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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.

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.)

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.

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)

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.

Harry B. Hawthorn was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1910. He completed his B.Sc (1932) and M.Sc. (1934) with the intention of becoming a civil engineer. During the Depression Hawthorn worked for New Zealand's Native School Service. Unable to pursue his studies in science in the small communities in which he worked, he became interested in the humanities, studying history extra-murally. He earned his B.A. in 1937. The years spent in the Native School Service had an arguably strong influence on Hawthorn. He was offered and accepted a fellowship to study anthropology at the University of Hawaii in 1938. The following year he was offered another fellowship to study anthropology at Yale University where he completed his PhD in 1941. While there he met Audrey Engel who later became his wife.

Hawthorn's appointment to the faculty of the University of British Columbia in 1947 added Anthropology to the title of the Dept. of Economics, Political Science and Sociology. His objectives upon coming to UBC were to: establish his discipline in an academic setting of the University and in the Province; to offer anthropology as a contribution to the general education of a broad group of students and to begin the selection and training of a few specialists; to establish problems for ethnological research; and, in keeping with conviction that scholarship should be useful as well as decorative, to discover possibilities for the practical application of anthropology in the Province and the country.

In 1949, Hawthorn was asked by the Provincial Government to undertake a study of the problems confronting Doukhobors in British Columbia. He assembled a team of scholars from various disciplines to investigate different aspects of the issue. The subsequent report (1955), helped to ameliorate the Doukhobors and encouraged increased cooperation among the Doukhobors, non-Doukhobors and the government. It also proved to be a valuable experience for members of the research team. In 1954, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration commissioned a comprehensive study of B.C. Indians. Hawthorn again assembled a research team which completed its study in 1956. In that same year Anthropology, Sociology and Criminology separated from Economics and Political Science to form a new department with Hawthorn as its head, a position which he held until 1968. Hawthorn undertook direction of a third large-scale interdisciplinary research project in 1963 -- The Survey of Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966, 1967). The project not only influenced the development of native affairs in Canada but also contributed to development of Canadian anthropology by providing practical and research experience for a number of young scholars.
In addition to the above-described activities, Hawthorn and his wife Audrey also played a significant role in the development of the UBC Museum (later the Museum of Anthropology) and, in particular, the development of an outstanding collection of West Coast native artifacts.
Hawthorn served as a member of the UBC faculty until his retirement in 1976. He died in 2006.

No biographical information available.

Helen Frances Codere was born on September 10, 1917, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved to Minnesota in 1919. In 1939, she received her BA from the University of Minnesota, and in 1950 she completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Columbia University, where she studied under Ruth Benedict, a protégé of Franz Boas. Codere held appointments at a variety of academic institutions including Vassar University (1946-1953) and Brandeis University (1964 1982), where she was also dean of the graduate school from 1974-1977. At other times she held appointments at the American Ethnological Society, the University of British Columbia, Northwestern University, Bennington College, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Codere’s early work focused on the Kwakwaka’wakw. She carried out field studies in 1951 and 1955 and, in 1950, published Fighting with Property: Study of the Kwakiutl Potlatching and Warfare, 1792-1930. In 1959, Codere traveled to Rwanda to study social structures and relationships between the Tutsis and Hutus, and in 1973 published The Biography of an African Society: Rwanda 1900-1960. In 1966, she edited Boas’s unpublished manuscript, Kwakiutl Ethnography.

Helen Codere died in 2009.

Helen Moore is a teacher who taught briefly in the Kitwanga and Prince George regions in 1964 and 1965.

Biographical information unavailable.

Henry Hunt was a Kwakwaka'wakw carver and artist. He was born on October 16, 1923 in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert), British Columbia in 1923. He is the descendent of ethnographer George Hunt and the son-in-law of Mungo Martin. He originally started work as a logger and fisherman, but he moved to Victoria in 1954 to become Mungo Martin's chief assistant in the Thunderbird Park carving program. Hunt became Master Carver at the British Columbia Provincial Museum in 1962, where he remained until 1974. He died on March 13, 1985 in Victoria, British Columbia.

Henry Young is known as one of the last traditionally trained Haida historians from Skidegate, a Haida community in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. The Haida Gwaii Museum at Qay'llnagaay’s Oral History Collection fonds includes recorded interviews with Henry Young and Ernie Wilson, a Haida chief (https://www.memorybc.ca/haida-gwaii-museum-at-qayllnagaay-oral-history-collection) . A recording made by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1956 of Susan Williams, Henry Young and Mary Davison singing is also held at the Royal BC Museum Archives (http://search-bcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/haida-indian-songs-1956). Also refer to Haida Gwaii : human history and environment from the time of loon to the time of the iron people (2005, UBC Press) edited by Daryl W. Fedje and Rolf W. Mathewes, specifically Chapter 8, which includes a section on Henry Young and his son James Young. The book is available in the Museum of Anthropology Reading Room, call number 12.7c HAI FED 2005. Many of Henry Young’s Haida stories were the inspiration for Bill Reid’s artwork. Bill Reid dedicated his book, The Raven Steals the Light (1984), to Young, the man who first told him about the myths (http://theravenscall.ca/en/who/life_story/print).

Author and artist Hilary Majendie Stewart was born on November 3, 1924 in St. Lucia, West Indies. She attended boarding school in England and served for six years in the armed forces. She studied at St. Martin's School of Art. In 1951, she moved to Canada with her brother, where she worked as an artist for CHEK TV.

Stewart is best known for her illustrations and books on the art, artifacts, and cultures of the First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest. She published 11 books over the years, in addition to doing illustrations for publications by other authors. Her 1984 book Cedar received one of the first four B.C. Book Prizes that were presented in 1985. She also received a B.C. Book Prize for her 1987 book John R. Jewitt, Captive of Maquinna.

Stewart was associated with the Archaeological Society of BC for many years. She lived for many years on Quadra Island for 35 years, and later moved to Campbell River. She passed away on June 5, 2014.