“There are stories to tell… from across British Columbia”. Special guest Paul Ferguson —adjudicator on the Centennial Legacy Fund committee —spoke to the crowd at the BC Historical Federation gala awards evening in Courtenay last Saturday. His words capture the spirit of the award and of the chosen projects:
“There are stories to tell from across British Columbia. This is the beating heart of this land… of time… of memories of you and yours. Friends and families, and of strangers we meet in the turning of pages — images, collections, and recordings as we search and seek. Old stories can become heard again. We share wisdom and folly, lives lived and lives remembered. This evening we honour three such stories by helping their seekers share this past. To make these stories heard again… to hear their beating hearts. “
Jacqueline Pearce (Burnaby, BC), Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum (Masset, BC), and the Atlin Historical Society received awards from the BCHF Centennial Legacy Fund.
The Centennial Legacy Fund supports projects that encourage historical research in regards to British Columbia’s history, its communities and its diverse peoples.
Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum (Masset, BC) —$4,800
Lorrie John from the Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum Society travelled for 41 hours to join the BCHF on Saturday, June 8, 2019 at the Book Awards Gala event in Courtenay as part of the BCHF annual conference.
The Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum Society’s winning project will tell the stories of the boat building families of Greater Masset area — Masset and Old Masset. Some of the families who were the canoe builders pre-contact became the master boat-building families of the early commercial fishing fleet.
Taking the form of an exhibit, the museum will answer the questions: What are the stories, and how are local families re-building the boat-building legacy? Building on a strong oral tradition and blending with a foundation of document and artifact preservation, local stories from families from both the First People, the Haida, and from pioneering families will be presented to the community.
This show will be on display at the Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum for several seasons.
Jacqueline Pearce (Burnaby, BC) — $4,300
Jacqueline Pearce will put the funds towards a research and translation project that records and explores haiku poetry written in Japanese-Canadian internment camps during WW II. She will research the social and historical context of haiku written in the camps, utilizing primary sources such as haiku scrolls saved by members of Midway internment camp and Tashme haiku club collections donated to the National Nikkei Museum archives, as well as secondary printed sources and interviews with haiku club members still living.
Jacqueline will find and gather existing published materials on the topic of haiku in internment camps and work with translators Jean-Pierre Antonio and Michiko Kihira (based in Japan), as well as Burnaby haiku poet and translator Rachel Enomoto, to translate the internment camp haiku into English. The haiku and background information will be shared through articles written for history and haiku journals. The research and writing will also be used as a basis for public and conference presentations on the topic.
If anyone has any internment camp haiku documents or stories they are interested in sharing, Jacqueline can be contacted at jacquiepea@telus.net.
Atlin Historical Society (Atlin, BC) — $900
The Atlin Historical Society will put the funds towards their current transportation exhibit project. The exhibit will show how transportation had a huge impact in the development in British Columbia’s far northwestern corner.
Transportation on the lakes, rivers and through the stark mountain passes created a support economy for the gold rush and later created a market for tourism in the 1920’s.
The Centennial Legacy Fund, initiated in 2017, acknowledges in turn and collectively the anniversaries of 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.
Financial donations made to the BCHF are deposited into the Centennial Legacy Fund. The BCHF will match donations, building the fund and awarding prizes annually.
