Blog & News

Aimee Greenaway, who joined the British Columbia History magazine team as Books Editor in 2018, is excited to move into the Managing Editor role with support from the amazing K. Jane Watt.

Aimee is a sixth generation Nanaimo resident and grew up in the former coal mining town of Extension.

Her passion for local history was sparked by her own genealogy research, and BC history courses at Vancouver Island University (graduated in 2002 with a Bachelors of Arts in History and a Bachelor of Education). She worked at the BC Forest Discovery Centre from 2006-2011 and wrote a column on logging history in the Cowichan Valley Citizen. Aimee has worked at the Nanaimo Museum since 2011, and is the curator.

Aimee lives on a farm, and when she's not thinking about history she is usually playing the harp.

The 2024 intake period for the Heritage Legacy Fund opens on Friday, March 8. Heritage BC is now accepting eligibility checks for all potential projects and programs.

The Heritage Legacy Fund supports a financial assistance program for heritage awareness, heritage conservation, and heritage planning. Program funds are used for community initiatives that conserve and increase the understanding and appreciation of heritage resources. Heritage resources may include existing heritage buildings, structures, sites, cemeteries, districts, cultural landscapes, or intangible heritage such as language and customs.

The Heritage Legacy Fund also supports Indigenous Partnership projects. Program funds will be used to support communities and heritage organizations in working towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples through collaboration.

For detailed guidelines and eligibility requirements for the 2024 cycle, please visit our website and review the information available. Visit https://heritagebc.ca/funding/heritage-legacy-fund/

For questions about the grant ready or to start your eligibility check, reach out to Imogen Goldie at igoldie@heritagebc.ca

Image of the Gibsons Landing Heritage Playhouse by Rik Jespersen

The BC Black History Awareness Society is marking its 30th anniversary with Black History Month events in Greater Victoria. Among other things, the Royal BC Museum is celebrating Black History and Heritage Day on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.

Read more in the Victoria News.

Passengers from the Komagata Maru, 1914. (City of Vancouver Archives CVA 7-127)

The Komagata Maru Lesson Plans Project was initiated in 2023. With six lesson plans, the project encourages students to examine key facts and events behind the Komagata Maru tragedy. Furthermore, it challenges students to engage in discussions and think critically about the event while learning about the biographies of key people such as Gurdit Singh, the man who chartered the ship to come to Canada.

Read more here.

Throughout February, which is Black History Month, tours are being organized to teach people about Hogan's Alley, a vibrant community in southwest Vancouver that was home to many Black families until they were displaced in 1972 by a viaduct.

Read (and watch) more at CityNews.

The BC government has formally apologized to Sons of Freedom Doukhobors who were removed from their parents and sent to residential school between 1953-59. The apology, delivered in Castlegar and Grand Forks, comes with a $10 million commitment and will be repeated later this month in the BC legislature. The apology fulfills a recommendation first issued by the BC Ombudsperson's office in 1999.

Read more at castlegarnews.com.

The BCHF has learned of the death of Fred Braches of Maple Ridge.

Fred served as the editor of BC Historical News from Spring 1999 to Summer 2003 before the B.C. Historical Federation changed the magazine's name to British Columbia History. Later he won the BCHF Best Article Award for 2009 and the BCHF Website Award in 2008 for his Slumach website.

Obituary: https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/30608924/friedrich-braches

Come join us on May 4, 2024 for the BCHF annual conference being held in Ts'elxwéyeqw (Chilliwack). 

This year, the conference will be a one-day event featuring the BCHF Annual General Meeting (AGM), a keynote presentation, a guided bus tour of S'ólh Téméxw, and the BCHF awards dinner. 

The keynote presentation features Keith Thor Carlson, Professor of History at the University of the Fraser Valley and Tier One Canada Research Chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History, and Si:yémia Albert "Sonny" Mchalsie, Cultural Advisor / Sxweyxwiyam at Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre. 

The AGM and keynote presentation will be held at the University of the Fraser Valley's (UFV) Gathering Place, Chilliwack campus. 

The bus tour runs from 12:30 to 4:30pm, leaving from the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre. You will enjoy visiting places of cultural and historical interest and importance around S'ólh Téméxw "Our Land, Our World." Discover the land as narrated by Si:yémiya, learn Hal'qemélem place names, and hear the sxwōwiyám (ancient stories) and sqwélqwel (personal and family histories) that give shape to Stó:lō culture, history and people. 

End the day with the BCHF gala awards dinner and awards presentation. Held at the Coast Hotel, Chilliwack, you can bid on local books in the silent auction, connect with colleagues, and celebrate the year's accomplishments in BC history preservation and storytelling. 

Visit the BCHF website to learn more and to register online. 

In this presentation to the BC Historical Federation conference in Princeton last year, Lydia Kinasewich presented on her prize winning essay entitled: "Nature's Health Giving Waters: Promoting Health and Pleasure Tourism at Harrison HotSprings, 1920-1930."

The initial bathhouses and hotel built on the shore of Harrison lake in 1886 were designed for elite health-seekers, and early promotions focused on how the mineral waters could cure various ailments. However, after this first hotel was lost to a fire in 1920, Harrison Hot Springs was recast in the tourist gaze.

The new Harrison Hot Springs Hotel was completed in 1926 and this talk demonstrates how the owners of the resort attempted to retain the appeal of the healing environment while also promoting the modern luxuries that tourists increasingly expected in British Columbia during the interwar years.

Kinasewich recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in history from UNBC.

Mary Davidson, who died Dec. 19, moved to Salt Spring Island in the early 1980s, where she joined the historical society and guided the establishment of the island's archives in 1989. The collection includes photos and stories from her family homestead.

Read the full obituary here.