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Archival description
2023.8 · Collection · 1942-1972

Willard Freer, a packer and guide in remote northern BC, kept a daily diary from 1942 to 1975 that provides a detailed record of life in northern BC and southern Yukon Territory. This collection consists of digital replicas of Willard Freer's diaries from 1942 to 1975, along with accompanying transcripts created by Jay Sherwood, who authored a book about Freer's life.

Excerpts describing the Freer Diaries from "Kechika Chronicler: Willard Freer's Northern BC & Yukon Diaries, 1942-1975" by Jay Sherwood (2023), pages 14-17:

In a letter that [Willard Freer] wrote in 1935, he stated that he had started keeping a diary when he left home. Unfortunately, his early diaries have been lost. In the summer of 1939, while Freer was away working, the BC Provincial Police investigated his neighbour Frank "Shorty" Weber as a suspect in a local murder. The police seized Freer's diaries from his trapping cabin as potential evidence. Freer wrote to the police requesting the return of his diaries, but he never received them. Fortunately, Freer had made copies of his diaries for the summers of 1932 and 1934. His diary for 1934 is particularly important because he was a member of the Bedaux Expedition.

Freer's existing diaries begin in the spring of 1942, when he was still living in the Ingenika River valley, and continue until 1975. The notebook for 1950 and 1951 is missing, and the January to September 1961 section has been removed. ...
Throughout his adult life, Freer wrote a daily journal. The entries are usually brief and direct, with minimal philosophizing. They are often repetitive, describing daily routines. However, the cumulative narrative of Freer's diaries provides a rare look into the history of one of British Columbia's most remote areas.

The pantheon of people recorded in Freer's diaries include many notable individuals who lived and worked in the Kechika River valley and along the Alaska Highway. Willard's journals provide details about specific events in the lives of these people. There are many references to the famous bush pilots Stan Bridcut and George Dalziel. He notes several prospectors who are well-known in northern BC and Yukon.

Willard's work involved extensive travel through northern BC and Yukon. His diaries provide details about the locations he visited. In particular, Freer kept an important record of travel on the Davie Trail between Fort Ware and Lower Post. For every overnight trip he made, Freer recorded the campsite he used, and the amount of time he spent travelling each day.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Kaska and Kwadacha Tsek'ene still followed their traditional yearly rounds in the Kechika drainage. Freer's diaries detail the lives and routines of numerous Indigenous people over many years. Some of them are mentioned over a hundred times in Freer's diaries. By all accounts, Willard had good relationships with the Indigenous people. In the remote northern BC and Yukon region, where there were few people, working co-operatively was important.

Willard lived and worked at Skook Davidson's Diamond J Ranch during most of the 1940s and at intervals in the 1950s, so his journals provide considerable information about Skook and life at the ranch.
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Freer's diaries contain considerable information about daily life in the lodges along the Alaska Highway.
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Freer was involved in many important projects in northern BC and Yukon. He was a member of the famous 1934 Bedaux Expedition. Freer was a packer for BC and federal government survey crews for several summers; worked on the British Columbia-Yukon Boundary Survey for four years; was employed on Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) crews for several years; and spent three field seasons on the BC government's Forest Inventory program. Willard also packed for a couple of large mining exploration companies and was a hunting guide for Robin Dalziel and other guide outfitters.

Freer's diaries can also be used to monitor events like the weather and snowfall. In the winter, when he lived at Skook's ranch or at his cabin, he recorded the temperature in the morning, at midday, and in the evening. He also noted snowfalls. Willard recorded the date that the Kechika froze over in the fall, and when the ice melted off the river in the spring. He also noted his first observations of birds in the spring.
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The diaries of Willard Freer, which chronicle over thirty years of life in northern BC, are a unique account, providing a gateway to many of the people who lived there and some of the important events that occurred.

Freer, Willard Melvin
2002.1 · Collection · 1887-1999

The Prince George Railway & Forestry Museum Society Collection consists primarily of textual, photographic, and cartographic records related to the regional developments of the railway industry in Northern BC. A predominant portion of the collection is made up of material from the Canadian National Railway; other railways represented include the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, the British Columbia Railway (BC Rail), the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, the Grand Trunk Railway, the Intercolonial Railway, and the Okanagan Express. Significant geographical areas covered include Prince George, the Peace River Region, Terrace, Bulkley Valley, Hazelton and Prince Rupert.

The forestry industry is represented in the collection with operational and financial records from Fyfe Lake Sawmill Ltd., which operated southwest of Prince George in the 1950s.

The collection has been organized into series according to creator, each of which also has been arranged to subseries, file and item level, where applicable. This collection consists of eight series, as follows:

1) Canadian National Railway
2) Grand Trunk Railway
3) Pacific Great Eastern Railway
4) British Columbia Railway (BC Rail)
5) Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR)
6) Intercolonial Railway
7) Fyfe Lake Sawmill ltd.
8) PGRFM
9) Photographs

Parker photograph collection
2011.13 · Collection · [between 1910 and 1930]

The photographs depict the geographic areas of Stewart, BC, Boundary Pass, Nelson River, Bitter Creek Glacier, Portland Canal, Red Cliff and Bear Creek; as well as the ships “Camosun” and “S.S. Prince George.” Types of subjects identified in this collection include: community life, surveying, mining and transportation (i.e. dog-sledding, horse and buggy, and the Portland Canal Short Line Railway “P.C.S.L. Rlwy”).

2003.13 · Collection · [after 1909]

Consists of two photograph albums that illustrate Parker Bonney's early years as a Forest Engineer. Includes photographs of the expedition to the Nass Valley undertaken by Parker Bonney, Sam Brown, and others. May also include photographs of later surveying expeditions.

Bonney, Parker
Knox McCusker Collection
2008.27 · Collection · 1909-2003

The Knox McCusker Collection consists primarily of photocopies of publications written by Mary Henry (1931-1935); annual reports; articles and papers written about Knox McCusker (1935-1997) as well as research materials pertaining to his life; articles and speeched written by Knox McCusker and general correspondence regarding surveying. Aside from these photocopies are some original records; namely: original correspondence between McCusker and G.G. Aitken (1934-1938); photographs (ca. 1930-1950); McCuskers 1909 certificate enabling him to be an Articled Pupil with the Dominion Land Surveyors; and an interview with McCusker conducted by J. Frank Willis (CBC, 1954).

McCusker, Knox
Jill Singleton Collection
2020.09 · Collection · Aug. 1985

Collection consists of a travel scrapbook created by Jill Singleton documenting a trip to Alaska, Yukon, Haida Gwaii, and northern BC. Includes photographs, ephemera, handwritten notes, pamphlets, issues of local newspapers, and maps.

2021.06 · Collection · 1930-1932

Emil Bronlund was in 1927 hired by Consolidated Mining and Smelting Ltd. (later known as Cominco) to take on the company's mining exploration in northern British Columbia, a position he held for almost 25 years. Bronlund had a Leica camera and took photographs during his exploratory trips.

This album of Bronlund's photographic negatives from 1930 to 1932 includes photographs of the following trips:

  • Trip to Osilinka River and Omineca River, July 1930
  • Copper Mountain on Duck Creek, July 1930
  • Wedge Creek, Sept. 1930
  • Finlay River, Finlay Forks, Parsnip River, and Crooked River, Oct. 1930
  • Prince George, Aug. 1930
  • Gola, Norway, Apr. 1931
  • Emil Bronlund and Frank Swannell survey crews at Thutade Lake, June 1931 and Sept. 1931
  • Cairn mining claim exploration for Consolidated Mining and Smelting Ltd., June-July 1931
  • Brothers Lake, Bronlund Peak, and Fredricksen Lake, July 1932
  • Sustut Lake, Sept.-Oct 1931
  • McLeod River trip, Mar.-Apr. 1932
Bronlund, Emil
2014.10 · Collection · 1907-1920

Collection consists of a photograph album from A. H. Holland, a British Columbia Land Surveyor, that was created while working in the Central Interior, the Cariboo, the Chilcotin and southeast British Columbia. This album visually documents steamboat, stagecoach and horse travel in British Columbia and also captures the prepatory work and dawn of the age of rail travel.

Holland, Arthur H.
2006.25 · Collection · 1961 - 2000, predominant 1961-1967

Fonds consists of original, silent 16mm reels that portray the natural, social and land use history of the Bella Coola and Chilcotin regions named the "Natural and Guiding History of the Bella Coola and Chilcotin Regions".

Possible locations that Al Elsey filmed include: Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Anahim Lake, Alert Bay, Nimpo Lake, Bulkey Valley, the Rainbow Mountains, Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, Dean River, Bella Coola River, Tchaha Lake, the Chilcotin region, the Ulkatcho Mountains, Lassard Lake, Fenton Lake, Atnarko River, Wells Gray Park, and Holt Homestead.