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Collection consists of accumulated material relating to Northern and Central British Columbia. This material includes documents, subject files, unpublished grey literature, discrete textual records with limited provenance, and other ephemeral items.

File consists of two letters written by John McCormick to a friend describing his experiences in Barkerville and the gold mining conditions on Williams Creek.

Consists of copies of lot plans, a blueprint of the townsite of Port Essington, and an article on Port Essington from the 15 November 1984 edition of the Prince Rupert Daily News.

Consists of 2 overlapping legal-size copies depicting the plans for Lot 7392 in Port Essington.

Consists of 9 legal-size copies of documents related to the surveying and preemption of land at Port Essington by Robert Cunningham.

Item is original correspondence from the accountant of the Consolidated Cariboo Hydraulic Mining Company to "Messrs. Harvey, Bailey & Co., Ashcroft, B.C." Includes original cover envelope posted 1 Sept. 1899 at the Bullion Post Office located 3 miles southeast of Quesnelle Forks. Also includes an accompanying informational sheet about the company operations and some postal history about the item.

Consists of a certificate of appointment of Louis Dixon of Telegraph Creek as Justice of the Peace.

Item is a GTPR banquet menu. Printing on recto reads “Menu G.T.P.R. Banquet To Sir Charles Rivers Wilson and President Charles M. Hays of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company Given by The Prince Rupert Board of Trade at the Prince Rupert Inn Saturday, August 21st, 1909”.

Advertisement reads:
A FORTUNE IS WITHIN YOUR REACH
The Natural Center for a Great Metropolis in Central British Columbia
50,000 people have written to this company in the past few months for information on Fort George and Central British Columbia. This spring this section will see its real awakening--of course the shrewd investor of small capital appreciates what it means to buy land or town lots in the path of great industrial development, which development is not merely contemplated, but is actually in progress. The person who sees Fort George and its wonderfully rich tributary country today and invests a small sum there and revisits it again in 1915 would find himself financially independent, and the whole face of things so completely changed that he could not realize it as the same spot where his small investment had been made in 1911.
These statements are not dreams, but real existing facts based on the solid foundation of an immense virgin country, marvelously rich in natural resources being opened to the world by the greatest transcontinental railway system on the American continent, 1,100 miles, of navigable waterways radiate from Fort George.
Fort George is on the line of seven railroads projected and under construction. We issue a monthly periodical, The British Columbia Bulletin of Information--full of intensely interesting reading and pictures of British Columbia, which we will mail to you every month if you will ask.

File consists of documents recording the founding, funding, explorations, and investments of the pioneering Queen Charlotte Islands General Development Company, Ltd. (London, England). Includes approximately 150 pages of manuscript and the following items of interest:

• "Memorandum and Articles of Association, London, 1911
• Notice of First General Meeting, 1912
• First and later minutes of meetings in Victoria, BC and elsewhere
• Extensive correspondence with their representatives in the Queen Charlotte Islands including mining surveyors
• Reports from Queen Charlotte Islands from their representatives at Cumshewa, Skidegate, and Alliford Bay
• Records regarding all aspects of financing the company
  Most of the items date from 1912-1913, providing a very detailed account of the founding and aspirations of the company, and revealing the difficulties in doing business in the remote Queen Charlotte Islands. Also notably includes correspondence and reports from Henry Collison.

Item is a 14 Nov. 1912 receipt of products purchased from John A. Fraser & Co., Ltd. of Quesnel, B.C., "dealers in general merchandise and lumber". The buyer was Tom Styner[?].

This item is believed to be the program for the first agricultural fair in Fort George. This annual fair evolved to become what is now Prince George's British Columbia Northern Exhibition (BCNE).

Item is issue Vol. 2 No. 4 from February 1912 of the "British Columbia Bulletin of Information", a promotional mouthpiece of the Natural Resources Security Company. The publication is self-described as "About the vast natural resources and commercial, agricultural and mining progress, together with a synopsis of the laws regulating public lands, timber, coal and other minerals, and current record of development in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan for the business man, the farmer and the investor". The headline of this issue is "B.C. Government Guarantees Bonds of Railway to connect Fort George with Vancouver". The Natural Resources Security Company was a development company that sold a significant amount of land in Fort George.

File consists of three business letters and one telegram sent by W.F. Smith in 1914 from Smithers, Prince George, and Fort George.

Two duplicate booklets for the "Government auction sale of property at Prince George, Fort George, and South Fort George". Both booklets are variously annotated with different numbers (bid prices? final sale amounts?) next to listed lots to be sold.

Consists of two letters written in Traditional Chinese, likely sent in the same accompanying single envelope, to Hwong Leeyau in Victoria, BC. The letters were sent by Canglee and Yangkou in Anyox, BC on Sept. 19.

Letter 1:
Brother Leeyau,
The job market is bleak in Anyox. The copper [mining] is gone and there is no revenue. Job firing and rate reduction happened time and again. There are countless people with no jobs and countless people getting out of town. The brothers from our village are working now but their working days seem numbered. I have no job now and I am thinking of leaving town. I want to ask you whether there are jobs in Victoria.
Canglee
Posted on Sept. 19 with an address for mail in Anyox

Letter 2:
Brother Leeyau,
Leeyu came by bus to my place on the 9th. He wanted to work in a restaurant but there is no such a job for him. Now he's working for a white person and the pay is $18 a week. The job market is very slow in our city and it's very hard to find a job. One should save a lot of money so that once there is a chance you can make progressed quickly. I got a letter from Kwang Wei yesterday, telling me he and Mr. Chiang created a company of iron and copper in Vancouver, right by Sinfualo [transliteration - might be a restaurant]. He asked me to invest in and also work for the company. I like this business very much and talked with the stakeholders on my side. They said I can by no means leave the shop. To think about it, my business is actually very stable. I had a hard time to decide. As the saying goes, you can't split one body for two jobs. I finally declined their offer by writing and I let you know about it.
Yangkou
Sept. 19

Also includes accompanying modern translation sheet for the letters.

File consists of six love letters written by an unknown woman from Masset on Graham Island, BC to her husband Constable Donald Stevenson in Prince George. Donald Stevenson was employed by the North-West Mounted Police. The woman was employed at Tow Hill cannery.

Plan of Port Essington consists of an architectural plan for the townsite of Port Essington compiled from plans in Land Registry and described as Composite Plan 537 (originally deposited October 17th 1893). Depicts Skeena River, Hocsal River, individual lots and streets, the B.C. Fishing and Packing Co. Ltd., a graveyard, and the Anglo British Columbia Packing Co.

Item is a single-page mimeographed list of free miners' licenses dating from May 31st, 1928.

File consists of four letters from Eagle Lake Spruce Mills to the British Columbia Ministry of Railways regarding the company's construction of a logging railway.

Item reads "Programme of Ceremony at Unveiling of Cairn at Barkerville under the auspices of Cariboo Lodge No. 4, A.F. & A.M., to mark completion of the historic Cariboo Road in 1865". Includes an order of ceremony, the committee in charge, information about children's sports at the event, and a listing of pioneers and "old-timers" present in the platform party at the event.

File consists of eight newspaper clippings, seven of which are a series of articles on the findings of the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition, with the eighth being a photograph of the Expedition’s winter quarters in Etah, Greenland. Five of the articles were written by the expedition leader, Mr. Noel Humphreys and the other two were written by members of the Expedition, Mr. Moore and Mr. Haig-Thomas. The articles were originally published in the “Times” of London but the clippings appear to be from the “New Zealand Herald”.

File includes:

• Memorandum to Stuart S. Holland, 14 Nov. 1941
• Newspaper clipping re: Boulder Creek, ca. Jan. 1939
• Correspondence from Barrington Transportation Company to Stuart Holland, 1 May 1939
• Notes regarding amounts of gold and silver on Wheaton Creek (Boulder Creek)

Item is a promotional calendar for a long haul trucking company from Vanderhoof, BC called "Johnson Transfer". Calendar imagery is a print of an English setter dog.

Item is a printed seasonal greeting card. Includes a printed image of an Alaskan Highway view from Dawson Creek and an outline map of the Alaska Highway. Printed card inscription states "Major and Mrs. C.C. Clitheroe Rae Pauline and David Charles Send Greeting and Best Wishes for Christmas 1944 and the New Year 1945".

Item is a program for a "welcome home banquet in honor of our soldier men and women" in Prince George on December 28, 1945. Includes a menu and a programme of events, including a welcome from Mayor Jack Nicholson.

File consists of music programs, brochures, and news clippings from performances in Prince George and Vanderhoof. Some of the concerts were organized by the Prince George and District Drama and Music Association, the Prince George Concert Association, the Prince George Concert Group, the Prince George Cantata Singers, Alaska Music Trail, Overture Concert Association, and the Nechako Community Arts Council.

File consists of:

• 1948 Canadian National Brochure, Alaska in ’48. Dimensions: [21 x 28 cm]
• 1948 Pamphlet brochure 5 Day Cruise to Ketchikan Alaska. Dimensions: [10 x 22 cm]
• 1948 CNR Grand Trunk Railway letter regarding cruise offerings. Dimensions: [20 x 28 cm]

This promotional map of the city of Prince George describes the city as "the hub of our northwest empire". Includes a printed map drawn by Hammond that shows significant locations in Prince George, including the Prince George Citizen office, civic arena, bus depot, civic centre, city hall, city hospital, CNR station, fire hall, government building, post office, provincial library, and the junior-senior high school. Includes numerous handwritten annotations of other locations including the women's provincial jail, old army buildings, power house, armories, bowling alley, Connaught Hill, and "The Cache".

This photocopied typescript entitled "Early Automobiles in Prince George" by Albert Bell Porter gives anecdotes and accounts relating to early automobile ownership in Prince George circa 1900-1920.

Consists of 3 legal-size copies of drawings of and a surveyor's report on Lot 7392. Includes drawings of lot, and a note reading : "This is a foreshore Lot in front of Part of Lot 45, Village of Port Essington"

Item is a brochure promoting the 150th anniversary of Fort St. James, BC. The brochure contains a history of Fort St. James.

Item is the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) Passenger Time Table 76A. Includes an illustrated route map.

Item is a rough draft of James Hackler's 1958 thesis, which was later entitled "Factors leading to social disorganization among the Carrier Indians at Lake Babine".

This 16 page booklet includes illustrations and a program of events, along with a short history of Williams Lake, a short history of stampedes, a "Dude Dictionary", and a poem entitled "The Old Cow Puncher". Also includes a summary about the "Cariboo Indians" (possibly referring to the Secwepemc Nation and other First Nations near the Williams Lake area) contemporary to the time that contains information that is now considered inaccurate.

Produced and directed by Alf Burton. Musical direction by Catherine Moonie. Performances at Duchess Park Junior High School Auditorium, December 9-12, 1959.

Produced and directed by Alf Burton. Musical direction by Catherine Moonie. Performances at Duchess Park Junior High School Auditorium, March 5-7, 1959.

File consists of items found within the book "Placer Mining in British Columbia" (1931), which now resides in our Special Collections:

• Photograph depicting a creek within a extensive mountain range. Handwritten annotation in upper right corner reads: “Cassiar Yukon Properties Quartz Creek” and an arrow pointing downwards towards a creek (2 copies)
• Photograph depicting rocky valley. Handwritten annotation along top and bottom of recto reads: “600’ Channel; Wing Pit”
• Telegram from A.J. Marion to Joseph T. Mandy sent from Telegraph Creek, BC, on May 17 (1968?) re: mining start dates in Dease lake, Lower Post and McDames
• 6 scraps of paper with handwritten mining notes
• “Mining in focus” by Bruce Ramsey, 1968 handwritten notes

File consists of:

• Barkerville Historical Park pamphlet (1961?)
• Postcard of St. Saviour's Church, Barkerville, "one of BC's oldest churches" (2 Aug. 1964)
• An informational booklet about St. Saviour's Church, Barkerville (2 Aug. 1964)
• Theatre Royal, Barkerville playbill (2 Nov. 1966)
• Theatre Royal, "The Legend of Fanny Bendixon" playbill (1983)
• Barkerville Schedule of Events (1983)

Item is an programme for the Canadian Schools Curling Championship that occurred at the Prince George Coliseum in Prince George, BC between February 20-24, 1961.

Stone Creek Hotel was a motel in Stoner, BC, located 23 miles south of Prince George. File consists of:

• 1962 Stone Creek Hotel calendar
• Correspondence from Roy and Lorraine Santics, owners of Stone Creek Hotel, to family members
• Photograph of Santics family
• Empty Stone Creek Hotel matchbook
• Stone Creek Lodge drink coaster
• Stone Creek Hotel ashtray
• Clipping ad for the Stone Creek Hotel
  Some of the items in this file contain imagery of vintage "pin-up girls".