Sunday, March 29, 2009

2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Newcombe Conference Hall, Royal BC Museum

675 Belleville Street

Victoria

"Building BC's First Natural Gas Pipeline: Energy in the 1950s."

Join Dr. Lorne Hammond as he looks at the energy context and the physical and political construction of Canada's first large natural gas pipeline, built by Westcoast Transmission and Maverick oilman Frank McMahon. This talk is one in a series for a forthcoming book on the history of energy in British Columbia.

Dr. Lorne Hammond is the RBCM's Curator of History, and he has a special interest in environmental history. He studied history for a doctorate in Ottawa and joined the museum in 1997. His recent articles are in the Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Environmental History.

For more information about the following Friends of the BC Archives events contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970 or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Newcombe Conference Hall, Royal BC Museum

675 Belleville Street

Victoria

"BC history is your history, too"

Join Times-Colonist editor, author and genealogist Dave Obee as he chases one of his B.C. ancestors through time. As he says, "British Columbia's rich history has created much of the human environment and shaped our lives. Archives help genealogists gain a better sense of their family histories, and help everyone develop a deeper understanding of their communities. We share our history, after all -- and the more we know about, the more we appreciate the connections." Dave will be demonstrating that "history is everywhere", and that our own lives are intertwined with our community and its past, whether we realize it or not.

Dave Obee is author of Making the News, published by the Times Colonist in 2008 to mark the 150th anniversary of the newspaper. It is a comprehensive history of Vancouver Island, drawn from old newspapers and archival sources. Dave was born in British Columbia, and his roots here go back to the arrival of his great-great-grandfather from Manitoba in 1890. He has been researching his own family history since 1978, when he took a night course through Camosun College.

For more information about the following Friends of the BC Archives events contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970 or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

B.C. Archives Reference Room

655 Belleville Street

Victoria

"Tourism, Leisure and Labour on the Forbidden Plateau, 1925-1939"

Historian Jenny Clayton will examine the invention and advertisement of the Forbidden Plateau on Vancouver Island as a landscape of adventure and its development as a destination for outdoor recreation. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the Forbidden Plateau was home to trappers and prospectors, and, during the First Wold War, a few draft evaders. By the 1930?s, however, it had become a playground for tourists and local residents alike. Jenny will talk about groups such as the Comox District Mountaineering Club, and the inventive ways in which people living in the Comox Valley used the resources of the plateau, and integrated work with leisure by working as cooks, guides and packers.

Jenny is researching the history of outdoor recreation in twentieth century BC for a PhD degree at the University of Victoria, where she also teaches Canadian and B.C. history.

For more information about the following Friends of the BC Archives events contact Ann ten Cate, Outreach Coordinator, BC Archives, (250) 387-2970 or Ron Greene, Secretary of the Friends of the BC Archives at (250) 598-1835. Call in advance for information about handicap access.

The Victoria Historical Society will hold its January 2009 meeting on Thursday, January 22. The speaker will be the Rev. Robert MacRae whose talk is titled "H.R. Macmillan: the Man Who Gave Away." Rev. MacRae will talk about the timber tycoon who gave much of his money away.

The meeting will be held in the James Bay New Horizons, 234 Menzies Street, at 7:30 pm. The meeting is free and visitors welcome. For further information phone 250 480 1061.

Wishing you many returns on your 150th anniversary British Columbia on November 19, 2008!