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The Upper Fraser Historical Geography Project was conducted by UNBC faculty and a team of researchers between 1999 and 2002. The lead researchers were Aileen Espritiu, Gail Fondahl, Greg Halseth, Debra Straussfogel, and Tracy Summerville. The project resulted in the creation of 93 oral history records and their transcripts. Participants included regional forest industry executives, politicians (including former MLA Ray Williston, local mayors and Fraser Fort George Regional District representatives), forest industry workers, and former and contemporary Upper Fraser community residents. The oral histories document the rise, consolidation and demise of the forestry-based settlements along the Upper Fraser River between 1915 and 2000.

This collection contains two tapes of interviews by Kent Sedgwick and Megan Heitrich, and one tape by Megan Heitrich alone. Interviews focus primarily upon the Japanese Internment during WWII in the Prince George – Valemount corridor. The interviews are with women who lived near an internment camp during the war, and had some contact with the Japanese men.

The interviewees were selected for having mentioned the Japanese internment in prior interviews: Louisa Mueller and Ruth Cunningham in interviews by the Prince George Oral History Group, and Karlleen Robinson in “A History of Logs and Lumber.” In the Cunningham Interview, Ruth’s daughter Lillian Coulling is also present.