The British Columbia Historical Federation (BCHF) has announced four recipients of the 2023 Centennial Legacy Fund grants.

They are: the West Coast Ringette Historical Society ($2,500), Indo-Fijian Cultural Society of Canada ($3,700), Spencer Legebokoff ($700), and Letitia Johnson ($3,100).  

Successful projects commemorate or preserve historical sites, cultural landscapes, or objects, and encourage new research, interpretation, or publication of British Columbia history.   

The West Coast Ringette Historical Society's 50th Anniversary Documentation Project captures and documents the oral histories of former ringette athletes, coaches and builders in British Columbia. Ringette is a Canadian sport invented for female athletes in 1963, which was brought to BC in 1974.  This is the first time ringette history in BC has been collected and documented. 

The Indo-Fijian Cultural Society of Canada’s project will capture oral histories of the first Indo-Fijian Immigrants to British Columbia and the elders of BC's Indo-Fijian Community. The Indo-Fijian community is one of the four largest Diasporas in the world, yet there has been no previous research conducted on the heritage and history of the Indo-Fijian people in British Columbia and their contributions to BC’s society.   

Spencer Legebokoff’s Doukhobor History Poetry Project will see him researching niche aspects of village life and politics and writing inspired poetry. As a result, the body of Doukhobor literature as well as literature that represents the history of the West Kootenay region will be expanded. 

Letitia Johnson’s project called “Lasting Local Effect: Japanese Canadian Healthcare Professionals and Changes to Medicine in Remote Interior British Columbia (c.1940s-1990s)” will see her research how the labour of Japanese Canadians, as racialized healthcare professionals, changed remote medicine in BC in the 1940s. This project will be the first to consider how the presence of Japanese Canadian healthcare practitioners changed the healthcare provided in rural and remote areas of BC from the 1940s onwards. 

The Centennial Legacy Fund was initiated in 2017 to acknowledge, in turn and collectively, Canada 150, British Columbia’s Union with Canada 1871 Sesquicentennial 2021, and the centennial of the founding of what is now called British Columbia Historical Federation, in 1922. 

CLF Chair Quentin Wright congratulates Spencer Legebokoff at the BCHF Awards Gala on May 4.