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Harlan Ingersoll Smith was born in 1872 in East Saginaw, Michigan. He joined the Geological Survey of Canada as head of the Archaeology Division (now part of the Canadian Museum of Civilization) in 1911. His early work concentrated on excavating archaeological sites in Eastern Canada, and on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. Returning to British Columbia in 1920, Smith began ethnographic fieldwork among the Bella Coola (including the Nuxalk, Carrier and Chilcotin communities), concentrating on their use of plant and animal materials, social organization and ritual traditions. Smith was also a pioneering ethnographic filmmaker and photographer documenting Plains, Plateau and Northwest Coast Aboriginal people. He wrote and published many articles throughout his career. Smith retired from the Canadian Museum of Civilization in 1936 and died in 1940.

Canadian politician.
Leader of the BC Social Credit Party 1993 - 1994.
Member of the BC Legislative Assembly for Vancouver - Little Mountain, 1966 - 1972 and 1975 - 1991.
First woman in Canada to serve as Deputy Premier (1975)

Gordon Miller is a freelance artist who currently lives and works in Vancouver, BC. Miller was born in Winnipeg in 1932 and attended the Vancouver School of Art from 1950 to 1955. In 1977 he began working as a freelance artist, illustrator, and graphic designer, completing major contracts for the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Royal British Columbia Museum, and National Film Board. He also produced illustrations for the UBC Press, Canadian Geographic, Readers Digest, Historical Atlas of Canada, Parks Canada, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. An avid sailor since his youth, historical sailing ships and maritime scenes are the subject of much of Miller’s artwork.

Gordon Miller has completed a number of commissions for the UBC Museum of Anthropology including contracts for creating large watercolour illustrative panels, many of which were meant to recontextualize material objects from the museum’s collection by showing them in their historical context being used for their original functions.

A Kwagu'l (Tsaxis) carver, married to Mary Hunt. Godfrey's parents were Kenneth Hunt and Minnie Wallas. On his father's side his grandparents were David Hunt and Sarah Lalaxsa; great-grandparents George Hunt and Lucy Homiskanis. (Information from Dean Bradley, grandson of Godfrey Hunt.)

Born in Alert Bay of Kwakwaka'wakw descent, Gloria Cranmer Webster completed high school in Victoria before moving to Vancouver where in 1956 she completed her undergraduate degree in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. She worked as a counsellor at the Oakalla prison and later at the John Howard society, where she met her future husband, John Webster. She worked for the YWCA as a counsellor in Vancouver, then later as the program director at the Vancouver Indian Centre, before she was hired as an assistant curator by the Museum of Anthropology in 1971. She went on to assist in the development of the U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay. She was heavily involved in the debate over repatriation of cultural items related to the potlatch. She received an honorary doctorate of Law from the University of British Columbia in 1995. She was named an officer in the Order of Canada in 2017.

Gillian Darling Kovanic began an undergraduate degree in anthropology in 1968 at Simon Fraser University. In August of that year, Kovanic left Simon Fraser University and spent most of 1969 – 1970 hitchhiking and travelling around the world, including stops in the United States, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, South East Asia and Japan. Upon her return to Canada in 1970, Kovanic transferred to the University of British Columbia where she began a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Anthropology, focusing on South Asia, and minors in Museology and Art History. She completed this degree in 1975.

Kovanic began her Master’s degree at the University of British Columbia in South Asian Anthropology in 1975, finishing in 1979. During this period she completed a year of field work (1976 – 1977) in the Hindi Kush (Kafiristan and Nuristan, Afghanistan) for her Master’s thesis titled, “Merit Feasting Amongst the Kalash of Northern Pakistan.” During this time in Afghanistan and Pakistan she collected ethnographic materials, which now reside with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

In 1979, Kovanic returned to India as a Shastri Indo-Canadian scholar studying the Oriya language in Orissa state. She returned to Canada in 1981 and from 1983 – 1985 completed a diploma in Media Arts and Sciences in the Media Resources Department at Capilano College. Upon completion of this diploma, Kovanic joined Northern Lights Entertainment as a film producer and director. She worked as an independent film maker from 1985 – 1997 and joined the National Film Board of Canada from 1997 – 2001, before returning to her work as an independent film maker with her company Tamarin Productions Inc.

Kovanic’s film career has been widely successful, earning accolades at film festivals around the world for films such as Island of Whales (1990), Battle for the Trees (1993) Through a Blue Lens (2000) and Suspino: A Cry for Roma (2003). Her films have been nominated for many awards, including Gemini Awards, one of which she won for Island of Whales in 1992, the Golden Sheaf Awards and the British Columbia Leo Awards. On many of these projects Kovanic works as director, writer, producer and location sound editor.

Chief of the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw (Tsawataineuk) First Nation. Brother of Chief Peter Scow and Chief John Scow.

According to the publication Chilcotin: Preserving Pioneer Memories (available at UBC Libraries), George Myers “was a unique individual, born at Riske Creek [originally Chilcoten and also Chilcot], British Columbia on September 10, 1983. He lived to be 95, riding his racehorse in local competition well into his eighties… He worked around the country on ranches… He was honoured as a medicine man among his people... He was buried on the Stone Reserve.”

George Burnett Stallworthy was born in Samoa in 1844 to Rev. George Stallworthy, a missionary, and Charlotte Burnett Wilson. After the death of his mother in 1845 from tuberculosis, George B. Stallworthy was raised by his maternal grandparents and his nurse Eunite in Falealii, Samoa until 1855 when he was sent to England for school. From 1855 to 1860, Stallworthy attended the School for the Sons of Missionaries at Blackheath. He later assisted in the formation of the Old Boys’ Association of this school, and was elected as its second President in 1909.

Stallworthy later attended New College until 1873 in preparation for Congregational Ministry, with his first pastorate at Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, where he remained for ten years. In 1883, he took charge of the Haslemere Congregational Church, where he was well respected by the members of his congregation and the town because of his active contributions to both church and civic life. In 1883, he was appointed as one of the first Trustees of the recently formed local Court, “Pride of Hindhead” of the Ancient Order of Foresters. He held this office until 1911. Stallworthy resigned the pastorate at Haslemere in 1892 to take up work at Longfleet, Poole in Dorset. In 1896 he returned to the parish of Haslemere to become superintendent of the newly built Hindhead Congregational Hall.

Stallworthy was deeply interested in education and for several years starting in 1903 was the chairman of the managers of the Hindhead Council Schools. He was an active participant in the Haslemere Microscope and Natural History Society, serving as secretary from 1899 for several years. In 1909 Stallworthy resigned from the position at Hindhead due to health reasons, and resided for a time at Richmond, later moving to Tunbridge Wells where he undertook the work of morning preacher to the little Free Church Community. Five years later he returned to Longfleet, Poole and in 1921 went to Billinghurst until his death.

Stallworthy was also a poet, publishing verses from his lectures services. These include “Buddha, the Enlightened, his Legend re-told in Verse,” and “Legends of Samoa,” which was published as a volume of his Hindhead sermons.

Stallworthy married Alice Clark, the daughter of a Leeds tradesman, in September 1875. They had three children, George Hudswell Stallworthy, William Wilson Stallworthy, and Alice Mary Stallworthy.

Stallworthy died in 1922 in Billinghurst.

Genni Hennessy is a graduate of the MA program in the UBC Department of Anthropology.

Fuyubi Nakamura (中村冬日) is a socio-cultural anthropologist trained at Oxford. She is cross appointed with the Department of Asian Studies as Assistant Professor and with the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) where she works as Curator, Asia (as of June 9, 2023). She is also Associate Member in the Department of Anthropology. Fuyubi specializes in the anthropology of art, museum studies, and material and visual culture studies. She has taught in these fields in the graduate school at the Australian National University (2007-2010) and University of Tokyo (2012-2013), and curated exhibitions internationally prior to joining the Museum of Anthropology in 2014.

Her long-term research since 1998 is an anthropological study of contemporary Japanese calligraphy. In addition to her fieldwork in Japan, she also carried out a research project that investigated the world of Japanese calligraphy in South American countries with large Japanese immigrant communities such as Argentina and Brazil. She took a leave from academia following the triple disaster in Japan in 2011 or 3.11, and was involved in relief and recovery activities in Miyagi Prefecture, and continues to do research about the aftermath of 3.11.

Fuyubi was an associate researcher with the Institute for Art Anthropology at Tama Art University, Tokyo (2010-2015), a guest curator at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Buenos Aires (2010-11) and the producer/curator of the Tokunoshima island art project, Japan (2013-2014). Outside academia and museums, she has worked as a project coordinator for film festivals organized by NHK (Japan’s public broadcaster) and also in business in Tokyo between her degrees and also as a freelance translator for a number of years. Born in Tokyo, Fuyubi grew up in different parts of Japan and spent a year as an AFS intercultural programs exchange studen t in New Zealand before moving to England in 1992. She has travelled widely, especially in India and Europe and has spent several months in South America (Argentina, Brazil and Peru).

While her primary expertise lies in Japan, Fuyubi has also studied Indian art and worked on collaborations on Himalaya-related projects. Her work as a curator responsible for the entire Asia collection at MOA requires her to continuously expand the breadth of her knowledge of Asian cultures. Her research interests include material and visual cultures with special interest in Japan and its diasporas in Argentina and Brazil; Indigenous cultures; India and Tibet; contemporary art, photography and the relation between memory and objects, especially within the context of the 3.11 disaster in Japan.

Her projects around Indigeneity in Japan include:

• Recasting Ainu Indigeneity in Museums Through Performing Arts, August 2022.
• Ainu, Okinawa and Indigeneity Series, February – March 2021.
• Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in Modern Japan and Beyond/北海道150年：近現代日本と世界における殖民・植民地主義と先住民性, March 2019

Her publications include:
• A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake/記憶のための未来―東日本大震災後のアートと暮らし, Vancouver: The Museum of Anthropology at UBC, 2021.
• “Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in modern Japan and Beyond” with Tristan R. Grunow et al. Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2019.
• Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Vancouver: Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing and MOA, 2017.
• Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation across Borders. Edited with Morgan Perkins and Olivier Krischer. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
• Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses/Traces of Time, Traces of Words: Works by Japanese Artists, Buenos Aires: The National Museum of Oriental Art, 2011.
• Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, Canberra: The Australian National University School of Art Gallery, 2010.
• “Memory in the debris: The 3/11 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.” Anthropology Today, Vol.28, Issue 3, 2012.

Her exhibitions include:
• A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake/記憶のための未来―東日本大震災後のアートと暮らし, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, February 11– September 19, 2021. Curator.
• Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, May 11 – October 9, 2017. Curator.
• (In)visible: The Spiritual World of Taiwan through Contemporary Art/形(無)形-台灣當代藝術的靈性世界, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, November 20, 2015 – April 3, 2016. Curator.
• Tokunoshima Island Art Project, Japan, July 2013 – August 2014. Curator/Producer.
• Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses/Traces of Time, Traces of Words: Works by Japanese Artists at the Culture Centre of the National Foundation of Arts of Argentina hosted by the National Museum of Oriental Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1– 30 March 2011. Curator.
• Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, the School of Art Gallery, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 6 April‐1 May 2010. Curator.
• I am a Curator, a process-based exhibition project by artist Per Hüttner at Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK. 13 December 2003. Co-curator.

Her awards include:
• The 2022 Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology for A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
• The 2018 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Research Category from the Canadian Museum Association, for Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia. An honourable mention for the same award (2022) for her A Future for Memory
• 2014 Best Anthropology Prize for Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation across Borders (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013) from the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand
Fuyubi has received numerous grants including:
• The SSHRC Connection Grant for A Future for Memory (2021-2023).
• The Japan Foundation Exhibition Abroad Support for A Future for Memory (2021), Traces of Words (2017), Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses (2011) and Ephemeral but Eternal Words (2010).

Formally incorporated on December 23rd 1977, the Friends of the Museum of Anthropology at U.B.C. (University of British Columbia) was a society that had four main objectives:

• To promote interest in, and acquaint the public with the Museum of Anthropology at U.B.C.
• To provide for the holding of educational lectures, exhibitions, public meetings, classes and conferences on the subject of anthropology
• To acquire, accept, solicit or receive any gift or real or personal property as a contribution or addition to the funds of the society
• To receive, hold, distribute, invest and reinvest contributions from donors for the collections of and operation of the Museum of Anthropology at U.B.C.

The operations of the society were physically carried out in the museum. The affairs of the society were managed by a board of 24 directors; six were directly tasked with its initial establishment, while another 18 were elected at the first annual general meeting. Various committees and sub-committees were established, including the executive committee, who had the power to exercise the will of the board. Other committees included the membership committee and the sub-committees on Finance and Fundraising. Michael Ames, then-Director of the Museum of Anthropology, worked as the secretary for the society for most of its life-span. The society was directly involved with a 1981 benefit concert that took place in the Haida House to raise funds for a special gallery for a Haida canoe they wished to acquire. The friends’ peak of activity was from 1978-1982, after which time it became less and less active; dissolution occurred sometime around 1985.

Frederich H. Maude was born in 1858 in England, and died in the mid 1940s in California. According to family legend, Maude was smuggled out of England in a frantic attempt to escape the police, although what crime he had committed is not known. Maude settled in California, where he became a beach photographer and eventually started his own business.