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Charles Sidney Leary (often referred to as Sid Leary) was born in England and moved overseas in 1907, eventually settling in Nakusp, British Columbia. He began working in the lumber industry and eventually came to own a mill. He served as an officer in the first World War, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. He was posted to Cyprus for timber operations in 1917 and it was there that he began to collect ancient artifacts. On returning to Canada, Leary continued to work in the timber industry. He later served as an MLA in the British Columbia Legislature, including two years as the Minister of Public Works. His collection of antiquities acquired in Cyprus was eventually shipped to Canada. After his death in 1950, his family donated his collection to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

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.

Born at Tsax̱is (Fort Rupert), Charles James Nowell was the first full blooded Kwakwaka'wakw to act as an interpreter and collector for outsiders. He was married to the daughter of Chief Lageuse of the 'Namgis First Nation. Between 1899 and his death in 1924, Nowell was the assistant to Charles F. Newcombe, an Englishman who supplied ethnographic objects to the Field Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Peabody Museum at Harvard and others. Nowell and Bob Harris, also from Tsaxis, were part of the Kwakiutl and Nootka display at the 1904 St. Louis Universal Exposition.

Charles Gladstone was a Haida carver, of Skidegate, B.C. He was Bill Reid's grandfather.

Charles F. Newcombe was a British physician, botanist, and ethnographic researchers and collector. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., he studied medicine in Aberdeen, Scotland. He immigrated to the United States with his wife and three children, moving to Oregon, before moving to Victoria, B.C., in 1889.

Shortly after his arrival in Victoria he became an unpaid researcher at the provincial museum in Victoria, where he met people with whom he shared interests in botany, geology, marine biology, geography, palaeontology, and anthropology. [...] In 1895, with Francis Kermode of the provincial museum, Newcombe had travelled by steamer on an expedition to the Kwakiutl community at Alert Bay and to Haida Gwaii. On this trip, he began acquiring anthropological artefacts for his personal collection and he also established a practice of recording detailed field notes. In 1896, he became a founding member of the Victoria Natural History Society. By 1897, Newcombe had had a boat specially made for his fieldwork. The Pelican, a 24-foot double-ended Columbia River boat, was easy to row and to sail, could be transported by steamer, and permitted independent expeditions to the remotest areas of the coast. That year he returned to the same regions on his first major independent collecting trip. At the request of the provincial government he purchased a Haida totem pole for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (London) and he acquired artefacts for George Mercer Dawson of the Geological Survey of Canada. [...] By 1900, he had received commissions from major American museums. American anthropologist Franz Boas hired him to conduct research on the Haida history of the southern portion of Haida Gwaii. Newcombe was accompanied on this expedition by assistant, Douglas Scholefield, and Haida Chief, Elijah Ninstints. As they rowed and sailed together, Ninstints described the geography and history of his homeland, while Newcombe took notes and photographs, made sketches, and collected specimens. In late 1901, he agreed to work on a full-time basis for the Columbian Museum of Chicago, an arrangement that would last until late 1905. He acquired comprehensive ethnographic collections for displays on the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Salish peoples. In 1904, he was commissioned to assemble ethnographic exhibits for the Louisiana Purchase exposition in St Louis that would include a group of Nootka and Kwakiutl cultural performers and artists, as well as a traditional Native house, a canoe, and other artefacts purchased and shipped for the event. He eventually developed a web of patrons, clients, and colleagues that extended throughout British Columbia and around the world.

For decades most ethnological artefacts from the northwest coast of Canada were purchased by foreign interests. Newcombe was dismayed that he could not interest provincial and federal governments in the collection and preservation of native artefacts and specimens of natural history. Since his overriding concern was to preserve these items for posterity, he was obliged to deal with American and other foreign institutions. In response to this situation, in 1911 the provincial museum at Victoria hired him as its agent. For four years he travelled throughout the province, compiling a major collection of artefacts. After 1914 his pace began to abate and he turned to researching and writing about the exploration history of the British Columbia coast. After a collecting trip to Alert Bay, he contracted pneumonia and died in 1924. From: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/newcombe_charles_frederic_15E.html

Charles Edenshaw (Da.a xiigang), was a Haida carver who was born in Skidegate (Saangga.ahl Sdast'aas Eagle Clan). It is recorded that he was sickly when young, and at this time began carving argillite. His father, a noted canoe carver, died a few years later, so at eighteen he went to live with his uncle, Albert Edenshaw, in qang (Kung) village. When Albert moved to Masset in the 1870s, Charles would have accompanied him. He married Isabella in a Haida ceremony around 1873. After choosing his english name, Charles, and surname, Edenshaw (based on the Haidi name Edinso), he was baptized and remarried in an Anglican church. He worked as a full-time artist for most of his life, producing painted bentwood boxes, miniature and large totem poles, masks, chiefs' staffs, argillite totem poles, and gold and silver jewelry. The objects were created for First Nations' use, as well as for commissions by collectors for major museums. Like other Haida artists of his time, Edenshaw did not sign his work. The works are usually attributed to his hand through a combination of stylistic analysis and provenance. Edenshaw was able to speak Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Chinook jargon, and some English and lived and worked in numerous communities, including Sitka, Ketchikan, Port Simpson, Port Essington, and Victoria. He died at the age of 86 and is buried in Massett on Haida Gwaii.

Charles E. Borden was born in New York City on May 15, 1905 and grew up in Germany. Borden returned to the United States when he was 22 and received his A.B. in German Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1932. He continued his education at the Berkely campus of the University of California, getting his M.A. in German studies in 1933 and his Ph.D. in 1937. After teaching briefly at Reed College, Portland, Oregon, Borden joined the faculty of teh German Department at the University of British COlumbia in 1939 where he remained until his retirement.

Borden met Alice Victoria Witkin at Berkeley and they married in 1931. They had two sons, John Harvey and Richard Keith. Alice Borden pioneered in teh development of new techniques in pre-school education during the 1950s and 1960s. Her papers are available in teh University of British COlumbia Archives.

Borden had participated in some archaeological excavations around Hamburg as a youth, and in 1943 his interest in prehistoric archaeology was rekindled when he read Philip Drucker's book, Archaeological Survey of the Northern Northeast Coast. Beginning with a small dig in Point Grey in 1945, Borden gradually expanded the scope of his archaeological research to include salvage archaeology and major surveys throughout the province, including in-depth studies in the Fraser Canyon and Delta areas.

In 1949, Borden was appointed Lecturer in Archaeology in the Department of Sociology and Archaeology at the University of British Columbia, while retaining his responsibilities in the German Department. Throughout the balance of his career, from 1949 to 1978, Borden established a highly respected and internationally visible presence in archaeology as an instructor, author, editor, researcher and spokesman for the discipline. He developed the Uniform Site Designation Scheme, known as the Borden system, which has been adopted in most of Canada, and he devoted considerable energy to securing provincial legislation to protect archaeological sites. He was also responsible, in conjunction with Wilson Duff, for the passage in British Columbia of the 1960 Archaeological and Historical Sites Protection Act and the creation of the Archaeological sites Advisory Board.

Alice Borden died in 1971. In 1976 Borden married his second wife, Hala. Charles E. Borden died Christmas afternoon 1978 of a cerebral hemorrhage, having that morning completed a chapter he was writing for Roy Carlson's book on Northwest Coast Art.

Carol Elizabeth Mayer was a curator at the Museum of Anthropology (UBC) from 1987-2022. She is a Canadian citizen. Her educational background includes a Diploma in Arts & Sciences (honours) from Vancouver City College in 1972. In 1974 Carol completed a Bachelor of Arts (honours), majoring in Anthropology, at the University of British Columbia. In 1976 she received a Certificate in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University in Cambridge, UK and in 1996 she received a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester, UK in Museum Studies.

Carol began working at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (MOA) in 1987 as Curator of Collections and held that position until 1990 when she was appointed the Curator of Ethnology/Ceramics, a position she held until 2005. In 2005 she was appointed Curator of Africa/Pacific, and Curatorial Department Head. As of 2016, she is Curator of Oceania & Africa. In 1993 Carol also became an Instructor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. She was the co-founder and the Director of the Museum Studies Certificate Programme for MOA and the Department of Continuing Studies in 1996 and 1997. She has participated in several committees at MOA such as the Acquisition Committee, Collections Committee, Research & Teaching Committee, Executive Committee, and the Renewal Project Team. As Head Curator she is responsible for researching her area of specialty, publishing and presenting papers, representing the Curatorial Department on committees, constructing and overseeing departmental budgets, developing exhibitions and collections, and developing acquisitions policies.

Outside of UBC Carol is an instructor at the University of Victoria in the Faculty of History of Art (1989 to present), and at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in the Visual Arts Department and Art History Department (1993 to present). Previous to MOA Carol worked at The Vancouver Museum where she held several positions from 1975 until 1987.

Carol Mayer has published internationally on curatorship, exhibition, design and ceramics. She is active in provincial, national and international museum associations and has served on boards at all these levels. She has chaired and organized BC Museums Association Conferences as in the year 2000 where she was on the Planning Committee. The Canadian Museums Association awarded her in 1984 with the National Award of Merit for Curatorship and in 1991 with the National Award for Outstanding Achievement. In 2009 she received the International Council of Museums Canada International Achievement award. Many of her exhibition projects have involved collaborative work with communities and their artists, whether they be local or far afield.

James Cook was a British naval captain, navigator, and explorer who sailed the seaways and coasts of Canada (1759 and 1763–67), and conducted three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean (1768–71, 1772–75, and 1776–79), ranging from the Antarctic ice fields to the Bering Strait, and from the coasts of North America, to Australia and New Zealand. It was during his third voyage that Captain Cook sailed into the waters of what is now known as British Columbia. He spent a short period in the Pacific Northwest along what is now Vancouver Island during an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. He never located the Passage, but paved the way for others to make a tremendous impact by establishing a British presence in the Pacific Northwest - he particularly influenced George Vancouver, who would sail as a midshipman with Captain Cook during his Pacific voyages.

When mapping the west coast of Vancouver Island, Cook gathered and recorded a vast amount of information about the Indigenous peoples of the area and their cultures. Cook also established a trading relationship with the Mowachaht Nation and their Chief Maquinna. The knowledge gathered by Cook contributed significantly to future expeditions, which eventually led to the European settlement and colonization of British Columbia. Cook died on February 14, 1779, on the Island of Hawaii.

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.

William Ronald Reid (Q'adasru qiirawaay, Raven Clan of T'anuu) was born in 1920 in Victoria, B.C. His mother, Sophie Gladstone, was from the Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay, Raven-Wolf Clan of T'anuu (Haida), but she was educated at the Coqualeetza Residential School. His father was an American of Scottish-German descent. At twenty Reid began his career in broadcasting, as a radio announcer. From 1948 to 1958 he worked for the CBC in Toronto and Vancouver. Also, while in his twenties, he decided to emulate his maternal grandfather, Charles Gladstone and become a silver and goldsmith. Gladstone was trained by Charles Edenshaw, a master Haida artist. In conjunction with his grandfather's training, Reid analyzed many pieces held in museum collections. He also trained in traditional European jewellery techniques in Toronto, Ontario and London, England and applied those techniques (eg. repousse) to Northwest Coast metal work. When Reid returned to the West Coast he began seriously to pursue Haida imagery in both jewelry and sculpture. His works, known for their superb craftsmanship, range from exquisite carvings in precious metals and argillite to monumental sculptures in bronze and cedar. They have been collected and exhibited all over the world. Some of his most acclaimed sculptures include The Raven and the First Men at the Museum of Anthropology, and The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1991), castings of which are located at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Vancouver Airport. Other celebrated pieces include Chief of the Undersea World at the Vancouver Aquarium, and Lootaas (Wave Eater), a cedar canoe that has been shown in Paris, and is now at home in Haida Gwaii. Bill Reid was the first living artist to have his work displayed in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, in an exhibition celebrating the works of ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. It can be said that Bill Reid's work forms a link between ancient and contemporary artistic styles, and was instrumental in the revitalization of the northern Northwest Coast artistic tradition. Reid received many awards in his lifetime, including the Canada Council Molson Award, the Bronfman Award for Excellence in Crafts, the Vancouver Lifetime Achievement Award, the Royal Bank Award for Outstanding Canadian Achievement, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Lifetime Achievement. UBC awarded Bill Reid an Honorary degree in 1976 for his contribution to the cultural life of Canada. He died on March 13, 1998 after a 30-year battle with Parkinson's disease.

Bill Mackay is the Skipper of the Naiad Explorer. As of 2022, he is affiliated with Mackay Whale Watching, a family owned and operated whale watching business located on the coast of Northern Vancouver Island in Port McNeill. The

Bill Holm was an American art historian, Kwak'wala language speaker, and author, focused on Indigenous Northwest Coast art. He created artworks, and taught Northwest Coast style, including form line design. Bill and his wife, Marty, had a close friendship with Mungo Martin and were well respected by the Kwakwaka'wakw, the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples and his family members were given Kwakwaka'wakw names. He was Professor Emeritus of Art History, and Curator Emeritus of Northwest Coast Indian Art at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and occasionally lectured at the University of Washington in Seattle. Holm is recognized internationally as one of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of Northwest Coast Native art history.

Holm's 1965 book "Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form" has for decades been the standard introductory text in the field. The 18th printing, the 50th-anniversary edition, was published in 2014 with new commentary.

Eva Beverley Brown (nee. Mason) was born March 11, 1930 in Bella Bella, B.C. For seven and a half years beginning in 1937 or 1938, she was a student at the St. Michael’s Residential School in Alert Bay. After leaving St. Michael’s in 1944 or 1945, Beverley attended Langley High School. In 1949, she married Wallace Percy Brown, another former student at St. Michael’s. They lived in Bella Bella until 1960, when they moved to Vancouver.

Bertram Charles (B.C.) Binning was born on February 10, 1909 in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Due to an illness at a young age, he spent much of his time drawing in seclusion. His passion for art and architecture resulted in his enrolment in 1927 at the-then Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. After spending time in the United States, in 1933 Binning was appointed to a staff position with the Vancouver School of Art. Later in 1938, B.C. Married Jessie Wyllie, the daughter of a Vancouver businessman. In 1949, he was transferred to the University Of British Columbia School Of Architecture. Soon after, he founded the Department of Fine Arts at UBC, which he headed for over twenty-five years.

With his appointment to the department of Fine Arts came a shift in his artistic direction. Whereas pre-1948 he had established himself as an internationally recognized architect, post-1948 he felt himself drawn towards expressing his creativity in oil painting. Building upon his architectural background, Binning often painted large complementary mosaic murals for various buildings and was particularly inspired by ships, marinas and seascapes in general; these were recurring themes for most of his artistic life.

The Binnings took the first of many visits to Japan in 1958. It was there that B.C. felt particularly inspired by the Japanese art and architecture he witnessed; these were a vehicle for a new and lengthy direction for his future work. While in Japan, B.C. and Jessie forged a deep relationship with Bishop Kojo Sakamoto (1875-1969), the 37th Superintendent Priest of the Kiyoshi Kojin Seicho-ji temple. A skilled calligrapher, Sakamoto’s work was influenced by colleague and friend Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924), a talented painter and calligrapher in his own right. The Binnings’ relationship with Sakamoto resulted in over a decade of frequent correspondence between Sakamoto, his family, and other Japanese friends with both B.C. and Jessie. After Sakamoto opened a successful Tessai exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1961, B.C. convinced him to contribute his own calligraphy for an exclusive exhibit that was eventually opened in September 1966 at the Fine Arts Gallery at the University of British Columbia.

Health problems prevented Binning from actively contributing to the art community in the early 1970’s, but by this time had built up a solid repertoire of pieces that have made their mark on the Canadian art scene. After his death on March 16th 1976, Jessie continued her role as a voice and representative for her husband’s work until her own death on May 25th, 2007. Her last public presence was as a consultant for an exhibit of B.C.’s work at the Vancouver Art Gallery that ran from January through April 2007.