Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30am – 4:30pm; closed 12:30 pm – 1:00 pm.
Location: Geoffrey R. Library (Room 5-423), 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, Canada,V2N 4Z9.
Contact: archives@unbc.ca; 250-960-6603
Access: Contact archivist before visiting.
Website: https://library.unbc.ca/archives.
The Archives at the University of Northern British Columbia houses 1,137 linear metres of archival materials, 22,00 photographic images, and over 300 sound and moving image recordings on the history of UNBC and of Northern British Columbia. This archive has strengths in geology, environmental studies, forestry, social history, Aboriginal studies, and political history.
Records related to medicine can be found in the Honourable Iona Compagnola fonds (1932-; 35 m of textual records), a liberal cabinet member as well as the first female and 27th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. Her fonds discusses the McMaster International Health Centre. The Geoffrey R. Weller fonds (1960-2002; 26 m of textual and other records) includes Weller’s research on health policies in Canada.
There are many records related to geology within the archives such as the Cassiar Asbestos Corporation Ltd. fonds (1952-1993) consisting of over 1,625 boxes of textual materials and 7,000 photographic items. Private collections include those like the Stuart S. Holland papers (1939-1940), Associate Engineer for the Department of Mines. There are environmental collections, such as the Kemano Completion Project Dispute Collection (1980-1997; 6.33mm of textual and other records) conducted by scientists of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Other collections include the Canadian Institute of Forestry fonds (1951-1965; 33 cm) and the large Aleza Lake Research Forest collection (1919-2001; 3.71 m of textual records, 176 photographs).
There are numerous collections on the social and cultural history of Northern British Columbia. These include the Honourable Compagnola fonds (1932-) that discusses theatre, the Bob Harkins Audio Recordings Collection (1970-1989) with 46 interviews of local individuals, and the Taylor Baxter Family Photogram Collection (1899-1959) consisting of 609 photographs on the development of the Central Interior.
There are some political records in this archive in addition to the aforementioned Iona Compagnola fonds, such as the H.G.T. (Harry) Perry fonds (1910-1967, 3.18 m of textual and other materials) of the first local Liberal leader in Prince George, British Columbia. There are provincial police records in the British Columbia Provincial Police Veterans Association fonds (1904-1984). There are also records related to women’s history, such as the Prince George Women’s Organizations Collection (1972-1996; 5.7 m of textual records) and in the Marianne (Marika) Ainley fonds (1973-2008).
Records related to Aboriginal history can be found in larger collections, such as the Honourable Iona Compagnola fonds (1932-). The Archdeacon W. H. Collison fonds (1870-1986) discusses his work with the North Coastal First Nations. There are photographic records amongst the private papers, such as pictures that relate to the North Coastal First Nations communities in the 315 photographs of the W.H. (Archdeacon) Collision (1847-1922) collection. The Prince George Métis Elders Oral History Project Collection (1997-1999) and the Island Cache Recovery Project Collection (1998-2000) has oral records about Aboriginal history and experience.
There are several digitized projects at this archive. The David Davies Railway Collection, consisting of 4,500 photographs of railways in British Columbia, has 3,354 of these images online. The aforementioned the Bob Harkins Audio Recordings Collection (1970-1989) with interviews of local personalities is available online. Records from two newspapers related to mining in the town of Cassiar, The Asbestos Sheet (1956-1976) and the Cassiar Courrier (1977-1991) are also available online. This archive also has a YouTube channel with videos from the archive’s collections.