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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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

Gillian Darling Kovanic began an undergraduate degree in anthropology in 1968 at Simon Fraser University. In August of that year, Kovanic left Simon Fraser University and spent most of 1969 – 1970 hitchhiking and travelling around the world, including stops in the United States, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, South East Asia and Japan. Upon her return to Canada in 1970, Kovanic transferred to the University of British Columbia where she began a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Anthropology, focusing on South Asia, and minors in Museology and Art History. She completed this degree in 1975.

Kovanic began her Master’s degree at the University of British Columbia in South Asian Anthropology in 1975, finishing in 1979. During this period she completed a year of field work (1976 – 1977) in the Hindi Kush (Kafiristan and Nuristan, Afghanistan) for her Master’s thesis titled, “Merit Feasting Amongst the Kalash of Northern Pakistan.” During this time in Afghanistan and Pakistan she collected ethnographic materials, which now reside with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

In 1979, Kovanic returned to India as a Shastri Indo-Canadian scholar studying the Oriya language in Orissa state. She returned to Canada in 1981 and from 1983 – 1985 completed a diploma in Media Arts and Sciences in the Media Resources Department at Capilano College. Upon completion of this diploma, Kovanic joined Northern Lights Entertainment as a film producer and director. She worked as an independent film maker from 1985 – 1997 and joined the National Film Board of Canada from 1997 – 2001, before returning to her work as an independent film maker with her company Tamarin Productions Inc.

Kovanic’s film career has been widely successful, earning accolades at film festivals around the world for films such as Island of Whales (1990), Battle for the Trees (1993) Through a Blue Lens (2000) and Suspino: A Cry for Roma (2003). Her films have been nominated for many awards, including Gemini Awards, one of which she won for Island of Whales in 1992, the Golden Sheaf Awards and the British Columbia Leo Awards. On many of these projects Kovanic works as director, writer, producer and location sound editor.

Chief of the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw (Tsawataineuk) First Nation. Brother of Chief Peter Scow and Chief John Scow.

According to the publication Chilcotin: Preserving Pioneer Memories (available at UBC Libraries), George Myers “was a unique individual, born at Riske Creek [originally Chilcoten and also Chilcot], British Columbia on September 10, 1983. He lived to be 95, riding his racehorse in local competition well into his eighties… He worked around the country on ranches… He was honoured as a medicine man among his people... He was buried on the Stone Reserve.”

George Burnett Stallworthy was born in Samoa in 1844 to Rev. George Stallworthy, a missionary, and Charlotte Burnett Wilson. After the death of his mother in 1845 from tuberculosis, George B. Stallworthy was raised by his maternal grandparents and his nurse Eunite in Falealii, Samoa until 1855 when he was sent to England for school. From 1855 to 1860, Stallworthy attended the School for the Sons of Missionaries at Blackheath. He later assisted in the formation of the Old Boys’ Association of this school, and was elected as its second President in 1909.

Stallworthy later attended New College until 1873 in preparation for Congregational Ministry, with his first pastorate at Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, where he remained for ten years. In 1883, he took charge of the Haslemere Congregational Church, where he was well respected by the members of his congregation and the town because of his active contributions to both church and civic life. In 1883, he was appointed as one of the first Trustees of the recently formed local Court, “Pride of Hindhead” of the Ancient Order of Foresters. He held this office until 1911. Stallworthy resigned the pastorate at Haslemere in 1892 to take up work at Longfleet, Poole in Dorset. In 1896 he returned to the parish of Haslemere to become superintendent of the newly built Hindhead Congregational Hall.

Stallworthy was deeply interested in education and for several years starting in 1903 was the chairman of the managers of the Hindhead Council Schools. He was an active participant in the Haslemere Microscope and Natural History Society, serving as secretary from 1899 for several years. In 1909 Stallworthy resigned from the position at Hindhead due to health reasons, and resided for a time at Richmond, later moving to Tunbridge Wells where he undertook the work of morning preacher to the little Free Church Community. Five years later he returned to Longfleet, Poole and in 1921 went to Billinghurst until his death.

Stallworthy was also a poet, publishing verses from his lectures services. These include “Buddha, the Enlightened, his Legend re-told in Verse,” and “Legends of Samoa,” which was published as a volume of his Hindhead sermons.

Stallworthy married Alice Clark, the daughter of a Leeds tradesman, in September 1875. They had three children, George Hudswell Stallworthy, William Wilson Stallworthy, and Alice Mary Stallworthy.

Stallworthy died in 1922 in Billinghurst.

Genni Hennessy is a graduate of the MA program in the UBC Department of Anthropology.

Fuyubi Nakamura (中村冬日) is a socio-cultural anthropologist trained at Oxford. She is cross appointed with the Department of Asian Studies as Assistant Professor and with the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) where she works as Curator, Asia (as of June 9, 2023). She is also Associate Member in the Department of Anthropology. Fuyubi specializes in the anthropology of art, museum studies, and material and visual culture studies. She has taught in these fields in the graduate school at the Australian National University (2007-2010) and University of Tokyo (2012-2013), and curated exhibitions internationally prior to joining the Museum of Anthropology in 2014.

Her long-term research since 1998 is an anthropological study of contemporary Japanese calligraphy. In addition to her fieldwork in Japan, she also carried out a research project that investigated the world of Japanese calligraphy in South American countries with large Japanese immigrant communities such as Argentina and Brazil. She took a leave from academia following the triple disaster in Japan in 2011 or 3.11, and was involved in relief and recovery activities in Miyagi Prefecture, and continues to do research about the aftermath of 3.11.

Fuyubi was an associate researcher with the Institute for Art Anthropology at Tama Art University, Tokyo (2010-2015), a guest curator at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Buenos Aires (2010-11) and the producer/curator of the Tokunoshima island art project, Japan (2013-2014). Outside academia and museums, she has worked as a project coordinator for film festivals organized by NHK (Japan’s public broadcaster) and also in business in Tokyo between her degrees and also as a freelance translator for a number of years. Born in Tokyo, Fuyubi grew up in different parts of Japan and spent a year as an AFS intercultural programs exchange studen t in New Zealand before moving to England in 1992. She has travelled widely, especially in India and Europe and has spent several months in South America (Argentina, Brazil and Peru).

While her primary expertise lies in Japan, Fuyubi has also studied Indian art and worked on collaborations on Himalaya-related projects. Her work as a curator responsible for the entire Asia collection at MOA requires her to continuously expand the breadth of her knowledge of Asian cultures. Her research interests include material and visual cultures with special interest in Japan and its diasporas in Argentina and Brazil; Indigenous cultures; India and Tibet; contemporary art, photography and the relation between memory and objects, especially within the context of the 3.11 disaster in Japan.

Her projects around Indigeneity in Japan include:

• Recasting Ainu Indigeneity in Museums Through Performing Arts, August 2022.
• Ainu, Okinawa and Indigeneity Series, February – March 2021.
• Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in Modern Japan and Beyond/北海道150年：近現代日本と世界における殖民・植民地主義と先住民性, March 2019

Her publications include:
• A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake/記憶のための未来―東日本大震災後のアートと暮らし, Vancouver: The Museum of Anthropology at UBC, 2021.
• “Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in modern Japan and Beyond” with Tristan R. Grunow et al. Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2019.
• Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Vancouver: Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing and MOA, 2017.
• Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation across Borders. Edited with Morgan Perkins and Olivier Krischer. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
• Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses/Traces of Time, Traces of Words: Works by Japanese Artists, Buenos Aires: The National Museum of Oriental Art, 2011.
• Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, Canberra: The Australian National University School of Art Gallery, 2010.
• “Memory in the debris: The 3/11 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.” Anthropology Today, Vol.28, Issue 3, 2012.

Her exhibitions include:
• A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake/記憶のための未来―東日本大震災後のアートと暮らし, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, February 11– September 19, 2021. Curator.
• Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, May 11 – October 9, 2017. Curator.
• (In)visible: The Spiritual World of Taiwan through Contemporary Art/形(無)形-台灣當代藝術的靈性世界, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Canada, November 20, 2015 – April 3, 2016. Curator.
• Tokunoshima Island Art Project, Japan, July 2013 – August 2014. Curator/Producer.
• Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses/Traces of Time, Traces of Words: Works by Japanese Artists at the Culture Centre of the National Foundation of Arts of Argentina hosted by the National Museum of Oriental Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1– 30 March 2011. Curator.
• Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, the School of Art Gallery, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 6 April‐1 May 2010. Curator.
• I am a Curator, a process-based exhibition project by artist Per Hüttner at Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK. 13 December 2003. Co-curator.

Her awards include:
• The 2022 Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology for A Future for Memory: Art and Life after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
• The 2018 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Research Category from the Canadian Museum Association, for Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia. An honourable mention for the same award (2022) for her A Future for Memory
• 2014 Best Anthropology Prize for Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation across Borders (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013) from the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand
Fuyubi has received numerous grants including:
• The SSHRC Connection Grant for A Future for Memory (2021-2023).
• The Japan Foundation Exhibition Abroad Support for A Future for Memory (2021), Traces of Words (2017), Trazos del Tiempo, Trazos de Palabras: Obras de Artistas Japoneses (2011) and Ephemeral but Eternal Words (2010).

Frederich H. Maude was born in 1858 in England, and died in the mid 1940s in California. According to family legend, Maude was smuggled out of England in a frantic attempt to escape the police, although what crime he had committed is not known. Maude settled in California, where he became a beach photographer and eventually started his own business.

Fred Ryckman was born in eastern Canada in 1888. As a youth he moved with his family to the Kootenay region of British Columbia where he remained for the rest of his life, residing first in Creston then in Cranbrook. In 1912 Ryckman began his career with the Department of Indian Affairs serving as a constable in that department. During this period he also served in the position of Indian Farm Instructor. In 1931 Ryckman was promoted to the position of Indian Agent, a post he was to hold until his death in 1935. During the twenty-three years of his employment with the Department of Indian Affairs, Ryckman took an active interest in the language and culture of the people with whom he was working, a fact which is reflected in his papers.

Franz Boas was a German-born American anthropologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the founder of the relativistic, culture-centred school of American anthropology that became dominant in the 20th century. During his tenure at Columbia University in New York City (1899–1942), he developed one of the foremost departments of anthropology in the United States. Boas was a specialist in North American First Nations cultures and languages, but he was, in addition, the organizer of a profession and the great teacher of a number of scientists who developed anthropology in the United States. Boas undertook a year-long scientific expedition to Baffin Island in 1883–84. In 1886, on his way back from a visit to the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw) and other Indigenous tribes of British Columbia (which became a lifelong study), he stopped in New York City and decided to stay. Boas’ first teaching position was at the newly founded Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts) in 1889. Next, he spent a period in Chicago, where he assisted in the preparation of the anthropological exhibitions at the 1893 Columbian Exposition and held a post at the Field Museum of Natural History. In 1896 he became lecturer in physical anthropology and in 1899 professor of anthropology at Columbia University. From 1896 to 1905 he was also curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; in that capacity he directed and edited the reports submitted by the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, an investigation of the relationships between the Indigenous peoples of Siberia and of North America.

Francis Henry (Frank) Burnett was born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland on February 15, 1852. His parents were Peter Burnett and Henrietta Bond. His father was a whaler captain. Frank moved to Liverpool at an early age to attend the Merchant Taylor's Grammar School, planning for a career in business, but at age 14 he chose to apprentice on a sailing vessel. During his time as a sailor he travelled as far as Egypt and South Africa. Around 1870 he immigrated to Montreal, Canada. There he tried his hand at various enterprises; married his first wife, Henrietta Cooke in 1878; moved across the country to Manitoba in 1880; and to Vancouver c. 1895. He began making trips to the South Pacific in 1895. He was able to retire in 1901, at which time he outfitted a schooner, the Laurel, which he used to take another trip to the Pacific, collecting artifacts along the way. This 1902 trip is described in Burnett's first book "Through Tropic Seas" (1910). He also wrote "Through Polynesia and Papua" (1911), "Summer Isles of Eden" (1923) and "The Wreck of the Tropic Bird and Other Sea Stories" (1926). In 1912, and again in 1929, he made a small donation of objects to the City Museum (now the Vancouver Museum). From 1920-1927 he travelled in South America and British Columbia, where he also collected artifacts. In 1917 his first wife died; in 1923 he married his second wife, Anne Cooke. On July 25, 1927 he donated most of his collection to the University of British Columbia, where it was initially housed in a room on the first floor of the library. It was installed by Frank and his daughter Nina. (The collection also included a group of Inuit objects collected by Ian M. Mackinnon during three years he spent in the Coppermine River area of the N.W.T.) By 1935, the "Burnett Collection" (as well as several other artifacts held by the University) had been recorded in a booklet titled "The University of British Columbia Catalogue of Ethnographic Specimens". The listed objects became the founding collection of the UBC Museum of Anthropology. In recognition of his generosity, the University bestowed on him an honourary Doctor of Laws degree in November, 1929. Burnett died suddenly on February 20, 1930, while addressing the Canadian Authors’ Association, at the Hotel Vancouver.

Ewen MacLeod was born in Scotland in 1881 and immigrated to Canada around 1903. After getting married in 1911 and working for the BC Provincial Police in Clayoquot, BC, he moved with his family to Lytton, BC in 1915 to work as a Farm Instructor and Indian Constable. Around 1920 he was promoted to Indian Agent for the Lytton area, a post he occupied until his death in a car accident on September 27, 1931.

Born Evelyn Sheasgreen, Evelyn Goddard was a young teacher in Kitzegukla, BC in the early 1920s.