 22 to work as a public health nurse, relying on her academic knowledge, common sense, and government-issued Chevy to provide health care to rural communities of the region.

Honorable mentions were presented to Craigdarroch Castle in 21 Treasures, by Moira Dann (TouchWood Editions); Becoming Vancouver: A History, by Daniel Francis (Harbour Publishing); and Pinkerton’s and the Hunt for Simon Gunanoot, by Geoff Mynett (Caitlin Press).

The award recipients were chosen by a three-member panel of judges from 24 books published in 2021 and submitted for the competition.

British Columbia History magazine’s Aimee Greenaway interviewed Dr. Barry Gough, award-winning author of Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey Through the Past of Clayoquot Sound in June 2022. The recording is available on BCHF’s YouTube Channel.

How did the book come to be and who are some of the significant people in Clayoquot Sound’s history? Possessing Meares Island was the winner of the 2022 Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing. The book was published by Harbour Publishing and can be purchased from the publisher, or where books are sold.

By Mark Forsythe

Seeing the tree beneath Its baptism of snow, the twigs
Seem dark, and the bark feels
Cold to your hands, but inside she
Pulses with the urgency of green.

From the 36th Annual Report of the Okanagan Historical Society (1972) written by Donna Lezard of SnPink’tn (Penticton Indian Band) which represents one of the seven communities of the Okanagan Nation

A legacy of storytelling. This year marks the centennial of the British Columbia Historical Federation and we’re excited to salute the work of member organizations like the Okanagan Historical Society (OHS). The OHS has generated thousands of stories about the region’s people, events, and landscapes in 85 Annual Reports—each a book unto itself.

This remarkable tradition began with the Society’s formation in 1925. In the following year, president Leonard Norris noted, “A start at least has been made at the work of drawing aside the veil which hangs over the past history of our valley.”

The Report encompasses three watersheds: Okanagan, Shuswap, and Similkameen. Branches are
rooted in Salmon Arm, Armstrong-Enderby, Vernon, Kelowna, Summerland, Penticton, Oliver-Osoyoos, and Similkameen, with each contributing to the Annual Report. In the early years, road travel in the region was an ordeal, so the publication connected and communicated with members across this vast area. As the province began to open up for travel, the OHS was also keen to share its story with the rest of BC.

Jessie Ann Gamble of Armstrong is a past president of the Society. She says the first priority continues to be publishing Okanagan history. “Our readers like to support the recording of local history and feel the written word has a longer shelf life than Facebook.”

Historian and former O’Keefe Ranch curator Ken Mather is the current editor. “My mission is to assemble the entire gamut of articles, from family histories to scholarly studies. I’ve also tried to include natural history articles; after all, the society started out as the Okanagan Historical and Natural History Society. I am committed to including cultural diversity, from Indigenous People to newcomers.”

Ken is in distinguished company. In 1935 Margaret Ormsby was one year away from her PhD in history when she became editor of the Sixth Annual Report, the first of nine that she guided. Ormsby later authored the definitive British Columbia: A History, was president of the British Columbia Historical Federation for a dozen years, and broke new ground for women at McMaster University and the University of British Columbia. BC’s most famous professional historian felt most at home back in the Okanagan; in retirement, she returned to the family house beside Kalamalka Lake to write more local history.

The Reports have been consistently eclectic over the decades. The Second Report (1927) featured an account of the first marriage at Okanagan Mission, the “Rise and Fall of Rock Creek,” and “Indian Picture Writing.” Leap ahead to the 67th Report (2003) to read about mysterious “airship” sightings reported in 1896, a student essay on mixed marriages, and a lament for rodeo legend Kenny McLean who died sitting on his horse. The page count on this issue clocks in at 244.

Wendy Wickwire, professor emerita in the Department of History at University of Victoria, scoured the Annual Reports for information about Similkameen elder and storyteller Harry Robinson. She eventually published three award-winning volumes of his oral stories. “I consider those Annual Reports to be among BC’s richest archival treasures. There is nothing I have enjoyed more over the years than leafing through the reports, year by year, because each time I’ve done this I’ve found golden nuggets. They offer such rich first-hand accounts of life in the Okanagan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”

Jessie Ann Gamble is proud of their publishing record and scope. “We have always tried to include marginalized groups of any kind, but in recent years the editors have worked hard to include Indigenous stories and writers.”

Editor Ken Mather says this collaboration has a long history. “Most of the early ranchers in the Okanagan/Similkameen married Indigenous wives and, through the 1870s, mixed families were the norm. When the OHS was formed, offspring of these families were involved in the organization and contributed Indigenous content.”

In addition to producing the Annual Report, the OHS branches are fully engaged with other projects:
overseeing the Pandosy Mission lease (Kelowna’s first European settlement); the annual student essay contest; supporting historic trails; a presence in the abandoned gold-rush town of Fairview; and working with the UBC Okanagan campus on digitizing the Annual Reports. The Okanagan is fortunate to have these collaborative and enduring storytellers.

Mark Forsythe travels through BC and back in time, exploring the unique work of British Columbia Historical Federation Members.

Explore this surprising array of Okanagan stories, written by the people who live there at this link: www.okanaganhistoricalsociety.org. Digital copies of back issues are available through UBCO’s British Columbia Regional Digitized History: https://tinyurl.com/yckteuvv