Bulkley Valley Museum fonds

GMD: textual record; graphic material; moving image; architectural drawing; sound recording

Scope and Content: This fonds contains material created and used by the Bulkley Valley Museum during the course of its day-to-day activities, from the time of its inception as a historical society in the early 1960s up to and including the present. These are primarily textual records such as meeting minutes, staff re…

GMD: textual record; graphic material; moving image; architectural drawing; sound recording

Accession No.: 2010.5; 2017.22; 2017.63; 2017.71; 2017.72; 2017.128; 2018.15; 2020.8; 2020.27; 2020.35; 2020.36; 2021.1; 2021.3; 2021.15

Physical Description: 13 boxes of textual and graphic material; 1 box photographs; [] architectural plans; 2 videocassettes, 1 CD, [] digital records

History / Biographical: The Bulkley Valley Museum (BVM) was founded in large part by Ernest Hann, an early pioneer who amassed a large collection of documents, photographs and artifacts representing local settler history. This became the core collection upon which the Museum was built. The first public displays of artifacts opened in 1967 in the newly-constructed Smithers Public Library. However, it was not until 1971 that the Bulkley Valley Historical & Museum Society was officially incorporated. With space becoming limited in the Library, the Museum was moved in 1974 to the historic Central Park Building, which had once served as Smithers' government building, courthouse, and jail. The Museum first shared a room with the Smithers Art Gallery before receiving its own space. Today the BVM collects, preserves and presents items of historical and cultural significance from Smithers and the Bulkley Valley and is enjoyed by over 5000 people per year.

Custodial History: All items in this fonds were retained by the Museum as internal records following their initial creation and use, and were accessioned and entered into the OF1 fonds upon being found in collections.

Scope and Content: This fonds contains material created and used by the Bulkley Valley Museum during the course of its day-to-day activities, from the time of its inception as a historical society in the early 1960s up to and including the present. These are primarily textual records such as meeting minutes, staff reports, exhibit plans, correspondence, policies, financial documents, curator diaries, guest books, scrapbooks, and membership lists. The fonds also includes photographs, pamphlets, posters, floor plans, 1 CD of oral history recordings, and 2 videocassettes. Furthermore, there is an increasing amount of born-digital material (Word docs, PDFs, images) which have yet to be fully processed into the fonds.

Arrangement: This fonds was first arranged around 2018 by Manda Haligowski and was rearranged in spring 2021 by Holly Peterson. In its current form, the OF1 fonds is divided into nine series: - S1) Office of the Curator - S2) Board of Directors - S3) events and promotions - S4) Old Church - S5) guest books/lists - S6) scrapbooks - S7) maps and plans - S8) photographs - S9) audiovisual materials. Series 1, 2, 3, and 4 have been further subdivided into subseries and/or files; see their Arrangement fields for more details.

Bulkley Valley Museum fonds