Douglas & McIntyre was founded in 1971. It has since established itself as one of Canada’s largest independent book publishing houses with offices in Toronto and Vancouver. It consists of three publishing units, Douglas & McIntyre, Greystone Books and Groundwood Books. Douglas & McIntyre publishes books about many different subjects, including First Nations art and culture, food and wine, Canadian issues and politics, and the environment.
Diane Elizabeth Barwick (née MacEachern) was a renowned political and historical anthropologist. Born in Canada in 1936, she remained a Canadian citizen until 1960, at which time she moved to Australia. Leading up to her departure from Canada, she studied at UBC in the school of Anthropology, from which she obtained her BA in 1959. She worked under Audrey Hawthorn at the Museum of Anthropology for many years leading up to her graduation. Before leaving for Australia, Barwick worked for nine months with Wilson Duff at the Provincial Museum of British Columbia. Her exposure to northwest coast First Nations communities would directly influence her later studies and work at the Australian National University. In pursuit of a Ph.D. there, she researched kin networks among Aboriginal Victorians. She was an active member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies and was a co-founder of the Aboriginal History journal.
Deborah Taylor, on graduating from the University of British Columbia, went to Nigeria in the early 1970s for her MA in primitive arts.
In 1974 and 1975, Dan Jorgensen traveled in Papua New Guinea’s Sanduan Province where he studied the initiation cult and mythology of the Telefolmin people. In 1981 Dan Jorgensen received his PhD in anthropology from UBC, writing a thesis about his travels and studies in Papua New Guinea. Since 1977 he has been a faculty member of University of Western Ontario in the Anthropology department. He specializes in the anthropology of religion
Charles S. Brant was born in Portland, Oregon in 1919. A life-long anthropologist, Brant began his academic career at Reed College where he obtained a B.A. 1941. In 1943, Brant completed his M.A. requirements at Yale University, where he was also University Scholar from 1941-1943. From 1943-1946 Brant served in the U.S. Army as part of the Medical Administration in India and China. With the support of Wenner-Gren and Fulbright awards, Brant undertook pre-doctoral research in the United States and Burma before completing his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1951.
In the early years of his career, Brant taught at University of Michigan (1947-1948), Colgate University (1951-1952), University of California (1952-1953), and Sarah Lawrence College (1954-1956). Brant was also resident anthropologist at Albert Einstein College from 1956-1957. In 1957, Brant joined Portland State University as Assistant Professor. Brant moved to Canada in 1961 to take the position of Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, and obtained Canadian citizenship six years later. Brant became head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta in 1963, and also directed the University’s Boreal Institute for Northern Studies from 1964-1967. In 1970, Brant left Alberta for Montreal to join the faculty at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) as professor. Brant spent the last 12 years of his career there, retiring from teaching in 1982.
Brant is best known for his work on the Kiowa Apache through his book Jim Whitewolf: The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian, originally published in 1969. In addition to his work on North American Native peoples and cultures, Brant had research interests in social organization and change in India and China; social change in Arctic regions (especially as it applied to Canada and Greenland); and in the problems of developing countries. During his career, Brant completed fieldwork in Burma, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and in Native American communities in California and Oklahoma.
Brant and his wife Jane were both photographers and life-long social activists. They had two sons. After his retirement in 1982, Brant moved to Gabriola Island, British Columbia. Brant passed away in 1991 at age 71 in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Lieutenant Colonel Eric Parker was born on June 16, 1896, in London, England. He was a British military Commander with the Indian government who led a little known expedition of approximately 200 Punjabi soldiers from Calcutta to Tibet in November 1921. In addition, Lt. Col. Parker conducted basic and advanced infantry training of Tibetan soldiers from January to March 1923 at the request of the Tibetan military. During his military career, Lt. Col. Parker corresponded with British diplomat, Sir Charles Bell, and various members of the Tibetan government, including the 13th Dalai Lama.
On January 2, 1923, Lt. Col Parker married in Calcutta and, with his wife, travelled back to Tibet on horseback where his training of Tibetan soldiers would begin. After his initial British disapproval, Lt. Col. Parker became accepting of the Tibetan culture and during this period of his life learned to speak in Tibetan, Urdu, Tamil, and Punjabi. The Parkers adapted to Tibet, living in both Yutang and Ganze. After Lt. Col. Parker was released from the military, the couple tried to stay on and establish a trading station, but lasted only one year. During their stay in Tibet the Parkers collected numerous objects, letters, and photographs that provide rare documentation of this period in Tibet’s history (i.e., before the Chinese invasion in 1950). Lt. Col. Parker died in 1988.
Lt. Col. Parker was in the Indian military at a significant time in Tibetan history. From 1918-1921, evidence suggests the Dalai Lama continued to forge closer ties to the British. Since the Simla Convention in 1914, Britain and Tibet had agreed to Chinese ‘suzerainty’ over Tibet, but China refused to ratify the pact and agree to the territorial divisions established. In 1918, fighting broke out between British-trained Tibetan troops and the Chinese, and was later followed by British attempts to mediate and discuss a Tibetan autonomy settlement. In 1920 to 1921, Sir Charles Bell went to Lhasa to urge better relations between Tibet and Britain. Despite Tibetan reluctance to accept further British influence, Charles Bell suggested increasing military aid to Tibet, and it was in 1923 that Lt. Col. Parker arrived to train the soldiers. In 1924-25, pressure from the monks caused the Dalai Lama to dismiss his British-trained officers. Tibetan independence lasted until the overthrow of the Republic of China by the Communists in 1949, and the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
In 2005, photographs and textual records, along with several objects, were donated to the Museum of Anthropology by Lt. Col. Parker’s daughter, Mrs. Mary Noble. Lt. Col. Parker’s grandson, Father Harry Donald, provided valuable contextual information and is currently preparing to write a history of his grandfather’s time in Tibet.
Bob Kingsmill is a professional potter and ceramics instructor who lives and works near Vernon, BC. Born in Vancouver, Kingsmill trained in ceramics under Muriel Guest in Winnipeg before returning to British Columbia and establishing his own pottery studio in Kelowna in 1967. Kingsmill later moved to Bowen Island, where he compiled his first book A Catalogue of British Columbia Potters (published 1978). In 1979, Kingsmill opened a studio on Granville Island in Vancouver, which he continues to operate alongside his studio near his current home in Vernon.
Bob Kingsmill produces a wide variety of stoneware and raku-fired ceramics, including wall murals, masks, and functional pottery. Besides his artistic endeavours, Kingsmill has led many pottery workshops throughout BC and has taught at Capilano College, Malaspina College, and for Emily Carr College of Art and Design’s Outreach Program.
Smith Stanley Osterhout was born in Murray Township, Ontario on June 30, 1968. He was ordained by the Methodist Church in 1894 and was stationed in British Columbia at the Nass River mission between 1894 and 1898, then at the Port Simpson mission between 1898 and 1903. During the latter period, Osterhout received an M.A. (1898) and PhD (1903) from Illinois Wesleyan College. After Church Union in 1925, the United Church of Canada gave Osterhout charge of Home Missions in the Kootenays, and by the time he retired in 1939, he was Superintendent of Indian and Anglo-Saxon missions in Prince Rupert Presbytery, of Japanese work in the BC Conference, and of Chinese work west of the Great Lakes. Osterhout was President of the British Columbia Conference in the Methodist Church between 1916 and 1917. He was also President of the BC Conference within the United Church between 1939 and 1940.
Jean Telfer graduated from U.B.C. in 1924, and subsequently trained as a teacher. Telfer worked in this role from 1931 to 1934 at the Morley Residential School in Alberta. In the late 1930s Telfer also worked at the Alberni Residential School in British Columbia.
Percy Broughton was a missionary of the Anglican Church who served the Church Missionary Society (predecessor to the Anglican Church in the Arctic) at Lake Harbour [Kimmirut, Baffin Island] from 1911-1912. Prior to this, Broughton attended the theological school Wycliffe College in Toronto, Ontario. Broughton arrived in Lake Harbour in September of 1911. In March of 1912, he was separated from the Inuit crew he was travelling with, and spent two days lost in the Arctic. He eventually managed to find his way to a small community of Inuit who saved his life though he sustained serious injuries due to prolonged exposure in extreme cold temperatures. He left Lake Harbour in August of 1912. Broughton returned to Toronto for surgeries and recuperation, then went to England, New Zealand, and Australia. Broughton died, most likely due to complications from his injuries, in September of 1915.
Although NEC (formerly Native Education Centre) had existed since 1967, it was in 1979 that the society was formed to assume control and broaden the scope of education to include academic post-secondary courses. The school moved into its current facilities in 1985, a building featuring architectural features of a traditional Pacific Coast longhouse.