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Stanley E. Read was born on February 7, 1900, in Rock Island, Quebec. He earned the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1923 and Master of Arts in 1925 from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. After going to France on a scholarship from 1925 to 1927 and a brief employment at Bishop’s College in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Read moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1928 to work as an English Professor at DePaul University. While in Chicago, he met his wife, Ruth Read, whom he married in 1940. In 1946, Read moved to Vancouver and joined the Department of English at the University of British Columbia. He continued to teach in the department until his retirement in 1971. Read passed away in Vancouver on April 8, 1997 at the age of 97.

Read’s lasting contributions to the University of British Columbia are numerous. In 1953, Read was one of the eight U.B.C. professors who, along with writer Roderick Haig-Brown, started a foundation at U.B.C. with a small sum of money accumulated from “various bets and fines for illegal or non-ethical fishing methods” during a group fishing holiday at Upper Campbell Lake. The foundation, playfully called “The Harry Hawthorn Foundation for the Inculcation and Propagation of the Principles and Ethics of Fly-Fishing,” used its proceeds to purchase books on angling and game fishing for the U.B.C. Library, and over time produced what is now known as the Harry Hawthorn Foundation Collection. For 34 years, Read was the Secretary of the foundation and organized their annual fishing trips. Read was also instrumental in the organization of U.B.C.’s International House, and played a formative role in the creation of the University of British Columbia quarterly of English criticism and review, Canadian Literature.

Read wrote a number of articles, books, bibliographies, and book reviews about his academic interests and his hobby of fishing. Publications by Read include A Bibliography of Hogarth Books and Studies, 1900-1940 (DePaul University, 1941); Documents of Eighteenth Century Taste (DePaul University, 1942); What Manner of Man Was He? Andrew Carnegie and Libraries in British Columbia (University of British Columbia, 1960); More Recreation for the Contemplative Man: A Supplemental Bibliography of Books on Angling and Game Fish in the University of British Columbia (compiled with Laurenda Daniells. Library of the University of British Columbia, 1971); and A Place Called Pennask: A Capsule History of the Pennask Lake Company, Limited and the Pennask Lake Fishing and Game Club (Mitchell Press, 1977).

Read was also a hobbyist photographer and took many photos during his fishing trips and vacations with his wife, Ruth. Some of his photographs were featured in British Columbia: A Centennial Anthology (McLelland and Stewart, 1958), and one of his photographs was used for the cover of the book A Small and Charming World (Creekstone Press, 2001).

Rosa Ho was born on August 22, 1949 in Hong Kong. After moving to Canada, Ho earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a Masters of Arts with a specialization in Chinese Art from the University of British Columbia. She began her museum career with a volunteer position at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. In 1975 after completing some years of service at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, she was appointed as the museum’s Assistant Curator, a position she held until 1977. After moving back to British Columbia in 1978, she was appointed as Curator at the Surrey Art Gallery. She was promoted to Director of the gallery in 1980 and continued in this position until 1987. In 1988, she left the Surrey Art Gallery to begin working for the Museum of Anthropology as the Curator of Art and Public Programmes.

As the Curator of Art and Public Programming, she was responsible for activities surrounding the planning and production of exhibitions and public programmes for contemporary art, Inuit and First Nations art, community-based public programmes, and museum education.

Throughout her career, Ho had numerous professional affiliations and served on a number of local, provincial, and national arts committees. Ho also published extensively during her career on the subject of cultural identity. Rosa Ho passed away in 2001.

The Director of the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) is directly responsible for the general administration of the museum. Responsibilities carried out by the director include, but are not limited to: directing the development of museum policy, ensuring that the museum’s mandate is met and carried out, overseeing budgets and funding, maintaining correspondence with potential donors and managing staff. The Director also administers facilities and building maintenance and is responsible for overseeing exhibits and special programming hosted by the museum. As a part of the University of British Columbia (UBC), the director reports to the Dean of Arts.

MOA opened in 1947 and Dr. Harry Hawthorn, a professor of Anthropology, was appointed the first director in that year. He remained in this position until his retirement in 1974, when Michael Ames became the second director. Ames was director until he retired in 1997, when Ruth Phillips became director. She left the position in 2002, at which point Ames returned to MOA as Acting Director until Anthony Shelton was appointed as director in 2004.

Emma Hunt (Maxwalaogwa) (nee Billy) was an instructor in the teaching of Kwagulth and Nuu-chah-nulth culture. She was married to the late Chief Thomas Hunt. Emma was the daughter of a great Mowachaht Chief and Shaman, Dr. Billy, from the Mowachaht of Yuquot (Friendly Cove) on the west coast of Vancouver Island. .

Chief Joe Capilano (S7ápelek) (born on the traditional Squamish Nation territory in British Columbia and died 10 March 1910 in Yekw’ts, BC) was a Squamish Nation member who became one of the most influential Indigenous leaders in British Columbia, beginning in the late 19th century. His rise to this position was due in part to the encouragement of the Catholic Bishop who recognized S7ápelek’s devotion to his faith and his impressive abilities as an orator and leader. As the chosen successor to Chief Láwa Capilano, Joe S7ápelek became better known as Chief Joe Capilano and spent the rest of his life advocating for Canada’s recognition of Indigenous rights and title.

Associate Director of Museum of Anthropology

Charlotte Townsend-Gault is an art historian, author, curator, and Professor Emeritus of UBC's Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory. Her research, teaching, and scholarship concerns contemporary visual and material Native American and First Nations cultures, particularly those of the Pacific Northwest. She is the co-editor of "Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas" (2019, UBC Press) with Jennifer Kramer and Ḳi-Ke-In, a canonical text and historical survey of Northwest Coast First Nations' art.

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.

Art Thompson was born in 1948 in the village of Whyac and lived in Nitinaht on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Hi father was Ditidaht and his mother was Quwutsun'. His father and grandfather were carvers and canoe builders, and his grandmother was an accomplished basketmaker. Art worked as a logger, a boat builder, and attended commercial art school before travelling across North America. He has been instrumental in defining the innovative direction of contemporary West Coast design, along with Joe David, Ron Hamilton, and others. As well as silk-screen prints, he produced wood carvings and engraved jewelry.

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.

Hylton Smith was an architect in Johannesburg who witnessed and photographed a shaman gathering as well as other images of people and villages in South Africa.

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.

After having graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Anthropology and a Teaching Certification, Karen, in the middle of her master's degree in Anthropology decided that she wanted real life experience with Native people. She applied to the departments of Indian Affairs in both the US and Canada and was very quickly contacted by Canadian Indian Affairs to teach for six months in a Catholic residential school in Lower Post, British Columbia, about 20 miles below the Yukon border. The following year (1965), she was hired to be the teacher of the village school teaching all Native children in grades kindergarten - 8. This was the last log cabin school in B.C. and her teacherage was an annex to the school.

The following year she was transferred to Cassiar, a mining town in northern B.C. There she taught the primary grades to both White and Native children.

In 1966, she became the first teacher at a new school that was to be built in Pelly Crossing, Yukon. All of her students were Native students, most of whom did not speak English. There was a trapping/hunting culture using dog teams only. She had the only vehicle in the village.

In 1967, she made the very difficult decision to leave Pelly Crossing to marry her fiance whom she had met in Cassiar.

For the next three years, she taught in Cassiar and in 1968 wrote the book "Johnny Joe" for her Native students, who had difficulty using the readers provided by the school.

In 1969, she and her husband made the decision to return to university and chose the University of Alaska because they wanted to stay in the north and also because the U of A had a reputation of having the best educational program for teaching Native children. In 1970, she received her Master's of Arts in Teaching and in the same year, obtained a teaching position at the Two Rivers School, a rural school about 30 miles from Fairbanks. This was a one room school and she taught grades 1-4. Having had success in her first year, the School Board decided to add another room and appointed Karen Head Teacher. Then, with another successful year, they decided to add another room. That year, 1973, Karen was awarded Teacher of the Year for Fairbanks as well as Teacher of the Year for the State of Alaska.

In 1973, she returned to Cassiar, where her husband obtained employment and she became a reading specialist helping the teachers in the Stikine School District to teach Native children. There she continued her quest to get better educational material for Native children, and obtained a small grant from the B.C. Teacher's Federation to write a book for Native children. The result was "Sun, Moon and Owl", published in 1975. This book was the most popular book requested by teachers and was republished 14 times.

In 1976, she obtained permission to take a year's leave of absence to write a book for the Tahltan people that could be used in the school curriculum. She, with the help of many Native people drove around the Telegraph Creek area to record the stories of the Elders and obtain photographs to show their culture. The result was Tahltan Native Studies.

In 1977, she and her husband moved to the Calgary area where she became a program specialist for the Rockyview School District. In 1984, she wrote "Language Experiences with Children's Stories" and "Once Upon a Time". Both books became required texts for graduate teaching students at the University of Calgary.

In 1988, she became principal of the Exshaw School in Exshaw, Alberta, which taught grades 1-9. Seventy-five percent of the students came from the nearby Stoney Reserve.

After suffering from some health problems, she retired in 1989. She continues to live in the area with her husband on a ranch located in the Foothills of the Rockies.

Jack Lieber (1918-2015) fled Russia with his parents, coming to Canada at the age of six. His mother was the concert pianist Olga Lieber. Enlisting in the RCAF, he flew many missions into Europe and survived the crash of the Lancaster bomber in which he was navigator. After the war, he earned his B.A., Dip Ed. and M.A. at McGill, and worked as a teacher in the Montreal area for many years. The highlight of his teaching career was six years with CIDA at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, followed by a posting to Papua-New Guinea with UNESCO. When he retired in 1984, he and his wife Iris moved to Toronto.

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.

Don was raised in Vancouver where he attended King George High School and the University of British Columbia, followed by postgraduate work at the Institute of Archaeology, London University and Washington State University, Pullman. In 1960 Don joined the staff of the Royal BC Museum as the first professional archaeologist in BC. In his 35 year career, Don continuously and selflessly promoted the discipline of archaeology. He conducted excavations on sites on southern Vancouver Island that contributed significantly to an understanding of Coast Salish history. Under his direction the Museum became the provincial centre for the documentation of archaeological sites and the storage of artifacts and associated data, held in trust for First nations. He was a member of the Archaeological Sites Advisory Board, of the committee that created 'Ksan Cultural Centre in Hazelton, worked on the Exxon Valdes Recovery Programme.

Donald N. Abbott, Acting Curator of Anthropology at the Royal B.C. Provincial Museum