As part of our ongoing series of blog posts featuring place names in B.C. from the room names in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, today we will take a look at Granby River. Originally referred to as the North Fork of the Kettle River on early B.C. maps, the Granby River meets the Kettle Riverin Grand Forks B.C. and got its name from the Granby Smelting Company which operated on its banks. The owner of the Granby Smelting Company named the company after his hometown in Quebec (see B.C. Geographical Names). The company also expanded into other parts of the province and built a number of “company towns,” as shown by archival material in the Royal B.C. Museum and Archives, the Nanaimo Community Archives, and the Penticton Museum and Archives.

At Rare Books and Special Collections, we have a photo album showing various aspects of the operation of this company in Anyox, B.C., dating from sometime in 1910’s. The photographs show both external and internal views, showing the placement of the plant on the river, the machinery inside, and in some cases employees.

Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company photo

Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company photo

Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company photo

Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company photo

Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company photo

Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company photo

Note that these photographs are not from Granby River, but rather from the company town of Anyox. The Granby company was so influential that the body of water that this plant was on was also named Granby Bay. This photo album is part of our B.C. Historical Photograph Album Collection.  Although the finding aid for this collection is in an older format, the collection is rich with historical views from all of British Columbia.

In the Barber Centre, the Granby River room is a group study room on the 4th floor, facing East Mall. These study rooms are bright and airy, and very popular for group work. They can be booked online.

Group study room in Barber Centre

Group study room in Barber Centre. Photo courtesy of UBC Library (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ubclibrary).

In January we were visited twice by students in ARST 550: Management of audio-visual and non-textual archives from the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies. This class focuses on the management of a variety of types of material, but they came to Rare Books and Special Collections particularly to work with photographic archives.

RBSC collects photographs in a variety of manners: they are often included in fonds or collections with other types of material, or we occasionally acquire them as single items.  As for any type of material, the focus of our photographic archives is mainly British Columbia, but it also spills over into neighbouring provinces or states when the photographs are in the context of a mainly-B.C. collection. We collect photographs in all mediums, from lantern slides to negatives to prints.

The task at hand for the students in ARST550 was to appraise and in some cases accession photographs from our backlog. In all cases, we had very little provenance information or contextualizing data for the students to work with. In short, the photographs were a mystery. They did an excellent job of inspecting the photographs for their physical condition and content, and made recommendations about whether they should be added to our photograph collections.

A couple of interesting discoveries:

  • We located a complete set of negatives from the prints in the B.W.W. MacDougall fonds. Furthermore, we located metadata in the form of index cards which is a match for the negatives. Check out the cool vintage negative envelopes and canisters:
B.W.W. McDougall negatives

B.W.W. McDougall negatives

B.W.W. McDougall negatives

B.W.W. McDougall negatives

  • We found a really charming photograph album originating from a family called the Kidds.  They appear to have been involved with the UBC Players club, and there are also photographs depicting Crescent Beach, mountaineering, and businesses such as Overwaitea Food. The album dates from 1924 to 1926. The photos shown below show a Players Club trip to Britannia Beach.
Kidd family album

Kidd family album

Our thanks to the students for their excellent work, and to Prof. Jessica Bushey for coordinating the visits!

For more information on searching our photograph collections, please consult our Historical Photographs research guide.

In this week’s installment of Rare Books and Special Collection‘s blog series on B.C. place names from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, we’ll take a close look at the Fraser River.

The Fraser River is, not surprisingly, named after the explorer Simon Fraser who fully explored the river in 1808. The longest river in British Columbia (over 2,200 km), it originates in the Rocky Mountains and flows into the Straight of Georgia.

The Frazer River Thermometer

The Frazer River Thermometer

Gold was struck in Fraser River around 1858 which is the origin of our featured document. This broadside entitled The Frazer River Thermometer was published in San Fransisco in 1858 and has humorous  illustrations of miners leaving their lives and families in California to seek gold in British Columbia, describing the area as the “new El Dorado of the North.”  Note the older spelling of “Fraser” with a “z” instead of an “s.” Very few copies of this document are known to exist, but we have one copy on display in the Chung Collection exhibition room, and another which is available upon request in our reading room for closer consultation. Early B.C. history is one of the main focuses of the Chung Collection, along with immigration and settlement, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The exhibition displays highlights from the collection, but the collection is much larger, numbering approximately 25,000 items.

In the Barber Centre, the Fraser River room is part of the facilities of the Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology, on the 2nd floor.

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