1 1 NEWSLETTER Vol. 14, No. 5 Friends of the British Columbia Archives This spring the Royal BC Museum will launch Transcribe, a crowdsourcing website that will allow the public to transcribe valuable historical records. The project aims to improve the Royal BC Museum and Archives’ public accessibility by turning handwritten, audio, and video records into searchable data. By donating their time to transcribe letters, diaries, journals, and other materials Transcribe volunteers can help share BC’s history from the comfort of home. Crowdsourcing is an increasingly popular way for archives and museums to improve the accessibility of their collections. The concept behind Transcribe is simple – the Royal BC Museum provides digital photographs of archival materials alongside a blank text area and users type exactly what they see. Volunteers simply visit the website, choose a collection and begin to transcribe, all on their own time. The finished transcriptions are reviewed and approved by Royal BC Museum staff and the data becomes searchable on the Transcribe site. The project was initiated by the New Archives and Digital Preservation department and Archivist Ann ten Cate. “We wanted to enlist the help of volunteers to make our collections more accessible,” said Ember Lundgren, Preservation Manager. “There’s a huge, untapped resource of talented and enthusiastic volunteers, just waiting to help out. Transcribe will help us use that resource. Plus, it’s fun!” Royal BC Museum to Launch CrowdSourcing Transcription Site, Transcribe
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NEWSLETTER
Vol. 14, No. 5
Friends of the British Columbia Archives
This spring the Royal BC Museum will launch Transcribe, a crowd-‐sourcing website that will allow the
public to transcribe valuable historical records. The project aims to improve the Royal BC Museum and
Archives’ public accessibility by turning handwritten, audio, and video records into searchable data. By
donating their time to transcribe letters, diaries, journals, and other materials Transcribe volunteers
can help share BC’s history from the comfort of home.
Crowd-‐sourcing is an increasingly popular way for archives and museums to improve the accessibility
of their collections. The concept behind Transcribe is simple – the Royal BC Museum provides digital
photographs of archival materials alongside a blank text area and users type exactly what they see.
Volunteers simply visit the website, choose a collection and begin to transcribe, all on their own time.
The finished transcriptions are reviewed and approved by Royal BC Museum staff and the data
becomes searchable on the Transcribe site.
The project was initiated by the New Archives and Digital Preservation department and Archivist Ann
ten Cate. “We wanted to enlist the help of volunteers to make our collections more accessible,” said
Ember Lundgren, Preservation Manager. “There’s a huge, untapped resource of talented and
enthusiastic volunteers, just waiting to help out. Transcribe will help us use that resource. Plus, it’s
fun!”
Royal BC Museum to Launch Crowd-‐Sourcing Transcription Site, Transcribe
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Lundgren notes that visitors are not obligated to transcribe work; they will also have the option to
view the materials as an online exhibition, and browse existing transcriptions.
The site currently features diaries, letters, and other materials from the First World War. As the
project grows, new collections and media will be introduced. The first batch of images includes the
letters of Victoria lawyer Arthur Douglas Crease, who described the war in letters to his family. In one
particularly poignant letter, Crease writes: “it seems doubtful if I shall ever be able to write or talk
about what we have been through on the Somme. You know I came out the only officer in our company
out of six. The battalion is covered with glory and wounds”. With the help of Transcribe and its
volunteers, letters such as Crease’s will become even more accessible to future generations of British
Columbians.
In late February, the Friends of the BC Archives helped test the new site, providing valuable feedback.
If you didn’t get a chance to participate, don’t worry. The Royal BC Museum would love to hear from
you. Please contact [email protected] to find out more, and to get a sneak peek at the
website before its official launch during National Volunteer Week, April 12 – 18, 2015.
-‐ Meagan Sugrue, New Archives and Digital Preservation – Royal BC Museum
Correction In the December 2014 newsletter, the summary of Glennis Zilm’s talk incorrectly identified Nursing Sister Gladys Maude Mary Wake’s surname as 'Wales.' We apologize for this error.
Membership Renewal Membership in the Friends of the British Columbia Archives is open to everyone and covers the year from September to August. Please see the final page of this newsletter for a membership form.
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It was with great pride when I joined the Royal BC Museum last October and realised the BC Archives
was under my portfolio of responsibilities. The BC Archives -‐ the venerable repository of so much of
British Columbia’s identity! In my first week I had the opportunity to peer into the Nellie McClung
fond, listen intimately to the newly digitized Ida Halpern audio recordings, and get up close to Tanoo,
the iconic painting by Emily Carr. Walking through the collection reminded me what important tasks
lay ahead for our staff in order to bring the archive collection ‘out’ of the building for the public to
explore and enjoy. Shouldn’t everybody have a chance to get the same goose bumps I was getting when
it comes to learning about BC’s past in such an intimate way?
In early February that opportunity was made (somewhat) real when the RBCM launched The Learning
Portal, the museum’s new online education website that brings to life our archival and artifact
collections. While the media presentation of its launch was held at a local school, the goal of the portal
is to engage learners from all ages, and hopefully make the public more aware of the treasures
available to them from their provincial museum and archives. More importantly, the Learning Portal
provides a window from which the world can learn about BC, and celebrate the work our staff and
volunteers (including members of the Friends of the BC Archives) have contributed. You can visit the
Learning Portal here www.learning.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca
What makes the portal even more special is the inclusion of stories related to our Archivists and their
personal connections to the material being displayed. For example, the portal links to a CBC radio
recording of Archivist Ann ten Cate facilitating an Archives Boot camp. Archivist Raymond Frogner is
also featured, writing about his uncles' involvement in the First World War from both a personal and
professional perspective. War stories will take centre stage again in the spring, when letters between
soldiers and loved ones will be posted on the RBCM’s archives website. This will allow the public to
not only read them, but to transcribe the material online so the people, places and events of this period
in Canadian history become searchable by anyone around the world.
So, while viewing this historic material from a computer screen might not give a person goose bumps,
it does provide a wonderful glimpse into the treasures that are in the archives. Thank you to all the
members of the Friends of BC Archives for helping to make this happen.
-‐ Peter Ord, Vice-‐President Archives, Collections & Knowledge – Royal BC Museum
Do Archives Give You Goose Bumps? – Peter Ord
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Recent FBCA Events Victoria -‐ A City Goes to War (January 18th, 2015) Jim Kempling, a retired army colonel and PhD candidate in History at the University of Victoria, gave an interesting and engaging talk on January 18th about Victoria during the First World War. Entitled
“Victoria – A City Goes to War,” his presentation challenged popular myths and misconceptions about
both the capital city and the conflict in Europe.
He began by explaining the rationale for his micro-‐history research project. New interpretations of
history can emerge, he said, when local events are scrutinized closely and placed within a larger
context. He argued that Victoria was not caught unawares when the war began in August 1914.
Victoria, he said, was already “a militarized society,” since the army and navy had a long-‐established
presence in the region and since local militia units enjoyed social prestige. Due to a pre-‐war economic
depression, there were many under-‐employed young men in the city – a situation that made Victoria “a
target-‐rich recruiting environment.”
Kempling illustrated his themes with a slide presentation using historical photographs (many of which
are preserved in the BC Archives’ Visual Records collections) and local newspapers. He then
demonstrated a website – A City Goes to War: Canadian Cities during the Great War 1914-‐1919 – that is
being developed with associates and students at the UVic Library. The website is also being expanded
to include other cities with contributions from municipal archives. He answered many questions from
the audience and mentioned books on cities at war for further reading. At the close, the Friends of the
BC Archives and guests expressed appreciation for an enjoyable and stimulating public lecture and
best wishes for the ongoing success of his research project.
A City Goes to War: www.acitygoestowar.ca
-‐ Patrick Dunae, Board Member – Friends of the BC Archives
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Chris Madsen, a professor at Simon Fraser University gave a well-‐attended meeting a most interesting
and fact-‐filled talk on the ship building industry in Victoria and Vancouver during the First World War.
It was noted that the shipbuilding business was vulnerable to the cycle of dependency (on government
contracts) and disappointment (when governments, or their policies, or their finances, fluctuate). For
the first two years of the conflict, the British Admiralty ruled ship procurement and rejected Canadian
efforts to contribute. As the war progressed, the increasing effectiveness of German U-‐boats in the
Atlantic brought a crisis in availability of merchant ships to bring food and war supplies to Britain.
Persistent lobbying of the new Imperial Munitions Board by Canada was rewarded in 1917 by
contracts to build wooden vessels at two yards in Victoria, and steel ones at six yards in Vancouver. As
soon as the local industry had developed the infrastructure and workforce to perform this specialized
work, funding dried up and priority was returned to British yards. Then came the Armistice and the
loss of requirement for ships. The local industry never recovered, but one yard in Esquimalt, Yarrows,
did manage to survive on maintenance and repair contracts.
Chris’s talk was illustrated with images, facts, and figures many of which are found in the BC Archives.
This talk was an overview of his article “Wages, Work, and Wartime Demands in British Columbia
Shipbuilding 1916-‐19” which appeared in last summer’s issue of BC Studies dedicated to The Great
War (No. 182, Summer 2014).
-‐ Michael Layland, Board Member – Friends of the BC Archives
Ship Building in Victoria & Vancouver during the First World War (February 15th, 2015)
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On November 22, 1858, over 400 residents of Yale, BC, signed a petition asking Governor James
Douglas to provide an armed escort for “treasure” (gold) being shipped down the river.
That petition, nearly 8 feet long and made up of 4 sheets of paper with 2 long columns of spidery
signatures, will be one of the feature objects in the upcoming “Gold Rush! Eldorado in BC” exhibit at
the Royal BC Museum opening May 13, 2015. It comes from the BC Archives’ collection of Colonial
Correspondence, known as GR-‐1372. It is a huge document and a challenge to display without causing
damage – but Museum staff have developed some innovative techniques that will let visitors view the
original and use an interactive touch screen to find out the fate of some of these fortune-‐seekers.
Who were these people and why did they feel needed a gold escort? All were new residents of Yale,
which before the summer of 1858 was simply Fort Yale, a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post. But the
discovery of gold on the Fraser River that year brought thousands of prospectors and entrepreneurs
flooding into the area. Those who didn’t fancy the job of panning on the bars established businesses
that supplied the prospectors. Yale quickly became a community of adventurers from around the
world – and a dangerous place. David Higgins, who arrived in Yale that summer, describes the “wild
west” atmosphere in Yale:
In every saloon a faro-‐bank or a three-‐card-‐monte table was in full swing, and the hells were crowded to suffocation. A worse set of cut-‐throats and all round scoundrels than those who flocked to Yale from all parts of the world never assembled anywhere. Decent people feared to go out after dark. Night assaults and robberies, varied by an occasional cold-‐blooded murder or a daylight theft, were common occurrences. Crime in every form stalked boldly through the town unchecked and unpunished. The good element was numerically large; but it was dominated and terrorized by those whose trade it was to bully, beat, rob and slay (Higgins, 1904).
Moving gold dust safely on to Victoria where it could be banked and exchanged for currency was going
to be a problem – there was no police force, no road, and the route in and out of the gold country was
dangerous. Hence the request for an armed escort as “in Australia,” which had faced similar problems
during its 1852 gold rush. Unfortunately for this group of concerned citizens, the fledgling (and
impecunious) colonial government was not able to support the establishment of a government-‐
financed gold escort until 1861 – when gold started pouring out of the more remote Cariboo gold
fields. But the petition nails down their place in BC’s history – a day 157 years ago when 400 men and
(and a few women) put their names on a piece of paper.
What’s In a Name? – Ann ten Cate
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For the interactive in the exhibit, we’ve profiled some of the signatories:
• Hugh Nelson
Hugh Nelson came from Ireland to California in 1854 and was 28 when he signed the petition. Rather than chase gold, he and his partner George Dietz founded the BC and Victoria Express Company, which shipped freight between Victoria, New Westminster, and Yale. Hugh was active in politics and was part of the Yale Convention, promoting confederation with Canada. He represented Barkerville as a Senator, and was appointed as BC’s 4th Lieutenant Governor in 1887.
• Dr. William Fifer
Dr. William Fifer was a well-‐respected citizen of Yale, and President of the Town Council – but became the victim of “a cold blooded and cowardly murder” on the night of July 5, 1861. Fifer was a German, who had lived in San Francisco before coming to BC. While working in his drugstore one evening, the doctor was shot through the heart by a man called Robert Wall. The
assailant made his getaway in a canoe down the river, but was captured “by a posse of police” from New Westminster while heading for the US border. At the trial Wall accused Fifer of malpractice – and there were intimations that Fifer was not a “regularly educated doctor.”
• Zachariah Richardson
There are few traces of Zachariah Richardson, apart from his signature on this document. But we do know that he was Black – and by 1880 was living in Victoria. On November 23rd, 1880, the Daily Colonist reported that “Zachariah Richardson (colored)” was charged by Sergeant Bloomfield with “allowing the chimney in a tenement occupied by him on
Humboldt Street to take fire”. At Richardson’s trial the Chief Engineer of the fire department asked the judge to be lenient because Richardson was “a hard-‐working labouring man” and unable to pay the full fine of $5.00.
One of the Friends of the B.C. Archives deserves a special “thank-‐you,” since she volunteered her time
transcribing the signatures on the petition and helping with biographical research. As she will attest,
the handwriting is atrocious and in many instances the spelling phonetic. Nevertheless, we were both
surprised at how many of the “400” were traceable after 156 years. I think you will agree when you
see the petition in the exhibit that the effort was worth it.
-‐ Ann ten Cate, Archivist – Royal BC Museum
Yale, 1867
Hugh Nelson
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As the Royal BC Museum prepares to open its new exhibit on BC's gold rush, archivist Ann ten Cate will
take a behind-‐the-‐scenes look at how the exhibit is being produced. The journey from the beginnings
of an idea to a finished product is a long, collaborative process between curatorial, design and exhibit
production staff -‐ and there are inevitably a few bumps along the way. But bringing BC history to life
for an audience that includes children, non-‐English speakers, and visitors with many different learning
styles has been fun. As an added bonus, the new exhibit will include quite a few treasures from the
archival collection.
Ann has been an archivist at the BC Archives since 1990, and previously worked in a number of
archives in Ontario. She is a member of the curatorial team producing the new travelling exhibit "El
Dorado: BC's Gold Rush," which will open at the RBCM in May 2015 and then travel to the Canadian
Museum of History in Gatineau, Québec.
Upcoming Events March 15, 2015 Ann ten Cate -‐ Rushing Towards Gold
April 19, 2015 Ron Greene -‐ Carlo Gentile: Colonial Period Photographer and His Remarkable Photographs of Vancouver Island and BC Ron Greene has been interested in the Colonial period for many years and his presentation will discuss
and present photographs by the photographer Carlo Gentile. Gentile was a photographer in Victoria
from October 1863 until August 1866 and he accompanied British Columbia Governor Frederick
Seymour into the interior of BC in 1865.
Ron is a life-‐long resident of Victoria. He obtained a degree at UBC in Chemical Engineering. Later, in
his spare time he obtained another degree from the University of Victoria in Japanese Studies and
French. Ron has served in many volunteer positions, recently as President of the BC Historical
Federation and of the Victoria Historical Society. Ron is a founding member of the Friends of the BC
Archives and has been the Treasurer since its inception.
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May 24, 2015 Joan Schwartz -‐ Golden Nuggets & Silver Salts: The Photographic Legacy of Frederick Dally In the Fall of 1862, Frederick Dally, a 24-‐year old Englishman arrived in Victoria on the Cyclone from
London and set up shop as a merchant on Government Street. Four years later, he changed directions
and opened a photography studio on Fort Street. During his brief career behind the camera (1866-‐
1870), Dally produced not only a remarkable visual record of people and places from Coast to Cariboo,
but an enduring vision of land and life in early British Columbia. If Dally kept a diary, it has yet to be
found; however, his biography can be pieced together from the extensive and rich collection of his
photographs and papers acquired by the Provincial Archives in 1914. This talk will take a close look at
the man behind the many familiar and iconic images of gold-‐rush era British Columbia.
Joan M. Schwartz first encountered Frederick Dally’s iconic photographs of gold-‐rush BC as a first-‐year
graduate student on a field trip to the Provincial Archives in 1974. Joan credits Dally with launching
her career (1977-‐2003) in Photography Acquisition and Research at the National Archives of Canada,
Ottawa, and her current position as professor of the History of Photography at Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario.
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Ted Bishop’s wonderful memoir, Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books, tells of the
moment he became an archive junkie. He had been sifting through records at the British Library,
reading everything he could find about Virginia Woolf. He was about to leave for the day when an
unexpected treasure came to him.
He pulled a sheet of paper from its protective envelope, stared at the few lines of handwriting, and
couldn’t believe his eyes. He was holding Virginia Woolf’s suicide note.
He read it over and over, tucked it away, and was changed forever. He left the library on the archivist’s
version of an adrenaline high.
The word archive, from the Latin archiva, means the place where the records are kept. Scholars and
students who are deep into their research will scan the Internet, conduct telephone interviews, read
scholarly papers in journals, and follow any lead that promises to shed light on their subject. They will
also travel the world to visit archives where journals, papers, recordings, and photographs might bear
clues.
When I proposed to work in Canada on a Fulbright Scholarship, I asked the Royal British Columbia
Museum if they would host my project. Thirty-‐five years earlier, I had visited the museum and had
never forgotten the singular First Nations carved masks and totems housed there. The RBCM
responded with a generous letter of invitation and, in December 2014, I returned to Victoria with
Fulbright support to study exhibits and collections. My intention was to explore evidence of
transformation in story, art, and science.
My inquiry about transformation stories derived from years as an author and student of fiction.
Countless real-‐life and fictional protagonists have made journeys in which change occurs, usually
through triumph over adversary. At the RBCM, such journeys can be found everywhere: in the stories
behind masks used in First Nation ritual and legend, in oral histories stored on cassette, and in
countless transcriptions of creation story.
Next door to the museum, in the BC Archives, my researcher’s journey took the deep dive I had been
anticipating. Upon registering at the archives, I was given an orange registration card, which became
my key to the kingdom. With card in hand, I was allowed into the lovingly kept collections: sound
recordings, photographs, handwritten journals, out-‐of-‐print monographs.
The Place Where the Records Are Kept – Rebecca Lawton
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As in archives around the world, strict handling protocols are applied for the good of the materials.
Every member of the archive staff is a professional keeper of the collection, and their enthusiasm for
its wealth as well as its protection was infectious (and a good researcher’s responsibility to reinforce).
I pored over valuable books kept in protective sleeves. I listened to the voices of First Nations chiefs
tell how their people lived and thrived and loved the land and water. I wrote all my notes with sharp
number two pencils, provided at every table for use in lieu of ink. I rested the spines of old books fully
on the reading surfaces, keeping my hands off the pages other than to turn them.
Hours passed in the archive when I didn’t know where resources were leading. Time spent exploring
also created luminous ah-‐ha moments like Ted Bishop’s at the British Library. Here was one of my
favorite finds: after days of searching the computer records of the archive’s closed stacks, I followed
slight clues about ancient tattoo art to James G. Swan’s 1874 monograph, The Haidah Indians of Queen
Charlotte’s Islands, British Columbia, with a Brief Description of their Carvings, Tattoo Designs, Etc.
Because a Canadian tattoo artist figures prominently in my book-‐in-‐progress, I had been wondering
what early designs might have inspired my fictional character’s work. Swan’s attentive study shared
the tattoos he encountered on people both on Haida Gwaii and in
BC’s ports. I photographed a few of them, following archive
protocol, and came away with essential ideas.
Ah-‐ha moments make archive junkies of even the most dedicated
field researcher—I’ve spent many years working outdoors and
still feel at home there. But the discoveries made in the narratives
of others provide needed insight on eyewitness finds in the “real
world.” Often the epiphanies come when we least expect them,
emerging as lost things do, in the last places we look.
Archive means the place where records are kept, and research
means to look again. I like to think the looking again also means
looking deeper. Sometimes looking deeper is best done in a rich
collection, like the books, papers, and recordings of the BC
Archives.
Kōōt, The Fish Eagle. “Painted by Geneskels, a Haidah Chief and Principal tattoo and painter of the tribe.” From Swan, 1874. Photo by R. Lawton.
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Friends Programs The Friends Programs are held in the Newcombe Conference Hall at the Royal British Columbia
Museum, 675 Belleville Street, Victoria, from 2:00 -‐ 3:30 p.m. on Sundays. For more information
about these events contact Ron Greene, Treasurer of the Friends of the BC Archives at 250-‐598-‐
1835. Events are free for members, $5.00 for non-‐members, payable at the door.
Please call (250) 356-‐7226 in advance for information about access for persons with disabilities.
Rebecca Lawton is an author, instructor, and scientist whose work as a 2014/2015 Fulbright
Visiting Research Chair at the University of Alberta included study in the Royal British Columbia
Museum and Provincial Archives. Her writing has won a WILLA Award for original softcover
fiction, the Ellen Meloy Fund Award for Desert Writers, residencies at Hedgebrook Retreat for
Women Writers and The Island Institute, and nominations for three Pushcart Prizes (fiction,
nonfiction, and poetry). An early woman guide on Western whitewater, Rebecca rowed the
Colorado in Grand Canyon and many other rivers for fourteen seasons. Her work as a fluvial
geologist has focused on modern and ancient streams in arid climates. Visit her website at
www.beccalawton.com
Friends of the BC Archives is now on Twitter! Follow us @BCArchives
www.twitter.com/bcarchives
Contact
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/bcarchives/friends/
Address: Friends of the British Columbia Archives, B.C. Archives
Royal British Columbia Museum, 675 Belleville St. Victoria, B.C. V8W 9W2
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