This post is part of a series which uses the room names in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre to explore places in B.C. and the collections at Rare Books and Special Collections. Our featured place for this post is Ucluelet, located on the west coast of Vancouver Island.  Ucluelet is located on the edge of Barkley Sound and is known for being at the southern end of beautiful Long Beach, which is in between there and Tofino. The Ucluelet area is home to the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ First Nation.

The resource from our collections we would like to feature from Ucluelet is a pamphlet describing land available for preemption in 1914:

Land for pre-emption on Ucluelet Peninsula, 1914

This pamphlet was issued by the B.C. Minister of Lands (William R. Ross) and describes the geography, climate and settlers of the Ucluelet Peninsula. It explains that 40-acre lots would become available for preemption on June 15, 1914 and also provides a map of the lots available:

Sketch plan, Ucluelet lands

As explained by the B.C. Archives, the preemption of lands was allowed so that individuals and corporations could acquire crown land, with the idea that they would cultivate it or otherwise “improve” it. This was in practice from 1859 until 1970 in B.C.  The B.C. Archives link above describes how to search for a preemption record; they are now often used as genealogical sources. You can search an online database by name, district, date and other parameters. For example, you could search for lands granted in the Clayoquot District (which would include the lots described in this pamphlet in Ucluelet) from June 15 1914 till the end of that year to get a sense of how many of these lots were preempted, and to whom.

This pamphlet is part of our SPAM (Special Collections Pamphlet collection) and can be found by searching in the Library Catalogue. For information on this collection and other ephemera in our collections, check out our Ephemera Research Guide.

In the Barber Centre, the Ucluelet Room is room 158, a classroom on the first floor.

We were shocked and saddened this week to learn of the cancellation of the National Archival Development Program. This is in addition to a major round of cuts at Library and Archives Canada, which was the funding source of the program.

The funding is used by the Archives Association of British Columbia, as it is in other provinces and territories by their respective archival organizations, to maintain our provincial database of archival holdings, MemoryBC,  and to employ a professional archivist and a professional conservator to provide advice to archival institutions and archivists when needed.  It also provides professional development opportunities for archivists, so that we can continue to learn to serve our patrons and our collections better. UBC Rare Books and Special Collections has very frequently taken advantage of these opportunities; for example, this program was used to help develop a preservation plan for the Chung Collection, a declared national treasure and one of our most frequently used collections.

This same pot of funds was used to maintain the national archival database, Archives Canada. This database brings together archival descriptions from institutions across Canada. There is no other “one stop shop” for searching archives across the country, making this and provincial/territorial equivalents like MemoryBC absolutely crucial research tools for everybody who uses archives.   In our reference and teaching activities here at RBSC, we are constantly referring researchers to these resources.

Images of Jack Shadbolt mural, preserved and catalogued using NADP funds

The other arm of this funding was used to provide matching grants to archival institutions to preserve, catalogue and disseminate our archival collections. In recent years, this funding was used by Rare Books and Special Collections to catalogue and make available the Mike Apsey fonds, the Council of Forest Industries fonds, and the  Red Cedar Shingle and Handsplit Shake Bureau fonds (all in our recently created Forest History research guide); the Jack and Doris Shadbolt fonds (featured in our British Columbian Art and Artists research guide); and the Rosemary Brown fonds (the archives of the first black female member of a Canadian parliamentary body). Just from these examples, it is easy to see that this funding is crucial in helping the Canadian public gain access to records ranging from industry, to politics, to the environment, to the arts.

Advertisement from the Red Cedar and Handsplit Shake Bureau fonds, preserved and catalogued using NADP funds

The National Archival Development Program was administered by the Canadian Council of Archives.  If you would like to learn more, there is a Call to Action on their website.

One of our collection’s areas of strength is the history of the forestry industry in B.C. We’re therefore happy to present a new research guide on Forestry History and Archives. Here you will find links to archival collections at Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives about foresters and the forestry industry, information on photographic collections, theses and dissertations, and historical associations.

Felling of a BC Fir Tree, from the Capilano Timber photo collection

We are very happy to have this subject guide linked from both Rare Books and Special Collections list of guides as well as from our colleagues in the Life Sciences libraries.  Thank you to RBSC student assistant Laura Hébert for her great work on this guide!

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day, a good day to highlight some of the archives of extraordinary women held at Rare Books and Special Collections:

Rosemary Brown was a social worker and politician with the New Democratic Party. She was also an instructor of Women’s Studies at SFU, a CEO for MATCH International, and Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Her archives contains correspondence, speeches, lecture material and other documentation.

Claire Culhane was the founder and a vocal member of a Vancouver-based prisoner rights group in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Her archives contains correspondence and other documentation related to her advocacy work. (correspondence with prisoners is subject to use with a research agreement; contact the archivist for more information).

Lille d’Easum was active in the anti-nuclear movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s and was an executive member of both the B.C. Voice of Women and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament.  Her archives includes documentation concerning nuclear power plants, uranium mining, nuclear terrorism, disarmament and the international peace movement.

Mildred Fahrni was involved in the 1940’s with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and subsequently was active as a public speaker addressing issues of war, poverty, non-violence, and social change.  Her archives reflect this work as well as her work in international development into the 1970’s and 80’s.

Irene Howard is a well-known literary figure in B.C., having contributed a number of works to the literature of the province, including the recent Gold Dust on his shirt: the true story of an immigrant mining family. Her archives includes manuscripts and other documents related to her work as well as audio tapes of oral histories completed for her research.

Grace MacInnis was heavily involved both personally and professionally in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party (precursor to the NDP). Her interests included poverty, housing, and the status of women. Her archival collection contains both personal and professional documentation, including correspondence, diaries, notebooks and photographs.

Hilda Thomas was a community activist and politician with the provincial and federal New Democratic Party. She was particularly active with the Women’s Rights Committee provincially, and the Participation of Women Committee federally. Her archives contains extensive documentation on her political and activism activities.

These are just a few examples of the extraordinary women who we are proud to be the home of their archives.  You’ll also find the archival material of a number of women’s organizations, such as the Vancouver Council of Women, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Vancouver Women in Focus and the Vancouver Status of Women.

If you’re interested in learning more about using archival material for your research, check out our Archival Research Guide, and for more help with women’s studies research particularly, check out the Humanities and Social Science’s Women’s Studies Research guide.

Those who have used Rare Books and Special Collections comic book collections may be interested in trying out a new database that UBC Library is trialing: Underground and independent comics, comix and graphic novels is “the first ever scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels. Beginning with the first underground comix from the 1960’s to the works of modern sequential artists, this collection will contain more than 75,000 pages of comics and graphic novels, along with 25,000 pages of interviews, criticism, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this artform.”

Rare Books and Special Collections collects comic books by several Vancouver-based comic book artists- you can access a list of these collections on our Ephemera Research Guide. If Vancouver comics are your thing, you can search the Underground and Independent Comics database for comics published in Vancouver, which will yield comics from two series: Fog City Comics and Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman.

After you check out the database, be sure to fill out the feedback form! The trial runs until March 16.

As previously mentioned in our blog posts on British Columbia place names, many rooms in the Irving K Barber Learning Centre are named after rivers in British Columbia.

This week, we are exploring the history of the Nicola River, after which room 322, a group study room, is named after. According to BC Geographical Names , the Nicola River, one of the major tributaries of the Thompson River, was named after a Nlaka’pamux (Thompson River Salish) chief named Hwistesmexe’quen, or “walking grizzly bear.” According to the third edition of British Columbia Place Names, Hwistesmexe’quen (1785?-1865) was recognized by the fur traders as “the most powerful and influential chief in the Southern Interior of British Columbia” (pg. 190). The French-speaking fur traders nicknamed him “Nicolas” which Hwistesmexe’quen’s people pronounced “Nicolas” first as Nkwala, and eventually as Nicola.

Located in the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, the Nicola River was first mapped by Alexander Caulfield Anderson (1814-1884), on his manuscript map of 1849. On the map, the Nicola Lake and Nicola River are shown as “Lac de Nicolas” and “R.Nicolas.” The British Columbia (B.C.) Archives holds a copy of this map, in the archives of Anderson, a Hudson’s Bay Company fur trader. Many unique items, such as Anderson’s manuscript map, are held by the B.C. Archives. The B.C. Archives is an important place to visit if you are planning on doing research into the history of British Columbia; since 1894, the archivists in the BC Archives have collected and provided access to the records of the Provincial government. In addition to visiting the Archives, you may wish to plan a visit to the Research Library, which holds over 70,000 rare and unique items documenting the exploration and development of British Columbia.

If you are interested in learning more about Anderson, and his mapping of the province, including the area that that the Nicola River runs through, you may wish to attend the next meeting of the Historical Map Society of British Columbia. On February 6, 2012, Nancy Maguerite Anderson, the great-grandaughter of A.C. Anderson, will be speaking about her book, The Pathfinder: A.C Anderson’s Journeys in the West (Heritage House Publishers, 2011). The Historical Map Society of British Columbia meets at 7:00 p.m. in the Chilcotin Board Room (room 256), in the Irving K Barber Learning Centre.

Nancy’s blog, Fur Trade Family History, is a rich resource of information relating to the history of British Columbia. For example, see her entry on the mapping of the Nicola River and Valley; in addition to providing an overview of Anderson’s mapping of the area, she provides many photographs of the Nicola Valley today.  

In this installation of our blog series exploring B.C. places from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre rooms, we will explore the village of McBride, or in this case, its namesake. McBride is located in the Cariboo, between Prince George and Valmount, very close to the Albertan border.  Settled during the construction of the Grand Pacific Trunk Railway in 1913, it is named for Sir Richard McBride, who was the premier of B.C. from 1903-1915. The railway was one of McBride’s major platforms, along with the establishment of a provincial university, which would become UBC.

Suppose you wanted to find pieces of correspondence to and from McBride in our collections here at Rare Books and Special Collections. This is a great example of how more than one method of searching is sometimes necessary.

Finding aids for our archival collections can be found on our website, and through a simple Google search for “McBride,” a number of results will appear, some of which are for the McBride in question, others not. One result is the Frederic Howay fonds, which lists letters from Richard McBride in Box 4 file 18:

Letter from Richard McBride to Frederic Howay, Box 4 file 18 Frederic Howay fonds (click to see larger)

There are six letters from McBride to Howay (a judge, author, and collector of British Columbiana whose book collection is one of the founding collections at Rare Books and Special Collections). Among them is this letter in which McBride invites Howay to send his manuscript about the Royal Engineers for publication by the government.  That manuscript presumably became this printed pamphlet.

Another method of searching will find items from our vertical file collection, which was featured in our post about Oliver. Vertical files are found in the library catalogue. By searching for items in Rare Books and Special Collections as the location and Richard McBride as your keywords, you will find a number of published items related to McBride such as speeches, and also this letter from Wilfred Laurier to McBride:

Letter from Wilfred Laurier to Richard McBride, Vertical File #444 (click to see larger)

In it, Laurier refers to land transactions being made between First Nations groups and the government for the construction of the Grand Trunk Railroad.

Do these two search methods guarantee that you will find all archival documents related to Richard McBride? Unfortunately not. The nature of archival description is that it tends to describe groups of records, not individual items- if archivists catalogued every document individually, we would be hopelessly behind in our work! When using archives for your research, you sometimes have to think a little more creatively- who would have Richard McBride been corresponding with, and about what? This helps you choose appropriate keywords for your searches. For more resources on using archival material, check out our Archival Material research guide.

In the Barber Centre, the McBride Meeting room is room 265, which is one of the meeting rooms on the south side of the building, off of the Ike’s Cafe eating area.

If you have been to Google today, it may have come to your attention that today is the 224th anniversary of the birth of Louis Daguerre, inventor of the first permanent photographic process, called a daguerreotype.  Daguerreotypes were used from around 1839 to 1860, and differ in many ways from later photographic types: the process created a direct positive on a silvered copper plate. The result is a somewhat mirrored image, that because of its fragility, would have often been stored in a decorative case, behind a piece of glass. Because the image was transferred directly as a positive (meaning, there is no negative) it was not possible to make copies of the same image- every daguerreotype in existence is completely unique.

A search in our B.C. Historical Photograph Collection yields one lone example of a daguerreotype, a portrait of an unidentified man:

BC1933, Portrait of a man

You can see that his rosy cheeks have been hand-painted on. Like many daguerreotypes, this one is in a decorative case:

Decorative daguerreotype case

For more daguerreotypes:

Library of Congress daguerreotype collection

Daguerreotypes at Harvard University

Search for daguerreotypes at Library and Archives Canada

See the process at the Getty Museum

and just for fun:

CBC wants you to send in your daguerreotype-style photos

My Daguerreotype Boyfriend (full disclosure- they aren’t all daguerreotypes)

For information on searching photograph collections at UBC, check out our Historical Photographs research guide.

There is still room to register for the Rare Books and Special Collections workshop for graduate students on archival research skills on Friday Oct. 21 at noon-2 pm.  Designed for beginners, this workshop will cover the basics of archival research and organization, and finish with some hands-on examples from the collections at UBC Library. This workshop will be held in the Rare Books and Special Collections division of the library, Room 110 in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

Please note that participants will be asked to leave their coats and bags in lockers when they arrive; notepads and pencils are provided, or feel free to bring a laptop.

This is a great opportunity for new grads, or those who have been to Rare Books and Special Collections or other archives in the past but would like a refresher.

Click here to register.

Rare Books and Special Collections is hosting a workshop for graduate students on archival research skills on Friday Oct. 21 at noon-2 pm.  Designed for beginners, this workshop will cover the basics of archival research and organization, and finish with some hands-on examples from the collections at UBC Library. This workshop will be held in the Rare Books and Special Collections division of the library, Room 110 in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

Please note that participants will be asked to leave their coats and bags in lockers when they arrive; notepads and pencils are provided, or feel free to bring a laptop.

This is a great opportunity for new grads, or those who have been to Rare Books and Special Collections or other archives in the past but would like a refresher.

Click here to register.