Blog & News

Grace Eiko Thomson, a museum curator and author who covered the Japanese Canadian experience, passed away at the age of 90 on July 11th, 2024.

Thomson was the founding curator of the Japanese Canadian National Museum, now known as the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby, B.C.

The National Association of Japanese Canadians confirmed in a statement that Thomson died peacefully at her home in Winnipeg.

Read the full tribute to Thomson from the CBC.

Historian Eric Andersen, and Diane Mitchell on behalf of the Átl'ḵa7tsem / Howe Sound Biosphere Region, talk about the past, present and future of this corner of our world. Diane opens Howe Sound’s geological history and concludes with a look into the future, a future dependent on the people who make their home here. Eric talks about the region's history, with a focus on the economic and commercial use which flourished thanks to the unique natural attributes of Átl'ḵa7tsem/Howe Sound.

Watch the full video here.

The Princeton and District Museum and Archives Society has made available a digital version of Susan Allison's book, In-Cow-Mas-Ket. This book, published in 1900, recounts many of the First Nations oral histories that she was told as a young settler in the Similkameen Valley, in her own poetic style.

This volume surfaced during their processing of the massive Rev. Dr. J.C. Goodfellow collection and was dedicated to him by Susan Allison in 1929. The digitization was done in-house by Neal Dangerfield of the Princeton Museum. 

Access In-Cow-Mas-Ket here.

From August 9th to September 20th, 2024, the Nelson Museum will host the touring reproduction of Carey Newman's powerful exhibition, The Witness Blanket.

Seemingly disconnected remnants of clothing, crumbling buildings, and fragmented cultures are woven together into a blanket, designed to shine light on the Indian Residential School system that connects them, and stand as a monument to the resiliency and strength of those who survived them. 

Inspired by a woven blanket, Witness Blanket is a large-scale work of art created by master carver Carey Newman, containing hundreds of items reclaimed from residential schools, churches, government buildings, and traditional and cultural structures from across Canada.  

Visit the Nelson Museum's website here.

Learn more about The Witness Blanket travelling exhibit here.

Retired Vancouver nurses Elizabeth Kirkwood and Kathleen Murphy reminisce about their student nursing days and their careers working in the Heather Pavilion at the Vancouver General Hospital. Both women play an active role in ensuring the preservation of the Heather Pavilion built in 1906 as the first building of the Vancouver General Hospital/

Watch the full video here.

The Okanagan Print Triennial offers visitors a fascinating glimpse into the global printmaking community. This open, juried show is dedicated to showcasing the creative forays made in printmaking across Canada and beyond, at a time when experimentation dominates and traditional practices and processes are challenged. This year, Okanagan Print Triennial will feature such a diversity of style and subject matter that visitors can look forward to leaving the exhibition with a true appreciation of contemporary printmaking.

The Okanagan Print Triennial was initiated in 2009 by Kelowna-based printmaker Briar Craig, and supported by the Kelowna Art Gallery, the Vernon Public Art Gallery, and the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus. The winner of the 2024 Triennial will be given a solo exhibition at the Kelowna Art Gallery in 2027.

The exhibit runs until October 27th. Learn more about the Kelowna Art Gallery here.

"Last week a major heritage site in British Columbia was moments away from being destroyed by a wildfire and was saved by the herculean effort of the B.C. Wildfire Service and site staff, new fire breaks, and a miraculous last-second shift in the winds.

Elsewhere in the province, art galleries and museums in central B.C. are opening their doors for free to evacuees displaced by wildfires in Alberta.

Each day museum, gallery, and heritage workers and volunteers are going to work while waiting to hear if they will be forced to evacuate their sites, homes, and communities.

It has never been a more dangerous time for B.C.’s museums, galleries, and heritage sites — and this danger takes a significant toll on the people who devote their lives to safeguarding our irreplaceable cultural heritage."

Read the full article by Ryan Hunt, Executive Director of the BC Museums Association, here.

Ron Verzuh reviews "A River Captured: The Columbia River Treats and Catastrophic Change" by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes.

Excerpt:

"American-born author Eileen Delehanty Pearkes came to the northern banks of the Columbia in 1985 to do further research into its history. She was partly interested in learning more about the river as a food source for First Nations like the Sinixt or Lakes People that were falsely declared extinct in 1956.

We follow her research much like we might tag along with a traveler exploring new territory. She is a modern-day David Thompson, the explorer who first mapped his way along the river’s 2,000 kilometres to the Pacific Ocean in 1806. Except that she has other goals in mind than finding new trade routes for a rapacious corporation like the North West Company.

Dedicating her book to the river, she writes that she wants “to see for myself how and why the fish no longer spawn in the upper Columbia region.” She also wants to see how the First Nations people who lived next to the river were devastated by its capture."

Read the full review here.

A chief’s seat that has been in the Royal B.C. Museum’s possession for more than a century is being handed back to the ­Heiltsuk Nation near Bella Bella.

Marilyn Slett, a Carpenter descendant and the elected chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, said the seat is the first of Carpenter’s major works to be repatriated. “For this to come home, it’s a ­monumental day for us. It feels like Captain has come home.” “Captain Carpenter was a good leader. He made sure that the people in the Bella Bella were fed,” said Steve Carpenter, Captain Carpenter’s great-grandson.

The seat was reassembled from storage for the occasion, but will be taken apart to travel by truck to Heiltsuk lands in Bella Bella, where a larger celebration is set to take place on July 25.

Read more here.

Resident shipwright, Dave Sharp is now working out of Richmond Boat Builders, a workshop originally built in 1932 by Japanese Canadian boatbuilder Saeji Kishi.

His current project is the repair and maintenance of the Silver Ann - built in 1968-69 by Sadajiro Asari - the last wooden gillnetter to be built in this workshop. Catch Dave in action during weekdays to see his latest project.

Visit their website here.