Fred Jeffery was born in Bruce Mines, in the Algoma District of Ontario in 1870 to Richard and Mary Ann Jeffery. When he finished school he worked as a stationary engineer mining for hard-rock copper for the Bruce Mines until 1891, when he moved out West to British Columbia. After his migration, Mr. Jeffery worked as a steam engineer during the winters at both the original Hotel Vancouver and occasionally at the Rogers building; while each summer he traveled north to the Nass Valley where he worked as a steam engineer at a Prince Rupert salmon cannery. Upon his retirement he built a boat named the Algoma, and sailed around the Gulf Islands looking for the perfect spot to build a home – a spot he eventually found in Maple Bay (Duncan). Mr. Jeffery died in Maple Bay, B.C on 19 April 1952.
This 405 km long stretch of Highway 97, named for former British Columbia Premier John Hart, begins at Prince George, traveling for 152 km north through the small hamlet of Summit Lake, which is situated at the Continental Divide, as well as, through Crooked River Provincial Park, Bear Lake and McLeod Lake, to its intersection with Highway 39. It then journeys northeast another 150 km through the Continental Divide at which point the time zone changes from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. After emerging from the Pine Pass, the highway intersects with Highway 29 at the town of Chetwynd. After a trek of another 97 km east, the Hart Highway terminates at Dawson Creek, BC.
Sydney E. Junkins, born in Union, New Hampshire in 1867 and attended Dartmouth College where he received his AB degree in 1887, his AM in 1890, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering in 1927. He taught school in Newport, NH and Quincy, MA for a few years after graduation, but was also active in engineering projects with J.F. Springfield, between 1884 and 1886. Between 1898 and 1914, he joined the firm of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr and Co. in New York where he eventually rose to the positions of Vice President and Director. In 1916 he married Mary Lyon and the following year he branched out on his own and established the firm of Sydney E. Junkins Co., Ltd., in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His subsequent large scale engineering projects and professional accomplishments included: lining the 5-mile Connaught Tunnel through Mt. MacDonald at Glacier, British Columbia, with concrete (1921); being appointed as one of five commissioners in charge of 12th Street Bridge in Kansas City, Kansas as well as the primary Engineer in its design and construction (1922); and he completed the Canadian Pacific Railway's 1100 foot deep- sea pier at Vancouver, BC (1926). Also in 1926 he started with Hanover Engineering and Development Co., New York. In 1927, the year of the Peace River Expedition, Junkins was in British Columbia compiling a number of reports for Canadian Pacific Railway on grade separation. In 1932, Sydney E. Junkins went into semi-retirement and moved to Hanover, New Hampshire. He passed away on October 3, 1944. (excerpt from Darmouth College at http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms845.html)
This collection relates to an official excursion along the Parsnip and Peace Rivers by a party of 13 men, including the Hon. Dr. James Horace King, Minister of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment and Minister of Health (1926-28) and Harry George Perry, former mayor of Prince George and Provincial MLA. The excursion started at Vancouver, B.C., then proceeded by train to Ashcroft, and by motor car to Summit Lake (just north of Prince George). At Summit Lake, they loaded supplies and embarked on their boat trip on 21 August 1927. The party proceeded along the Parsnip River to Finlay Forks, and then down the Peace River to Hudson Hope and just past Fort St. John. The trip then continued by motor car to the Peace River, and then by train to Edmonton.
In 1979, Alcan announced that they would use the rest of the water that the 1950 Agreement decreed the Company could use and they applied to the Utilities Commission for an Energy Project Certificate to start Kemano II. This declaration led to a legal skirmish between Alcan and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) over the potentially hazardous water levels for the migrating salmon. The issue was resolved with the 1987 Settlement Agreement signed on September 14th between Alcan, the Government of British Columbia, and the Federal Government, which confirmed that the Company had the legal right to use more water from the Nechako River. However, Alcan agreed to give up water rights to the Nanika River and the Cheslatta River while setting up a program to keep an eye on the fish habitats. This agreement resulted in the Kemano Completion Project (KCP), which was a scaled down version of Kemano II. In 1989, a Collective Labour Agreement was signed between the Allied Hydro Council and the Kemano Completion Project Employers’ Association, signifying the launch of KCP.
The project had an initial estimated cost of $800 million and would increase Kemano’s power generating capabilities by 75 percent. It consisted of five components: building a cold water release facility at Kenney Dam to increase chances of survival for Chinook and sockeye salmon; dredging the Tahtsa narrows an increase water-flow through the Nechako Reservoir; installing four more generators in Kemano; building another 68 km transmission line between Kitimat and Kemano; and building an additional 16 km power tunnel parallel to the existing tunnel through Mount DuBose.
However, not all British Columbians were ecstatic about the KCP. Some of the major opponents to this project were environmentalists, the fishing industries, wildlife activists, and First Nations peoples such as the Haisla and Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council. Some of the environmental groups included “A River Forever” and “Rivers Defence Coalition”. An organization called “Save the Bulkley” was formed by residents from Smithers, Telkwa, and Quick areas to oppose the KCP.
On June 16th, 1992, Premier Mike Harcourt commissioned Murray Rankin and Arvay Finlay to create a report on the KCP, “Alcan’s Kemano Project: Options and Recommendations”. This report was completed in October of that year and recommended that the Government of British Columbia conducts a public review on the KCP. Thus, the British Columbia Utilities Commission public review of the KCP was initiated in January of 1993. That same year, Alcan told the provincial government that they were short of $350 million in their estimated cost for KCP and would need more power revenues. Two years later, on January 23rd, Premier Harcourt decided to cancel KCP.
During the 1980s, Rip Kitchen supplied the Bear Lake community newspaper with monthly accounts of the history and growth of the area. As one of the pioneer residents of the Crooked River community, Kitchen told stories about its early history in a column entitled "Crooked River Chronicles," detailing the construction of both the railroad and the Hart Highway. From his restoration of early farm equipment and other work around the popular heritage site to his service on its Board of Directors, Kitchen contributed in many ways to the work of the Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Heritage Society. Kitchen was also active with the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum. Kitchen received the Jeanne Clarke Memorial Local History Award 16 February 2003.
Kwah is the usual English form of the name of the famous Carrier leader Kw'eh. He was born around 1755 and died in 1840. Chief Kw'eh was the chief of what is now the Nak'azdli band in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In his time, few people lived at Nak'azdli (Fort Saint James), which attracted people due to the location of the North West Company (later Hudson's Bay Company) fort there, which was not established until 1806. The main village was located at Tsaooche "Sowchea".
Chief Kw'eh held the very important noble name Ts'oh Dai in the Lhts'umusyoo clan. It was Chief Kw'eh who received the explorer Simon Fraser in 1806 when Carrier people brought his floundering canoes in to Tsaooche village in Sowchea Bay. In gratitude, Simon Fraser presented Kw'eh with red cloth. The current Ts'oh Dai, Kw'eh's descendant Peter Erickson, returned red cloth to Canada in 1997.
Chief Kw'eh is also known for the incident in which, in 1828, he spared the life of his prisoner, the fur trader James Douglas, who later became the first governor of the united Colony of British Columbia. He was also known for his acquisition of an iron dagger prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in the area, presumably one traded in from the coast. He is the ancestor of a large percentage of the Carrier people in the Stuart Lake area.
Erika Lambert was a grade one teacher at the Ron Brent School in Prince George
Reverend R.W. Large (M.D.) was a Methodist minister and doctor on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia from 1898 to 1920. He worked at the Methodist hospital and mission in Bella Bella until 1906. He then went on to work at Rivers Inlet Hospital in Ocean Falls until he moved to Port Simpson in 1910, where he worked until his death. Reverend Large was the only known observer to document the community of Bella Bella from 1898 to 1906. Reverend Large's son R.G. Large followed in his father's footsteps and was a doctor at Port Simpson, Port Essington and later Prince Rupert.
Born in New Zealand, Peter Larkin came to Canada as a child, and was educated at the University of Saskatchewan and at Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar, earning his DPhil at the age of 24). He moved to B.C. as Chief Fisheries biologist for the B.C. Game Commission in 1948, and in 1955 he joined the faculty at UBC. He worked first in the Fisheries Institute, and then in the Department of Zoology; and subsequently he became head of department, then dean of Graduate Studies, and later still, vice-president in charge of research. Author of some 160 scientific papers, he also served over the course of his career on some 50 local, national, and international commissions, ranging from the Science Council of Canada and the National Research Council to TRIUMF and the Vancouver Hospital Board, and from federal studies of the impact of pesticides, and United Nations studies of marine mammals, to the Board of B.C. Packers Ltd., the B.C. Advisory Committee on Ecological Reserves, and the committee that worked on preserving and developing Strathcona Park. After his retirement from UBC, he became actively involved in the Northern River Basins Study, and he maintained his interest in marine research. From 1993 to 1994, he was appointed as a temporary head commissioner for the British Columbia Utilities Commission Review on the Kemano Completion Project.
Dr. David Brownlee Lazier was a regional doctor in central BC. He was born in Ontario in 1870 and eventually moved to BC and built a small, three-bed hospital – known as Lazier’s Hospital – in South Fort George in the early 1910s and but later moved his practice to Burns Lake and then to Francois Lake ca. 1921. Dr. Lazier died in 1931.
J. Alain D. LeFebvre, B.A., C.A., M.B.A. was born and raised in Prince George. He received his university training at Simon Fraser University, graduating in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts (Commerce Major, Economics Minor). After graduation he returned to Prince George and completed his term of articles with a national firm, attaining membership in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia in 1982. In 1991 Lefebvre obtained a Master of Business Administration from City University, and has lectured on accounting for the College of New Caledonia, and on accounting and finance at the Masters level for City University. Al has held positions outside of public practice including Deputy Treasurer for the City of Prince George (7 years) and thereafter the Director of Finance for the University of Northern British Columbia (5 years). He is currently a partner with Chan Foucher LeFebvre LLP in Prince George.
Audrey Ruth Smedley L’Heureux (1925-2013) was a Northern BC author, journalist, and newspaper editor. She was born Audrey Ruth Spencer in Vanderhoof B.C. on August 10,1925 to parents Marion Lucy Auld Graham Spencer and Ernie (Bert) Spencer. Audrey had two siblings, Pat and Jim Spencer, and a pet moose named Pinto.
Audrey served during World War II as a commercial radio wireless operator. She married her first husband, Jack Smedley, and they had three children: Albert, Georgina, and Teddy. They lived on Smedley Farm, approximately two miles south of Vanderhoof, which later became the headquarters for Custom Products and Timber Limited. In 1957, the Smedley's sold the farm and divorced.
With more personal time, Audrey decided to pursue her love of research and decided to start the Nechako Chronicles newspaper in 1964. Although she sold the newspaper in 1971, Audrey had found her passion for journalism. Audrey later applied for the editor position at The Interior News and worked there from 1974 to 1975. Later, Audrey became the editor for the Ingot, the Alcan newsletter. During her time at the Ingot, Audrey met and married Edmond “Ed” Joseph L’Heureux (1917-2001) on August 12, 1976. Audrey left the Ingot in 1976 and pursued her passion for researching northern British Columbia history. Audrey published “Northern BC In Retrospect " in 1979, “From Trail to Rail: Surveys & Gold, 1862 to 1904” in 1987, and “Trail to Rail: Settlement Begins, 1905-1914” in 1989. Audrey also created another volume of “Trail to Rail”; however, it was never published.
L’Heureux became a pillar in her community, winning several awards such as the 125th Anniversary Commemorative Medal of Canadian Confederation in 1993, Community Booster of the Year from Vanderhoof Chamber of Commerce in 1998, appointment to the Senior’s Advisory Council of B.C. in 1997, and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. Audrey was also a member of the Nechako Valley Historical Society, the Senior Citizen’s Counsel, and a member of the Elder Citizens Recreation Association (ECRA).
Audrey Ruth Smedley L’Heureux died on February 12, 2013.
The Liberal Party of Canada is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative Party and to the right of the New Democratic Party (NDP). The party dominated federal politics for much of Canada's history, holding power for almost 69 years in the 20th century, more than any other party in a developed country.
The Lockwood Survey Corporation Ltd. was an aerial photographic survey company based in the Toronto, Ontario area with divisions across Canada, the west coast division being located at 1409 West Pender Street, Vancouver, BC.
It was formed out of a number of amalgamations, mergers and name changes of predecessor companies, beginning with the Toronto-based Photographic Survey Company, which began in 1946 under the direction of Douglas M. Kendall, with British financing from Sir Percy Hunting. From 1956-1965, the company was known as Hunting Survey Corporation, Ltd., later known as Lockwood Survey Corporation, Ltd. from 1965-1972. From 1972-1975 the company was called Northway Survey Corporation, Ltd., and then Northway- Gestalt Corporation Ltd. from 1975-1984. The company has been named Northway Map Technology Ltd. since 1985.
Jim Mackenzie was born in 1905 in Forres, Scotland and emigrated in 1929. He worked on Frank Swannell's survey crews during the 1930, 1931, 1935 and 1937 field seasons. He took photographs and produced a photo album from the first three seasons. When Mackenzie left Victoria to establish a surveying practice in Dawson Creek after World War II he probably left these albums with Al Phipps.
Mackenzie died in Dawson Creek on March 22, 1963.
MacMillan Bloedel Limited was formed through the merger of three smaller forestry companies in 1951 and 1959: the Powell River Company, the Bloedel Stewart Welch Company, and the H.R. MacMillan Company. MacMillan Bloedel Limited was bought by Weyerhaeuser in 1999.
Joe Mandur's Haida name is 7iidgyaa Kauyss, which means "Our Precious One". He was surrounded by fine native carving at an early age. Since that time he has continued to explore the carved form in traditional and non-traditional media, always showing a deep respect for the traditional elements of Haida design.
Alexander Manson was the first lawyer to practice law in Prince Rupert, BC.
In 1916, he entered Provincial politics under the Liberal Party banner, and became the M.L.A representing the region in the 1920, 1924, and 1928 elections. He was appointed Speaker of the House (1921), and Attorney General and Minister of Labour (1922-28). Upon his defeat in 1933, Manson returned to Vancouver to practice law, and subsequently was appointed Supreme Court Justice - a position he held until his retirement in 1961.
He married Stella Beckwith on June 29, 1909 in Vancouver, BC. In 1916, he successfully entered the world of Provincial politics and became an M.L.A for the Liberal party, winning 473 (67.16%) of the votes for his riding. He continued to represent the Liberals - and winning- in the 1920, 1924, and 1928 elections.
During this time, he was Speaker of the House (1921) and appointed as both the Attorney General and Minister of Labour (1922-28).
It was also during this time (1925-26) that he was elected and served as the Grand Master of the Grand Masonic Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon.
Upon his defeat in Provincial politics in 1933, Mr Manson returned to Vancouver to practice law and was subsequently appointed Supreme Court Justice. He continued in this position until his retirement in 1961. Born in 1883, Mr. Manson passed away on September 25, 1964.
E. N. Clark and Leo Marchant were two British newspapermen who travelled on foot from sea to sea across Canada. They left Montreal, Quebec on the 8th of August 1908 and arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia approximately 121days later. According to a travel journal written by Sinclair Thomson Duncan (1911), “the two men set out on the journey without money and food, so that highway- men would find nothing on them to rob, and they carried no firearms or any kind of dangerous weapons. With the exception of tramps, who gave them some trouble, they were allowed to pass along unmolested, and received enough to eat as they passed from stage to stage on the railway track.”
Knox Freeman McCusker ("Mac") the son of Rev. Samuel and Mary McCusker (nee Orr) was born on 6 April 1890, in Hawkesbury, Ontario. He received his education at the Gault Institute in Valleyfield, Quebec and at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
In 1909 he joined the staff of the Topographical Surveys Branch in the Federal Department of the Interior; in 1914 he was granted the commission of Dominion Land Surveyor. His work with the Topographical Surveys Branch included initial meridian, baseline and subdivision surveys and exploratory mapping. In 1927, he guided Marland Oil Company officials in prospecting an area to the west and north of Fort St. John and from the information gathered, he drafted the original Hudson Hope eight mile to one inch map sheet. After being laid off in 1930 as a result of the Great Depression, Mac took up guiding in British Columbia’s Peace River region including the Liard and Dease River areas and up into the Yukon. One of his most famous guiding commissions was with the Henry Expeditions.
In 1931, Dr. J. Norman Henry (prominent physician) and Mrs. Mary Gibson Henry (pioneer amateur botanist), a wealthy and adventurous American couple from Philadelphia, commissioned McCusker to guide them and their four children to the elusive "tropical valley" located near the Yukon border – a geographical phenomena they had heard so much about on a previous trip to Jasper, AB. This 79-day expedition lead them to the Toad River Hot Springs, and while the exotic “tropical valley” of their imagination may not have been fully realized, Mrs. Henry did amass an extensive collection of plants en route – a collection which fuelled her passionate interest in botany and spurred her to revisit north eastern BC another three times: in 1932, 1933 and 1935.
On the Henry expeditions whenever the outfit stopped to rest, McCusker and Mary Henry would climb to the top of the nearest mountain. Mac would get his bearings and work on his maps, while Mary Henry would work on her plant collection. The information McCusker acquired on these trips contributed substantially to the geographical knowledge of the area, and his maps formed the basis of many of the subsequent topographical maps of the area. Many of the landmarks in the area were also named as a result of McCusker's efforts, as can be seen in names such as Mt. Mary Henry, Mt. St. Paul and Mt. St. George, Beckman Creek, and Falk Creek - all named after individuals involved in the initial 1931Henry Expedition. As well, the Alaska Highway (construction for which beginning in 1942) followed part of the Henry expedition route.
Due to his specialized topographical knowledge of the area, McCusker was involved with many aspects of the Alaska Highway Construction project: including the coordination of fuel and supply movement into Fort Nelson during the winter of 1941-42; advising on the layout of the highway route; organizing pack outfit support during construction, and supervising the building of construction camps. This knowledge ultimately contributed greatly towards the location and construction of the Northwest Staging air route and the Alaska Highway - both wartime projects of high international priority. In acknowledgement for his wartime efforts, "Mac" received the Certificate of Merit from the United States Public Roads Administration.
In 1944, Knox McCusker married Gwen Elliott in a ceremony in Edmonton and the newlyweds spent their honeymoon conducting a legal survey of the Alaska Highway in the Yukon that summer. From 1950 until his passing in 1955, McCusker was in the employ of the Department of Public Works, Edmonton, making subdivision and other surveys in the Peace River Country. Knox Freeman McCusker passed away in Fort St. John on 27 April 1955 at the age of 65.
Charles E. McGaughey was born in North Bay, Ontario on November 26, 1917. He graduated from Queens University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1938 and a Master of Arts Degree in 1939. During the summer of 1939, he attended the Student International Union Conference in Switzerland. He obtained a diploma in International Relations at the University of Chicago in 1940-41, and worked as a political correspondent with Sudbury Star and North Bay Nugget. In October of 1941 he married Jessie Porter; that same year, he joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a Private. He attended the Canadian Army Japanese Language School in Vancouver, and served during WWII in the United Kingdom and South East Asia, receiving his Discharge as Captain from the Armed Forces in 1947.
His first diplomatic posting was as Vice Consul with the Canadian Department of External Affairs to Chicago 1948-49; he was then posted to Tokyo as Third Secretary at the Canadian Embassy until 1952 when he returned to Ottawa. From 1955-57 he was posted as the First Secretary to the Canadian High Commissioners Office in New Delhi, and was then posted as Acting High Commissioner for Canada to Wellington, New Zealand until 1958. Posted at home in Ottawa until 1962, he was then posted to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as Canadian High Commissioner, and at the same time, as the Canadian Ambassador to Burma and the first Canadian Ambassador to Thailand.
In 1965 he was appointed High Commissioner to Ghana in Accra; and concurrently as Ambassador to Guinea, Ivory Coast, Togo and Upper Volta.
In 1966, he was posted as Canadian High Commissioner to Pakistan in Aslamabad; and from 1966-68 also received the concurrent posting of first Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan. A year later he was appointed Canadian Ambassador to Israel, and concurrently as High Commissioner to Cyprus until 1972.
In 1972 he returned to Canada and was appointed Deputy Commandant of the National Defence College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He held this position until 1974 when he chose to take early retirement and move to Cloyne, Ontario, a small community located midway between Kingston and Ottawa. He lived in Cloyne until the fall of 1991 when he moved with his wife to Prince George, British Columbia to join his two sons and their families. He died in Prince George on October 28, 1999.
The McGregor Model Forest Association (MMFA) was established in 1992 by the Government of Canada under the Canadian Forest Service’s Model Forest Program which was established across the country to examine and test principals of sustainable forest management. The MMFA operated successfully for over 15 years to support research, development of integrated forest management models, forest education and facilitation of collaborative decision-making. The Association’s approximately 50 members included communities, First Nations, industry, government and non-government representatives, as well as individual scientists and practitioners. The MMFA was an active participant in the Canadian and International Model Forest Networks, and also carried out projects in Russia on behalf of the Canadian International Development Agency. The Model Forest Program concluded in 2007, and was replaced by the Forest Communities Program. This new program was intended to facilitate the development and sharing of knowledge, tools and practices to empower forest-based communities to participate in informed decision-making on the forest land base, allowing communities to sustain and grow forest resource benefits while capitalizing on emerging forest-based opportunities. During this changeover, many of the existing Model Forests continued their operations under this new program, including the MMFA, while others continued their operations through partner and other funding sources, and some closed their doors. In October 2007, MMFA was combined with the Integrated Resource Management Partnership of Northern British Columbia (the “IRM Partnership”) into the Resources North Association - a new society whose aim it was to strengthen the previous relationship between the groups and to capitalize on their synergies.
B.W. "Bud" McKilvington was born in Vermont but moved to northern Alberta and eventually settled in the Chilcotin district of B.C., where he had a number of jobs over the years. He was an outdoorsman and hunter who appreciated the writings of Eric Collier and began a correspondence with him after the publication of Collier's book.
Barry McKinnon was born in 1944 in Calgary, Alberta. He studied at Mount Royal College for two years and in 1965 he attended Sir George Williams University in Montreal. He studied poetry with Irving Layton and received a BA in English and Psychology in 1967. He graduated with an MA degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia in 1969, and in the same year became an English instructor at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, BC until his retirement in 2005. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2006 from the University of Northern British Columbia, the highest award presented by the university in recognition of outstanding public service of national significance. Barry has been widely published and extensively involved in the Prince George and British Columbia literary community, both as a writer and as a publisher, editor, and designer, and has achieved national recognition. The Caledonia Writing Series and Gorse Press contain 125 titles. These include Victoria Walker’s Suitcase, winner of the BC Book Award, and George Bowering’s Quarters, winner of the bp Nichol Award. In 1981 Gorse Press won the Malahat Review Award for excellence in letterpress and broadside design. He has authored 15 books of poetry and numerous journal and anthology publications. In 1981, his work "The The" was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry and "Pulplog" won the Dorothy Livesay Prize (BC Book Awards) for 1991. He won the bp Nichol Chapbook Award for "Arrythmia" in 1994, and for "Bolivia/Peru" in 2004. He has also organized more than 100 readings in Prince George, attracting the likes of Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and former Prince George writer Brian Fawcett. Over the course of nearly four decades, Barry has inspired generations of northern writers and added his own poetic voice to the nation’s literary culture.
Born in 1953 in Alberta, Dale lived in Prince George from 1978 to 2006, serving in many high-profile positions. From 1983 to 2001, McMann was the CEO of the Prince George Region Development Corporation. Dale McMann was one of the founding members of the Interior University Society (IUS) and served on the first IUS Executive. The Prince George Regional Development Corporation was the group which gave the Interior University Society the seed money to get started.
Dale McMann is very involved in softball organizations. By 1986, Dale was serving as president of Softball B.C. and in 1990, he was elected president of Softball Canada, and kept that position for 11 years. Dale also served as the International Softball Federation vice-president/North America for 16 years (1993-2009). While handling those posts, Dale was integral in planning and decision-making for World Championship and Olympic competitions. Dale’s input was crucial as the ISF established its headquarters in Florida. Dale McMann was inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
Currently, McMann serves as the Executive Regional Director of BC Housing, and has since 2005. Previously, he was the Regional Director of the British Columbia Buildings Corporation (2001-2005).
The Métis are one of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who trace their descent to mixed First Nations and European heritage. The term was historically a catch-all describing the offspring of any such union, but within generations the culture syncretised into what is today a distinct aboriginal group, with formal recognition equal to that of the Inuit and First Nations. At one time there was an important distinction between French Métis born of francophone voyageur fathers, and the Anglo-Métis or Countryborn descended from Scottish fathers. Today these two cultures have essentially coalesced into one Métis tradition.
Almost 400,000 people self-identify as Métis in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada outlined three broad factors to identify Métis rights-holders: self-identification as a Métis individual; ancestral connection to an historic Métis community; and acceptance by a Métis community.
The Micks family moved from Primrose, Nebraska in 1913 to homestead in the Fort Fraser/Vanderhoof area.
Philip Monckton was born in South Africa and educated in England. At the age of 17, Monckton entered articles with a distinguished surveyor and engineer, the late E.A. Cleveland, B.C.L.S., P.Eng., as a pupil in surveying, and after writing his final examinations in 1913, he was awarded his commission as a British Columbia Land Surveyor. He then took a year's course in mining engineering at the University of Washington 1914-1915. War service followed with a commission in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 1915-1919; after he had attained the rank of Captain he returned to resume land surveying in British Columbia. He married Lavender (nee O'Hara) at St. Albans in January 1918.
Although not officially a civil servant until 1941, most of Mr. Monckton's professional career was devoted to Provincial Government assignments, mainly on exploratory triangulation surveys in northwestern British Columbia. Place names such as Terrace, Kitimat, Skeena, Nass, Iskut, Stikine, Finlay and Kechika Rivers, Meziadin and Bowser Lakes, and Telegraph Creek exist in his reports to the Surveyor General though the years 1921-1940.
In September 1942, after having a year's permanent appointment in the British Columbia Forest Service, Mr. Monckton was granted leave to accept a commission in the R.C.A.F. to perform engineering and surveying duties on the West Coast and later in Quebec. He returned to the Provincial Civil Service in November 1944, after which departmental surveys under the Land Act occupied most of his attention until his retirement in 1957. A special assignment in 1947 was a reconnaissance survey of possible routes for a highway from Hazelton northwest to the Yukon via the Kispiox, Nass, Bell Irving, Iskut, Stikine Rivers and Atlin. Segments of his proposed location are now followed by the Cassiar-Stewart road.
Philip Monckton died on October 4th, 1965 in the Vancouver General Hospital after a heart attack.
Bridget Moran (née Drugan) (September 1, 1923-August 21, 1999) was a prominent social activist, social worker, writer and mentor who spent most of her adult life in British Columbia. She was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and shortly after her birth the Drugan family emigrated to Success, Saskatchewan, where Bridget spent her formative years. She attended Normal School in Saskatchewan and taught school in rural Saskatchewan until 1944 when she enlisted in the Women's Royal Canadian Service. After her discharge from the Navy in 1946, Bridget entered academic studies at the University of Toronto, where she received an Honours B.A. in Philosophy and English and was the recipient of a gold medal upon graduation. She began work on a Master's Degree in History in 1950, however she soon realized it would be impossible to continue as the federal Department of Veterans' Affairs refused to provide her with financial support on the grounds that they found no women teaching in history departments in Canada.
In 1951 Moran decided to immigrate to British Columbia where she began a career as a social worker; first in welfare offices in Haney, Salmon Arm and Vernon, and then in 1954 in Prince George where she took a position as District Supervisor of Welfare Services for a large section of the Central Interior of BC. For the following ten years Moran worked as a social worker based out of Prince George attending to the welfare service needs of BC’s Central Interior population. However, Moran’s career with the public service came to a very public end when she was suspended from her position in 1964 after she wrote an open letter in a Vancouver newspaper criticizing Premier W.A.C. Bennett’s Social Credit government for what she saw as gross neglect in addressing the needs of child welfare in the province. Although Moran eventually won reinstatement after a two year battle, she was told there would be no work available for her in the BC Ministry of Social Services. She continued her career in social work; first, for the Prince George Regional Hospital, and later with the University of Victoria Social Work Department as a practicum instructor for social work students in Prince George. In 1977 she practiced social work with the Prince George School District, where she remained for twelve years before retiring in 1989.
After Moran’s retirement from the Prince George School District, she pursued her ‘second career’ as a writer. In 1988 she wrote Sai’k’uz Ts’eke: Stoney Creek Woman: The Story of Mary John (1988) based on extensive oral histories that Moran conducted with Mary John about life on the Stoney Creek reserve. Moran’s second book Judgment at Stoney Creek: Sai’k’uz Ne ba na huz’ya, (1990) is based on her account of the inquest into the death of Coreen Thomas and provides an in-depth analysis of tenuous white-native relations in rural BC in the 1970s. Moran’s next book, A Little Rebellion (1992) provides an auto-biographical account of her public dispute with the Bennett government. The book Justa: A First Nations Leader, Dakelhne Butsowhudilhzulh’un (1994) is based on extensive oral interviews Moran conducted with Tl’azt’en Nation member, Justa Monk, who transformed his life and was elected Tribal Chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council. Moran was commissioned by the Elizabeth Fry Society to write the case history of “Theresa” a battered woman, for the book Don’t Bring Me Flowers (1992). Her last book Prince George Remembered from Bridget Moran (1996) provides a series of excerpts of oral history interviews that Moran conducted in the late 1950s with white settlers providing memories of their arrival in Prince George c.1911-c.1920.
Trelle Morrow, B.A., B. Arch. is a Retired Member of the Architectural Institute of B.C. Mr. Morrow was a graduate of the UBC School of Architecture and established a practice in Prince George in 1956 and worked on many local and northern projects until he retired in 1997.
Margaret Lally "Ma" Murray, OC (1908-1982) was the wife of publisher and MLA George Murray, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Originally from Kansas, "Ma" Murray was co-founder and editor (with her husband George) of the Bridge River-Lillooet News, the Alaska Highway News and other publications.
The Nechako Environmental Coalition was involved in several environmental health legislation campaigns, which included the development of the National Pollutants Release Inventory, achieving federal legislation for dioxins and furans, preventing diversion the Nechako River from industrial diversion and regulation of formaldehyde emissions in the MDF industry.
In 1996, the Nechako Environmental Coalition made an appeal to the Deputy Director of Waste Management regarding the upholding of the issuance of a waste management permit to Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (Canfor), which allowed Canfor to discharge emissions to the air from a proposed medium density fibre board (MDF) plant in Prince George.