For more information about the following Friends of the BC Archives events contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970 or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

675 Belleville Street

Join Times-Colonist editor, author and genealogist Dave Obee as he chases one of his B.C. ancestors through time. As he says, "British Columbia's rich history has created much of the human environment and shaped our lives. Archives help genealogists gain a better sense of their family histories, and help everyone develop a deeper understanding of their communities. We share our history, after all -- and the more we know about, the more we appreciate the connections." Dave will be demonstrating that "history is everywhere", and that our own lives are intertwined with our community and its past, whether we realize it or not.

Dave Obee is author of Making the News, published by the Times Colonist in 2008 to mark the 150th anniversary of the newspaper. It is a comprehensive history of Vancouver Island, drawn from old newspapers and archival sources. Dave was born in British Columbia, and his roots here go back to the arrival of his great-great-grandfather from Manitoba in 1890. He has been researching his own family history since 1978, when he took a night course through Camosun College.

Stan Fox has spent a long career in the realm of film and television production. He was director and producer in the film department at CBC Vancouver, Director of the Vancouver Film Festival, Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Film at York University, Toronto, and Director of Adult Programmes at TV Ontario. He has served on numerous film and television festival juries, and is presently an independent media producer in Victoria, BC.

November 2007

"Up-Coast: A Social and Environmental History of British Columbia's North Coast Forest Industry", Dr. Richard A. Rajala will discuss themes from his recent book documenting the troubled history of the forest industry on BC's north coast. The account emphasizes the region's status as a resource hinterland, corporate concentration, and resistance on the part of First Nations, small producers and communities to a pattern of development that has failed to achieve both social and ecological sustainability.

October 2007

Stephen Hume, the Vancouver Sun columnist and heritage writer. A short business meeting will be held, followed by our speaker at 2:30 p.m. This is a free event and open to all.

September 2007

"The Sinking of the Princess Sophia" when in October 1918 the Princess Sophia grounded on Vanderbilt Reef and sank, with the loss of 354 passengers and crew, it was the worst maritime disaster in the history of the Pacific northwest. Yet, because of its timing, at the end of World War I, it attracted little attention then, and is not well known outside British Columbia even now. A study of this disaster reveals some interesting facts about the lives of ordinary Canadians and Americans in the Yukon and Alaska, and about relations between Canada and the United States in the Yukon and Alaska. Morrison's talk will be partly about the Sophia disaster, and partly about the way he and his writing partner, Ken Coates, learned about the episode and researched their book on it. William Morrison holds the degrees B.A. and M.A. (McMaster), PhD (University of Western Ontario), and D. Lit. (Brandon). He has taught at Brandon, Lakehead, Victoria, and Duke Universities, and is currently Professor of History at the University of Northern British Columbia. He lives for part of each year in Ladysmith.

May 2007

"Mungo Martin at the 1939 New York World's Fair: Revising the Beginning of the Revival", in 1939 two monumental poles by the noted Kwakwaka'wakw carver Mungo Martin were displayed outside the Canadian Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. At the time, they were seen by millions of visitors. Since then, however, they have disappeared from view and from memory. They have been completely forgotten by both historians and even Mungo's descendents. Yet they still exist, although in ruined form, in a Boy Scout camp in New Jersey. This talk traces their beginnings, their exhibition and their disappearance, and offers some possible reasons why they have been neglected.

Leslie Dawn teaches art history at the University of Lethbridge. His essay, "Re: Reading Reid and the Revival" recently appeared in the anthology Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Native American Art. His book National Visions National Blindness: Canadian Art and Identities in the 1920s has recently been published through UBC Press.

April 2007

Trans-Atlantic Liners of the Titanic Era", Michael Harrison and George Gibb, who have many years of experience in the shipbuilding industry and are now volunteers at the Maritime Museum, will speak about the design and construction of trans-Atlantic liners of the Titanic-era, including the design features which might have contributed to the catastrophic loss of the Titanic itself. Did the engineering of the ship mean that disaster was inevitable? Find out from our two experts, and then visit Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit at the Museum (tickets sold separately).

George Gibb began his shipbuilding career on the Clyde in Glasgow, and subsequently worked on both Canadian coasts and in Ottawa as a draughtsman, a construction supervisor and a marine surveyor. Michael Harrison was born and raised in Southampton, the port from which the Titanic sailed. He has worked for the British Ship Research Association, the National Research Council and the Canadian Coast Guard.

March 2007

"Sleep On, Dear Son, in a Soldier's Grave", Yvonne Van Ruskenveld, of the Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, will talk about the veterans of the Great War who are commemorated in Ross Bay Cemetery.

Ross Bay Cemetery, established in 1873, contains the graves of many who served during World War I and died here at home, but it also has many inscriptions on family grave markers to sons who died overseas. Yvonne will talk about these different types of memorials and the stories of some of the individuals, such as Lieut. Blayney Scott who earned both the MC and the DFC, Gunner John Wilkinson who was gassed at Passchendaele but returned home to die, and Captain Despard Pemberton, who was shot down in France and is buried there.

February 2007

"CENSORED! UNSUITABLE FOR BRITISH COLUMBIANS!", with these words, the BC Censor of Moving Pictures exercised his authority to control what British Columbians viewed in their movie theatres. Film historian Stan Fox has recently used the records of the Censor, held at the BC Archives, to determine exactly what was "unsuitable" for British Columbians between 1914 and 1963. Stan will be showing clips from the films that were censored, minus the offending film frames (which actually ended up pasted to sheets of paper in GR-0490). It promises to be an amusing and lighthearted look at the evolution of film censorship in British Columbia.

Stan Fox has spent a long career in the realm of film and television production. He was Director and Producer in the Film Department at CBC Vancouver, Director of the Vancouver Film Festival, Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Film at York University, Toronto, and Director of Adult Programmes at TV Ontario. He has served on numerous film and television festival juries, and is presently an independent media producer in Victoria, BC.

January 2007

The Eyes in the Trees:” the North Coast World of Margaret Butcher, Margaret Butcher traveled north to the Haisla Village of Kitamaat in 1916. For the next three years, she taught at the residential school in the village, the Elizabeth Long Memorial Home. In hundreds of letters written over the next three years, Butcher crafted a unique portrait of the complex world on the north coast. This talk, by historian Mary-Ellen Kelm will explore what we see of the north coast communities of the Kitamaat Valley at the end of the second decade of the twentieth century. Butcher’s letters provide us with fascinating glimpses of the Haisla people, the settlers in the Valley, the mission community of the north Pacific coast and, of course, life in a residential school.

Mary-Ellen Kelm is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples of North America in the History Department of Simon Fraser University. Her new book The Letters of Margaret Butcher: Missionary-Imperialism on the North Pacific Coast, began when she discovered Butcher’s letters at the BC Archives. This book builds on Kelm’s interest in medicine, colonialism and First Nations that was at the centre of her first book, Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia.

November 2006

"Old Square Toes: Sir James Douglas, KCB", a talk by historian John Adams on "Old Square Toes", more formally known as Sir James Douglas, the first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia. This will also be a unique opportunity to see the original Commission which was issued to Governor Douglas by the Crown, transported to the Colony by Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, and then read aloud on November 19, 1858, at Fort Langley to mark the official birth of the Colony. The Commission is normally kept in a secure vault, but for Douglas Day will be available for special viewing.

October 2006

"Simon Fraser and Fort St. James", fur trade historian Jamie Morton will be speaking on Simon Fraser and the 200th anniversary of the founding of the first white settlement in British Columbia, Fort St. James. This event will help celebrate the exploits of this remarkable North West Company fur trader, who in 1808 became the first European to travel down the Fraser River, and who leant his name to so many places in our province.

September 2006

"The Land Records of BC", Godfrey D. Archbold, Chief Executive Officer of the Land Title and Survey Authority will speak about the Authority and their work with the archival records in their custody. These include the original survey plans for the province. Walter Meyer Zu Erpen, their contract archivist, will also be on hand to report on the results of the inventory and appraisal of those records. This will also be an opportunity to ask questions about plans for providing public access to these records, which have been the subject of much recent media attention.

For more information about this event contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970 or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. This event is free for Friends of the Archives, $5.00 for non-members, payable at the door. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

March 2006

"The Erotics of Exploration", the exploration of the North West by Europeans will be examined in a new and perhaps challenging light by John Lutz, of the University of Victoria. The literature of European discovery of the Pacific Northwest in particular, and the New World in general, is one of exploration and trade. As rich as this literature is, there has been a blindness to the fact that, for the majority of men on board these ships, the most important kinds of exploration and trade which they engaged in were sexual.. This talk examines the importance of sexual contacts between the crews of explorers/traders and the indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest from the first landing by Captain Cook's ship the Endeavour in 1778, through to the Lewis and Clark expedition's departure in 1806. It highlights the erotic nature of exploration for the men involved, interprets the nature of aboriginal participation in these encounters, and examines the historical importance of these sexual relationships.

John Lutz teaches Canadian and British Columbia History at the University of Victoria where he is an associate professor. He is the author of several articles and a forthcoming book on the impact of the capitalist economy on Aboriginal People. He is keenly interested in exploring the affinities between teaching history and the Internet. He is the cofounder and co-director of the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History project, which takes a series of real life historical mysteries and asks students to solve them by looking at the documentary evidence which has been placed on the Internet. In this way he hopes to intrigue students and make studying history fun as well as educational. He is also involved in the creation of two websites on the history of Victoria: VictoriasVictoria.ca and viHistory.ca

February 2006

"Through the Street: The History of Homelessness in Victoria, BC, 1871 - 1901", drawing on police court, jail, and city council records, and newspaper reports, Lisa Helps will present a talk which uncovers the embodied fates of those who spent time on the streets in Victoria in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Surely we cannot understand people arrested for drunkenness, vagrancy, causing obstructions, and so on, as homeless in a twenty-first century sense. However, there are interesting parallels to be drawn between the desires of late-nineteenth century city builders to create specific kinds of public spaces and the Safe Streets Act recently passed by the provincial government. This talk explores the ways in which Victoria was built in the nineteenth century through the regulation of both the bodies and the actions of people who spent much of their time on the public streets of the city.

Lisa Helps has recently completed an M.A. in History at the University of Victoria entitled, "Bodies and Public City Spaces: Becoming Modern Victoria, British Columbia, 1871-1901" and is currently undertaking a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto which seeks to explore when and how "the vagrant" became "the homeless" over the course of the twentieth century.

January 2006

"Finding Family at the BC Archives", Ann ten Cate, archivist at the BC Archives, will give an illustrated talk about genealogical resources at the BC Archives. She'll be talking about how to use the Archives' website to pinpoint records which will help fill out the branches on your family tree, and solve some of those family mysteries. She will also give the Friends and any other interested genealogists an update on some exciting new family history resources that will soon be available at http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca and at the Archives. Even if you feel you've reached a dead-end with your BC research, Ann may be able to suggest some alternative sources - come with your questions!

Ann has worked at the BC Archives as a Reference Archivist since 1990, and before that was Regional Archivist for the Regional Municipality of Peel. She has also worked for the Archives of the Anglican Church of Canada, and the City of Toronto.

November 2005

"Canadians at War: The Canadian Letters and Images Project", Stephen Davies of Malaspina University College, will give a talk about this ambitious digital archive, which collects original photographs and records relating to the wartime experiences of Canadians, digitizes and transcribes them, and then returns them to their owners. The objective of the Canadian Letters and Images Project is to let Canadians tell their own story in their own words and images by creating a permanent on-line archive which preserves previously unpublished wartime correspondence, photographs, and other personal materials, from the battlefront and from the home front.

This thematic archive can be found at http://www.mala.bc.ca/history/letters/.

October 2005

"A Preview of the BC Almanac Book of Greatest British Columbians",  Mark Forsythe, the long-standing host of CBC Radio One's BC Almanac program, and Greg Dickson, the director of BC Almanac. Both Mark and Greg have many years of experience in the broadcast industry, and have teamed up to write a book about our province's most fascinating people. Divided into such categories as Crusaders and Reformers, Scientists and Innovators, Rogues and Rascals, the book throws new light on well-established names such as David Suzuki, Emily Carr and Terry Fox. Equally intriguing are the "wildcard candidates", including such little known gems as the indomitable over-lander Catherine Schubert and Fightin' Joe Martin, one of BC's shortest-lived premiers. Other highlights include Percy Williams, the unlikely hero of the 1928 Olympics and pretender to the title of BC's greatest athlete; gold rush jack-of-all-trades C.D. Hoy, who overcame racism to leave a photographic legacy; Joseph Leopold of Aldermere, inventor of the egg carton; and Lucille Johnstone, the secretary who rose to CEO in the testosterone-laden towboat industry.

September 2005

"The Cridge Connection: Researching the Early History of the Church of Our Lord", Professor Emeritus Sylvia Van Kirk, who has recently taken early retirement from the University of Toronto after a teaching career of nearly 30 years. She pioneered courses in women's history and aboriginal/non-aboriginal relations and her book Many Tender Ties: The Role of Women in Fur Trade Society in Western Canada 1670-1870 has become a classic in its field. Sylvia's interest in the experience of HBC/native families as they settled in colonial Victoria led her to the Church of Our Lord, and she is now immersed in researching its history and developing heritage programming. She will be speaking about the archival sources she has found, and will offer a guided tour of the Church of Our Lord after her presentation. The church is located at the corner of Humboldt and Blanshard Streets, an easy stroll from the Museum.

May 2005

"Mr. Ireland and Me: Archival Travels in Search of Sea Power", Barry Gough, Professor Emeritus, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, will talk to the Friends and any interested members of the public about his travels as a student, researcher, biographer and historian in search of the connections between and among human societies, with particular reference to Esquimalt, Nootka Sound, Meares Island and the origins of the Canadian Navy. Professor Gough is a well known and award-winning author of numerous books on maritime and Canadian history, and his most recent publication is "Fighting Sail on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay".

April 2005

"This Old House; Fernwood", Jennifer Nell Barr, Executive Director of the Victoria Heritage Foundation, will give an illustrated talk about the homes and builders of Fernwood, and their interrelationships, based on her recent book, which is Volume 4 of the VHF series "This Old House". The VHF funds the restoration and maintenance of designated heritage houses in the City of Victoria. Ms. Barr has worked for the VHF for more than 18 years, and has also worked as a heritage consultant and researcher in Victoria for the past 25 years.

March 2005

"Insanity in British Columbia between 1873 and 1950", Friends and any other interested individuals will be offered a tour of the archives of insanity. Professor Geoff Smith, of the Department of Psychiatry at UBC is also a Research Scientist at Riverview Hospital, and for the past 15 years has researched the causes of schizophrenia. In order to gain more knowledge about how this and other psychiatric diseases have changed over time, Professor Smith has examined the clinical records of virtually every individual in British Columbia who developed a major mental health disorder before 1951. This enormous research project was made possible through the existence of the Essondale patient case files held at the BC Archives. Professor Smith will talk about the value of these records to his research, and will describe how these archival records are contributing to modern medicine.

February 2005

"A Voyage to the North West Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786 to 1789", Captain James Colnett was an early participant in the maritime sea otter trade, and between 1786 and 1789 his two vessel expedition traversed the Northwest Coast from Prince William Sound to Vancouver Island, and wintered on the Hawaiian Islands. He and his crew were the first Europeans to encounter the Tsimshian and the southern Heiltsuk peoples, as well as the first to land on the southern Queen Charlotte Islands. Professor Robert Galois of UBC's Department of Geography has recently published Colnett's journal of this expedition, along with extensive annotations and maps, and in his talk he will address the geopolitical context of the voyage, and the intellectual background that shaped the writing of the journal. This fascinating document offers a new understanding of the early European presence in the Northwest and a glimpse of the Native responses to these developments, and Professor Galois's lecture will be of interest to historians, geographers, and ethnographers of the Northwest Coast.

January 2005

"Vicious Trade: Prostitution in Victoria and Vancouver, 1900 to 1915, Linda Eversole, a free-lance researcher, writer and heritage consultant, will guide us through the seamier side of life in Victoria and Vancouver at the beginning of the last century. In the course of her research into Victoria's notorious Madam Stella Carroll, Linda has tracked the development of prostitution as a business in the Pacific Northwest, spurred principally by the Yukon and Alaska gold rushes. Linda will give us an insight into this "vicious trade" with personal profiles and a collection of largely unpublished archival photographs of Madams, "inmates", habitués, police, politicians and brothels.

"The Green Hill Park Disaster", in March of 1945, Vancouver came unwittingly close to a major disaster, when the Canadian Park Steamship Company freighter SS Green Hill Park caught fire and exploded in the harbour. Her cargo included eight railcar loads of rocket flares and 100 tons of sodium phosphate, and the initial explosion blew windows out throughout the downtown area. Two crewmen and six longshoremen died before the ship was towed out to Siwash Rock near Stanley Park and the fire was eventually extinguished. Leonard McCann, Curator Emeritus of the Vancouver Maritime Museum (and also a member of the Board of the Friends of the BC Archives) will talk about his research into this event, and the true cause of the disaster.

October 2004

"The Pleasures of Archival Research: A Legal Historian's Perspective", Hamar Foster, from the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria, will talk to the Friends about his interest in aboriginal title, and how archival records provide the underpinning for research in this area. Professor Foster is currently working on a book on the campaign for aboriginal title in BC between 1906 and 1928.

May 2004

"Early Original Mapping in BC" by Michael Layland and Bruce Ward of the Map Society of BC.  Over the last ten years, the Map Society of BC has been assembling a data base of all maps and charts showing British Columbia before 1871. The list currently describes over 3,000 maps, held in repositories all over the world, including the BC Archives. It is accessible electronically, and is supported by bibliographical notes and photocopies of each map. Michael and Bruce will talk about the significance of maps as artifacts, the joys of searching for rare maps, and how to use the list. Copies of some of the rarer finds will also be on display .

March 2004

“Songhees Pictorial: First Nations History in Victoria”, the Songhees Reserve was a prominent feature on Victoria’s Inner Harbour for most of the 19th century and played a major role in the development of our provincial capital. Grant Keddie will present a slide show on the history of the reserve, its people and the city that grew up around it. Based on his new book, Songhees Pictorial: A History of the Songhees People as Seen by Outsiders, 1790-1912, Grant will show an impressive selection of archival images, featuring many rarely seen early photographs, and will talk about the archival "excavating" that he did in order to reconstruct the history of this area.

January 2004

Joan McIlmoyl Cleghorn, professional genealogist, spoke to an audience of about 50 in the BC Archives Reference Room about the Norman Morison. As a genealogist and a descendant of four "Norman Morison" passengers, Joan has searched out fascinating details about the passengers, their lives and their impact on the new colony of Vancouver's Island. One hundred and fifty-one years ago, on January 16, 1853, the "Norman Morison" struggled into Esquimalt Harbour after a gruelling 153 day voyage between England and British Columbia. Under the helmsmanship of Captain David Durham Wishart, this was her third voyage for the Hudson's Bay Company to the virgin territory of Vancouver's Island, and she brought with her 152 settlers who had agreed to work for the HBC in exchange for a new life in a new world.

October 2003

The Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the BC Archives was held on Saturday, 25 October. Members wishing to receive a copy of the minutes, please contact Ron Greene, Secretary-Treasurer. A short business meeting was followed by guest speaker, Kathryn Bridge, author and Manager of Access Services, BC Archives. Kathryn gave an illustrated slide talk on the subject of her latest book, pioneering BC mountaineer Phyllis Munday (1894-1991), who was the first woman to ascend Mount Robson (1924). With her husband Don, Munday explored and charted the coastal mountains north of Vancouver, and "discovered" Mount Waddington, which is now recognized as the highest peak wholly in BC. Munday was also involved in the Girl Guides movement for over 50 years. Kathryn's slides were copies of photographs deposited in the BC Archives by the Munday family.

June 2003

Ann ten Cate, access archivist at the BC Archives, presented a genealogy workshop. This workshop provided an overview of the best sources for genealogy at the BC Archives. Twelve participants were shown examples of the rich and varied records held by the Archives, and were given tips for locating them through the BC Archives website.

April 2003

Pauline Rafferty presented her vision of the new Royal British Columbia Museum Corporation to a small number of dedicated Friends. She started with a PowerPoint presentation of the history of the Museum and Archives, effectively using archival photos to illustrate. She explained that with declining government funding and declining numbers of visitors, the new corporation must come up with a new framework to compete with other kinds of educational entertainment. There must be a new way of thinking which includes the Archives and the heritage community. A new Board of Directors will be in place soon with the mandate to raise and invest funds to supplement funding committed from the government for the next five years. Financial success is vital to expanding ideas and providing access to the historical and archival collections to the province as a whole. An estimated $3 to $5 million will have to be raised over and above the $12 million dedicated from the government. The new Museum legislation provides the opportunity for the Archives and the Museum to be more pro-active in collecting from private donors. Professional staff working in the Museum, Archives and Heritage facilities will be integrated to provide updated exhibits and services with a stronger emphasis involving communities outside the Capital Region. A marketing strategy will include presenting smaller, specific exhibits using "treasures" from the Museum and Archives collection to attract return visitors. In the following question and answer period, Ms. Rafferty said the Corporation was looking for marketing ideas for the Archives. Gary Mitchell, Director of the BC Archives, was present to answer questions on the possibility of providing more hours of access to the Archives and of de-accessioning non-government archival material to appropriate repositories throughout the province.

March 2003

Dr. Jean Barman, Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, introduced the Friends gathering to a little known (in Canada) but prolific writer of the early 20th century, Constance Lindsay Skinner (1877-1939). Constance made her living as a writer at a time when few men, much less women, managed the feat. Her capacity to do so in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City drew on the lessons learned from her grandparents. Thomas J. Skinner was one of three 'gentlemen' brought out from England in the early 1850s to manage farms set up around Fort Victoria by a Hudson's Bay Company subsidiary. The Lindsays were owners of Victoria Crockery and Glass Depot on Fort Street. Constance lived most of her adult life in the United States where she worked as a journalist and wrote popular adventure stories for children. Dr. Barman found the papers of Constance Lindsay Skinner in the New York Public Library. These provided a wealth of information for her recently published biography, Constance Lindsay Skinner: Writing on the Frontier (University of Toronto Press). Attendees were offered copies of the book at $50 with a portion of the cost going to the Friends.

February 2003

Terri Hunter, one of the Friends volunteers, has been researching the subject of The Bride Ships for two years, after being asked to write a story on the "Tynemouth" for the Islander section of the Times-Colonist. The story Crinoline Cargo was published in August 2001 but continues to interest both the author and the public. On a Sunday afternoon in February in the BC Archives reference room, Terri told the story of the sixty women who arrived in Victoria in September 1862 aboard the "SS Tynemouth".

The women who were sponsored by the Anglican Church or by the Columbia Immigration Society left London to spend 99 days at sea in less than ideal conditions. Within six weeks of arriving in Victoria, half the women were married or had jobs as governess' or servants. Terri's story told of both successful and happy marriages and of disastrous partnerships: Imagine 60 young women - virtually all were teenagers - brought halfway round the world on the promise of eager swains whose pockets would brim with gold from the Caribou gold rush. All these lads needs was a firm Anglican wife to secure the Empire out there in the wild woods of Caledonia! The first group of girls, on the "Seaman's Bride", jumped ship en masse in San Francisco so the second group on the "Tynemouth" were carefully chosen by the Church and drilled in the womanly arts by their accompanying Reverend, matron and doctor. And they were kept carefully segregated from the other 240 passengers and crew. One of the other passengers was Charles Redfern who was unaware of the women on the voyage they shared to Vancouver Island. He became mayor of Victoria and a kind friend to the girls. The much anticipated arrival saw mobs of lovesick gents jostling for a view of the girls. What was their fate? Some found happiness and riches, some plumbed the depths of despair. Some found fame, some the ordinary life of domestic pleasures.

January 2003

Greg Evans, Executive Director of the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, amused and enlightened an audience of twenty-eight members and non-members with his slide show and talk, Hic...Hic...Hooray: How Canadians Kept Americans Wet During Prohibition. Between 1917 and 1933, moving illegal alcohol between Canadian and American ports became a dangerous but lucrative game for those daring enough to tangle with other smugglers and the various authorities charged with keeping America dry. Vancouver, Victoria and the Gulf Islands acquired a reputation as havens for the boats and the men willing to take the risk involved in smuggling. Slides illustrated the kinds of ships and some of the characters involved in this sometimes deadly activity. Greg also discussed how prohibition led to the establishment of a government-controlled liquor system and the rise of the beer parlour. During the question and answer period, a member of the audience added a personal touch with stories of her husband's great uncle, one of the participants in the illicit trade.

November 2002

The "Archives in Your Attic" event held on 23 November was a great success, with 120 people coming to the Archives with questions about their own archival material. A panel of thirteen experts saw 18th century maps, rare books and photographs, a few artifacts, and were offered several interesting donations. The experts and numerous volunteers from the AABC, the Friends, and the Archives gave generously of their time in a partnership that we hope will be repeated.

September 2002

"Imaginary Landscapes II", with Dennis Duffy. A program of BC government films from the 1940s and 1950s - an audio-visual visit to mid-century British Columbia, through the medium of rarely-seen productions from the collection of the British Columbia Archives. These films are a great window onto how we used to see ourselves - and more importantly, how we wanted others to see us.

January 2002

Behind-the-scenes tour of the BC Archives.

November 2001

"Imaginary Landscapes", Dennis Duffy on the BC Archives film collection.

April 2001

"Money Talks at the BC Archives", Ron Greene, our Secretary Treasurer, gave a fascinating insight into the history of money in this province, laced with many humorous anecdotes and slide illustrations. He prepared a display of the actual artifacts from the BC Archives, and amazed the twenty-odd audience with his great command of facts and details of the history of the coins, tokens and bank notes on display. This talk was originally scheduled for 16 February, but as this was the day winter visited Victoria with some of the white stuff, the talk was canceled, and rescheduled for this day.

March 2001

"Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief, Where Do Your Ancestors Fit"; was conducted by Sandra Gill, member of the Executive of the Friends and professional genealogist, who did an excellent job of introducing the nearly fifty members of the audience to the fascinating hobby of genealogy and family history, and provided many tips on how to start research. There were many questions from the assembled Friends members and non-members after the talk.

November 2000

"One Person Really Can Make a Difference"; a lecture on the Earl Marsh BC Steamship collection, was attended by some fifty interested people, who were treated to a fascinating description of the history of the BC Coast Service of the Canadian Pacific Railways, its vessels and what happened to them. Bob Turner, our speaker, illustrated his talk with many slides of the famous vessels, and various documents from the collection. Mr. Turner captivated his audience with many historical anecdotes and answered questions after the talk. The Earl Marsh collection, consisting of 36 boxes, was bequeathed to the Archives in August 2000 after Earl's death in 1999.

Lectures are sponsored by Friends of the British Columbia Archives. Everyone welcome.