Photograph of pole and gravestones in a cemetery in Alert Bay, BC.

The fonds consists of 66 photographic prints, some of which are hand-coloured, stamped “B.W. Leeson Quatsino, B.C.”, labelled on the front or back with explanatory information, or signed in ink. One print of a longhouse is stamped “The Leeson Collection Copyright 1914.” The photographic subject matter relates to British Columbia’s Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations and the British Columbia landscape. Also included is a copy of Portraits of the Indians of Quatsino by Benjamin W. Leeson (Kit #20) by Susan Roper, produced by the Research Project on Early B.C. Photography at the Vancouver Public Library around 1972, and 23 duplicate slides which accompany it.

During their time living in Bella Bella, the Houstons took many photographs of the lives of the Heiltsuk First Nation community documenting the day-to-day lives of the Heiltsuk First Nation as well as ceremonial activities. The colour slides document the construction, painting, and launching of the Gi’wa, a Heiltsuk canoe which sailed with the Lootaas, the Haida canoe built by Bill Reid for Expo 86. Some of the slides document the welcome feast at Bella Bella in honour of the Haida crew of the Lootaas. The colour slides also document several potlatches and wedding feasts held in the community hall, and the local Sports Day parade. Slides also depict the role of the fishing in the community, such as smoking salmon and processing roe. Other photos document gravestones on a nearby cemetery island, derelict canneries, petroglyphs and pictographs, totem poles and house posts, all in or near Bella Bella.

File contains articles related to art, objects, culture, and archaeology on the Northwest Coast.

The textual records contained in this file include photocopies of paint samples and other research related to painted screens. The images in the file include historical photographs of Tsimshian longhouses, and Northwest Coast screens.

File contains images of bentwood boxes housed at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the Canadian Museum of History). The textual records contained in this file are copies of catalogue records.

File contains a copy of the <i>Through my Eye</i> exhibit record, as well as copies of the exhibit's excerpts from the Vancouver Museum. There is also a postcard from the Vancouver Museum of a Tsimshian frontlet.

The collection consists of nine large watercolour illustrative panels commissioned by the UBC Museum of Anthropology, eight of which were commissioned for the exhibit "The Four Seasons: Food Getting in British Columbia Prehistory," which ran from April to November 1979. The other watercolour is from an unidentified exhibit or sourcebook.

The collection also contains one painting that was commissioned by the museum for a publication (Museum Note, no.12, "Ninstints: World Heritage Site"), as well as a blueprint reproduction of a related drawing. These are renderings of how the houses and poles on a beach at the Ninstints village site might have looked when they were in use. The rendering is based on George MacDonald's map.

Collection consists of the following items:

001: The Four Seasons – Spring – Interior [1979?]
002: The Four Seasons – Spring – Coast [1979?]
003: The Four Seasons – Summer – Interior [1979?]
004: The Four Seasons – Summer – Coast [1979?]
005: The Four Seasons – Autumn – Interior [1979?]
006: The Four Seasons – Autumn – Coast [1979?]
007: The Four Seasons – Winter – Interior [1979?]
008: The Four Seasons – Winter – Coast [1979?]
009: Haida six beam house 1993
010: [Ninstints village painting] 1983
011: [Ninstints village, drawing for Museum Note] 1983