Collections

Featured place: Stewart

Our featured place this week is Stewart B.C., which is a border town near the end of the Portland canal and the border of Alaska. Forestry and mining are the two main industries of the area, mining being what prompted white settlers to the area in 1898.  The Nisga’a First Nation called the Stewart area […]

Featured room: Mackenzie Seminar room

This week, our featured room in the Irving K Barber Learning Centre, is the Mackenzie Seminar Room, room 112, located in Rare Books and Special Collections. The Mackenzie seminar room is a bit different from the other rooms in that it is not named after a place, but an explorer: Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Sir Alexander […]

Featured place: Oliver

In our ongoing blog series about B.C. places used as room names in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, this week we are featuring the town of Oliver. Oliver describes itself as the “wine capital of Canada” and is located in the south end of the Okanagan Valley. Oliver is named after the 19th premier […]

Featured room: Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung room

Regarding history, Wallace Chung believes it is important to forgive, but not forget. His collection of rare items based on the Chinese experience in North America helps to keep memories of Chinese history alive, illustrating moments of historical happiness without neglecting to represent the struggles. Divided into three major themes of discovery, immigration and settlement, […]

Featured place: Atlin

Our featured B.C. place for this week is the northern most place we have featured yet: Atlin. The town of Atlin and Atlin Lake are located along Highway 7, not too far south of the border with Yukon. Atlin likes to be called “Switzerland of the North” because of its wintertime beauty and activities. The […]

Featured place: Muskwa River

Interestingly, many of the group study rooms in the Irving K Barber Learning Centre are named after rivers in British Columbia. Room 416, a group study room on the fourth floor of the Barber Centre, is named after the Muskwa River, a river that runs 257 kilometres through northern British Columbia. The Muskwa River, a […]

Archival conundrum: unopened mail

We recently had our friends from Chinese Canadian Stories (CCS) join us to host high school students from Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School for a tour of the Chung Collection and a Mandarin language lesson.  Afterward, the researchers from CCS mentioned they had found an unopened letter in the Wah Shun Company fonds– could we […]