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Have you come to visit us at the Chung Collection lately? If you have, you will have noticed one of our new additions- a model locomotive, built by a former CPR Engineer as a retirement hobby project and given to Dr. Chung several years ago:

We think it’s pretty neat! We have had great feedback from visitors already. It’s a very nice companion to the model Empress of Asia steamship, which has long been the “centrepiece” of the exhibition.

This new addition to the collection got me to thinking about CPR locomotives, and how photographs from the Chung Collection can really be used to show the evolution of train locomotives over time. Take our new model in contrast, for example, to this photograph from ca. 1890:

What a difference! The model is of a K1a-class locomotive, which were in use from around 1930-1950’s. If you know what kind of locomotive is depicted in this photograph we’d love to hear from you- leave a comment, or email us at chung.collection@ubc.ca

To search for more images of locomotives, search for “locomotive” under Photographic Material, or more broadly for “train.”

Gung hay fat choy! Chinese New Year is on February 10, which will mark the beginning of the Year of the Snake. To celebrate, we thought we’d use our monthly featured photograph blog post to find some snakes in the Chung Collection.

The Chung Collection actually holds several photographs of snakes- why would that be? It’s because travellers aboard CPR cruises around the world sometimes took photographs or bought postcards of snake charmers in exotic locales along their journey, such as this photograph from Trinidad:

And this photograph from Mumbai:

Although people born in the year of the snake are thought to be careful, independent and charismatic, we know that snakes the reptilian creatures are not everyone’s favorite. For those who suffer from ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), the Chung Collection has a photograph for you too:

This snake is a hedge of flowers, taken in Vancouver in 1921. Phew! That’s better!

To search for snakes, or any other animal in the Chinese zodiac, use your keyword in an advanced search and specify “photographic material” as the media type. You can also see our Chinese zodiac round-up from 2011. Happy year of the snake and happy searching!

If you are in the Vancouver area, be sure to check out the Chinese Benevolent Association’s annual parade and the Year of the Snake Temple Fair at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Classical Garden on February 17.

It’s that time of year in Vancouver when we’re all longing for the rain and mist to lift so we can see the beautiful, snowy North Shore mountains. While we wait, you can gaze upon this photograph instead:

In this turn-of-the-century photo, a group of unidentified hikers enjoys a snowy hike on a mountain. How do we know it’s a mountain? There are a number of photographs in the collection (found in Box 55) of the same group showing them ascending the mountain on their hike. There unfortunately is not any accompanying information with the photographs, so we do not know the exact location- but they could very well be on the North Shore given the scenery.

To see all the photos of these folks, a keyword search for “men and women on a mountain” will find them all. To find more photos of mountains, search for the keyword “mountain” with “photographic material” as the type.

Congratulations to Bowen Zhang who recently won the Jack Webster award for Best Reporting- Chinese Language for his piece “Heroes of Chinatown,” which aired on OMNI news! “Heroes of Chinatown” is about the soccer teams of the 1930’s and 40’s in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Bowen came to the Chung Collection and did some of the filming in the Chung Collection exhibition, and featured a number of Chung Collection photographs in the documentary piece. We have a copy of the DVD of the piece in both English and Mandarin for use by researchers at Rare Books and Special Collections.

To see photographs of the soccer teams in the Chung Collection, you can search for photos and the keywords “football” or “soccer.”