British Columbia History

Today I learned that on January 11, 2022, Kaye Kaminishi turned 100 years old. He is the last living member of the legendary Vancouver Asahi baseball club. It’s pretty incredible to think about—the things that Kaye and other centenarians would have s

I have been thinking a lot about the surge in anti-Asian assaults and hate crimes lately. Partly it’s because, as a historian, I am asked regularly to explain the history of anti-Asian racism and how it can help us analyze what is happening now. The

With the invention of the incandescent light bulb in the 1880s came a boom in its production and use. Victoria was no exception: It was a modern city, with many of its better-off homes lit by electricity. Increasing construction along the Gorge Water

The loggers who first cut down the trees on the waterfront lot at Atwater Landing in East Sooke over one hundred years ago had no idea that they were laying the foundation of a house that would one day become a legend. But in less than a century the

In 1952 renowned archaeologist Charles Borden remarked that the Interior Plateau of Northern British Columbia was archaeologically one of the least known regions in North America. This remains just as true today. Until 2012, archaeologists believed t

I am a 37-year-old PhD candidate in the department of history at UBC, and a sessional faculty member in the department of history at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV), which means I’m in a contract-based, impermanent, and precarious teaching

Excerpt from Before We Lost the Lake: A Natural and Human History of Sumas Valley (Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018) In an interview with the CBC, Sumas First Nation Chief Dalton Silver said, “despite the devastation caused by flooding over the past

British officer Lieutenant Henry James Warre and his party journeyed west across the Rocky Mountains and south through the Kootenays and followed the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver in the summer of 1845. Purportedly adventuring “as private traveler

Being an activist historian means incorporating the histories of all people—not just whitewashed histories. Stories such as that of BC's Mifflin Wistar Gibbs should be commonly known—yet are not. Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was the de facto leader of the Bl

First-hand accounts of ancestors’ lives are often hard to find, so it was fortunate for me when a letter written by my great-uncle in 1921 recently came into my hands. It sheds some light on old ways of life in the Arrow Lakes district of British Col

It was the worst aviation disaster in BC history of its time. Nearly 71 years ago, a now maturely forested site halfway up the north face of Mount Benson on Vancouver Island was a bleak and burning landscape of skeletal aircraft remains and charred b

Seeing the tree beneath Its baptism of snow, the twigs Seem dark, and the bark feels Cold to your hands, but inside she Pulses with the urgency of green. From the 36th Annual Report of the Okanagan Historical Society (1972) written by Donna Lezard of

The books and digital media profiled in this issue of “Refracting History” will incite many readers to think differently about history. Some reposition historical narratives on the experiences of Indigenous peoples and other racialized communities in

A ghost sign is an advertisement that was hand-painted on a building long ago and still remains. A “ghost sign” uncovered on the side of a Vancouver building during demolition opened a crack in time to the 1920s. The sign for a defunct bakery was han