Noah Shakspeare was a photographer, politician, labourer, activist, and civil servant. He was born on January 26, 1839 in Brierley Hill, England, son of Noah Shakespeare and Hannah Matthews. He married Eliza Jane Pearson on December 26, 1859, and they had seven children, of whom three sons and one daughter survived infancy. He and his family moved to Victoria, where he took up a career as a photographer from 1864 to the 1870s. He was elected and served as mayor of Victoria, B. C. in 1882 - 1888. He died on May 13, 1921 in Victoria.
Nuno Porto is originally from Portugal. He was trained has a social anthropologist. He did long term fieldwork in Central Portugal in the early 1990s, studying the relationships between literacy skills acquisition and gendered cultural knowledges. The coexistence of literate and oral rationalities in rural Portugal fueled interests in visual culture and on how religious experience is mediated by visual and material culture. The universe of visual theory and material culture studies was to become the center of his subsequent work related to museums. His PhD dissertation explored the articulation of colonialism, science, and museum culture, and how these merged in the co-development of the Dundo Museum in Northeast of Angola and of its proprietor, the Diamonds Company of Angola. This dissertation received the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation award for the Social and Human Sciences Thesis and was published by the same foundation in 2009.
Between 2006 and 2012 he integrated the Commission for the Re-opening of the Dundo Museum, led by the Ministry of Culture of Angola that successfully concluded its works in 2012. During this period he also led a team that developed and implemented the website on the archival materials of the Diamonds Company of Angola held at the University of Coimbra, www.diamangdigital.net. He was also a member of the research team for the project ‘Bearing Waters’ led by Lisbon sculptor Virginia Fróis, on the renewal of traditional Cape Verdean women ceramics.
Between 1991 and 2011 he taught at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, on subjects related to theory in social anthropology, material culture, critical museology, visual culture, photography and African studies. His work has been published in four different languages in eight different countries. He coordinated the Graduate Program in Social and Cultural Anthropology between 2006 and 2011, and also taught in the Graduate Program on Design and Multimedia. He acted as director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Coimbra between 2002 and 2006, where his team developed a series of temporary exhibitions based on the notion of ethnographic installation.
In 2013 he was Invited Professor at the Post Graduate Program in Social Memory at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, in Brazil.
Porto currently serves as curator for Africa and South America at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Museum of Anthropology. He has been at UBC since 2012.
Derek emigrated to Canada in 1961 with his first wife Doreen. He held a post-doctoral fellowship in the UBC Chemistry Department, then a position as Clinical Chemist at the Health Centre for Children, Vancouver General Hospital. In 1969, he founded the Biochemical Diseases (later Biochemical Genetics) Laboratory at Children's Hospital. In this emerging discipline, he collaborated with scientific and clinical colleagues across Canada and around the world to diagnose and investigate children with rare metabolic diseases, teaching and publishing extensively and receiving many awards. He was a professor emeritus of UBC's Faculty of Medicine with appointments in Pediatrics, Medical Genetics and Pathology serving on Boards and Committees including parent support societies. He was a past President of the Garrod Association of Canada and past President of the Canadian College of Medical Genetics and involved in developing training programs for Biochemical Genetic Fellows. Derek retired from UCB in 2003.
Dempsey Bob was born at Telegraph Creek on the Stikine River, in 1948. His mother was Flossie Carlick (Wolf); his father was Johnnie Bob (Raven). He began carving in 1970, and although he prefers wood, he also works in metals. Dempsey studied first with Freda Diesing and then at 'Ksan. Dempsey has focused on creating contemporary works that are classic Tlingit in style. His finely detailed carved wood masks translate into powerful bronze works. He went to Cara, Italy and studied with artisans working in bronze in the classic Italian tradition; this knowledge helped refine his style for bronze casting in which he is now an acknowledged master.
Chief Mungo Martin or Nakapenkem (lit. Potlatch chief "ten times over"), Datsa (lit. "grandfather"), was an important figure in Northwest Coast style art, specifically that of the Kwakwaka'wakw Aboriginal people who live in the area of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. He was a major contributor to Kwakwaka'wakw art, especially in the realm of wood sculpture and painting. He was also known as a singer and songwriter.
Mungo Martin was an important figure in the early history of the Museum of Anthropology. In 1950 and 1951 he worked for the University of British Columbia restoring and carving totem poles. These later stood in Totem Park at UBC and some were later moved into the great hall in the Museum of Anthropology. After this time he is best known for his work at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, where he helped to carve many of the totem poles and house posts that now stand in the park. He worked with several artists who became well-known including Bill Reid, Doug Cranmer, and Henry Hunt.
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).
Governor General of Canada from January 14, 1974 - January 22, 1979.
Wayne Suttles was an American anthropologist and linguist. He was a leading authority on the ethnology and linguistics of the Coast Salish people of British Columbia and Washington State. Suttles taught at the University of British Columbia from 1952-1963, the University of Nevada-Reno from 1963-1966, and Portland State University until he retired in 1985.
Suttles received his doctorate from the University of Washington in 1951 - the first to receive a doctorate from UW's anthropology department.
The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was created by Royal Charter in 1670. For the most part of its history, the HBC was a fur trading business that played a significant role in the British colonization of North America.
During the second half of the 20th Century, the company gradually transformed into a department store chain.
Lilo Berliner was a librarian in the references division at the University of Victoria with an interest in First Nations art. She was also an acquaintance of Elizabeth Hill, a published author on petroglyphs found in British Columbia and the west coast of North America. Lilo Berliner travelled extensively throughout the west coast of North America, and especially Vancouver Island, visiting and photographing petroglyphs and other First Nations art. The discovery of a bowl petroglyph on Salt Spring Island prompted her to write a letter to Wilson Duff, anthropologist at the University of British Columbia, with whom she maintained a regular correspondence until his death. Shortly before her own passing, Lilo Berliner gave this correspondence to her close friend, Salt Spring Island based writer, Phyllis Webb.
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.
Mrs. Yau Chan Shek-ying was born in 1923 in Sheung Kwai Chung village, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. She was married at the age of 12, to Yau Shui-cheung, of Kwan Mun Hau village, Tsuen Wan. After her marriage she did heavy manual labour, such as going up into the mountains to cut grass and pine branches for fuel, farming the family's fields and raising pigs, and earning wages for the family by carrying kerosene and other heavy materials at the Texaco Oil Depot. It was during this heavy labour that Mrs. Yau learned mountain songs, both learned from other women and improvised. In 1976 and 1984, Mrs. Yau sang these songs to be recorded by Canadian anthropologist Elizabeth Lominska Johnson. She had eight children, several of which immigrated to Canada. Mrs. Yau began suffering serious health problems in early middle age, for which she was required to undergo kidney surgery. In the 1990s her health declined, and she passed away in 1996.
Born in Kōfu, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan in 1841, Kusakabe Kimbei was one of the most successful photographers in nineteenth century Japan. In the 1860s, he assisted Felix Beato, the Italian-British photographer, who was one of the first photographers to work in Asia, and also worked with the Austrian Baron Raimund von Stillfried based in Yokohoma. By 1880, Kusakabe had opened his own studio in Yokohama. After Stillfried left Japan, Kusakabe acquired some of Beato’s and Stillfried’s negatives and made prints and told them along with his own photographs.
Tamamura Kōzaburō (玉村 康三郎) was a photographer from Japan, and operated a photo studio first in Tokyo, and later in Yokohama. He was one of the prominent photographers of the Yokohama shashin photographic scene.
Minn Sjolseth was born on November 4, 1919 in Oksendahl, Norway. Sjolseth started to draw and paint in early childhood, and began her formal artistic training in Norway and in Germany where she studied the Old Masters. In 1953, Sjolseth emigrated to Canada and continued her studies at the Regina School of Fine Arts with Kenneth Lockheed. She also studied graphic art at San Miguel de Allende Art Institute in Mexico.
Sjolseth settled in Vancouver, BC in 1957, where she opened a commercial gallery and began her career as a portrait artist. During this time, she also had two children, Laila and Fred Johnsen. In 1967 she closed the gallery and focused her artistic practice on documenting Indigenous peoples and their cultural productions in a realist tradition. In 1968, Sjolseth married the photographer and journalist Anthony Carter. Out of their travels to First Nations communities along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Sjolseth produced a number of landscape and portrait paintings as part of her "North West Coast Native" series, while Carter undertook work for his books. In 2009, the Kamloops Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled "Somewhere Between" which explored Minn Sjolseth's and Anthony Carter's artistic partnership during this period.
In 1974, Sjolseth had the opportunity to travel to Arctic Norway and work with the reindeer-herding Lapps (also known as Sami people) to create a series of paintings called "Reflection of Lapland" which was shown at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, among other institutions. In July 1977, she was selected as the only professional artist to be a member of the media accredited to the visit of H.R.H The Prince of Wales to Southern Alberta to commemorate the Centennial of the signing of Treaty 7. Sjolseth's work has been exhibited in juried group shows in Canada and the United States, as well as international solo exhibitions. Her paintings are in several international collections, including the collections of the Crown Prince Harald of Norway.
Sjolseth and Carter moved to the Kamloops area of British Columbia in 1980, first living at Pinantan Lake and later at Lac Le Jeune. She continued painting, creating the "British Columbia Interior" series, while also pursuing cross-country marathon skiing competitively.
Sjolseth died suddenly in a car accident in Lac Le Jeune on November 7th, 1995.