Pierre Francis Berton was born in Whitehorse and schooled in Dawson City; he proceeded to Victoria College and The University of British Columbia, where he earned his BA in 1941. From the Ubyssey, he moved directly to the editor of Vancouver's News Herald. After service in the army, he resumed his literary activity with newspapers and magazines and in the privacy of his study. In 1951, Berton covered the Korean War as the war correspondent of Maclean's. His interests broadened steadily to embrace fiction and non-fiction, humour and children's stories, stage, radio, and television. As a performer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he has become one of the best-known personalities in the country. He has won the Governor General's Award for Creative Non-fiction and the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Isabel Bescoby was active in several student organizations. She graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1932 with Honours in History. She received an M.A. in history three years later after completing a thesis on the social aspects of American mining advance in the Cariboo and Kootenay regions in the 1870s. After graduation, she joined the B.C. Department of Education as Director of the Elementary Correspondence School. In 1937, Bescoby became principal of the Provincial Model School in Victoria until World War II. After that, she joined the Unemployment Insurance Commission and National Employment Services. In 1950, she moved to Vancouver and became a regional supervisor of staff training before moving on to Ottawa as chief of the Civil Service Commission's training division. Bescoby remained active in adult education as a lecturer and as a panellist at conferences throughout Canada and the United States throughout her career.

Lois Bewley was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1927 and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia in 1947. She then went on to study library science, graduating from the University of Toronto with a BLS (1949) and later from the University of Illinois with an MSLS (1966). After working as a librarian and lecturing in the field, Bewley joined the School of Librarianship at UBC in 1969. She worked extensively in various professional associations, including the British Columbia Library Association and the Canadian Library Association. She was involved on numerous committees and panels in British Columbia and the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Interested in legislation affecting the financing and structure of public libraries in general, Bewley was active in the 1970s in the Library Development Commission, which sought to restructure public libraries in British Columbia.

Jacob Biely, an internationally recognized poultry scientist, was born in Russia. He came to Canada with his family following the Russian Revolution and enrolled at the University of British Columbia in 1922. Biely graduated in 1926 with a B.Sc. in agriculture. He took a Masters's degree in science at Kansas State College (1929) before returning to UBC, where he earned his M.Sc. in Agriculture (1930). Biely worked for the Canadian National Research Council before joining the UBC Department of Poultry Science faculty full-time in 1935. In 1952, he succeeded E.A. Lloyd as head of the department. Following the Faculty of Agriculture reorganization in 1955, Biely became Chairman of Poultry Sciences, which he held until his retirement in 1968.

Olive Allen Biller (nee Allen) was born on October 17, 1879 in Ormskirk, England, the youngest of seven children. As a child, Allen vacationed with her family at Trebarfoot, a farmstead on the Cornish Coast. Scrapbooks from these family vacations show Allen’s artistic and creative beginnings, through illustrations, photographs, plays and poems that she contributed. She pursued similar endeavours at home, producing plays within her community and in the school that her parents ran. She attended the Slade School of Art in London (1900-1903), where her instructors included Herbert MacNair. Before immigrating to Canada, Allen’s illustrations were published in at least ten books, and wrote and illustrated stories for children’s annuals and magazines such as Blackie’s and Girl’s Realm. In 1912, Allen immigrated to Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, to marry her long-time sweetheart Jack Biller. In 1915, Allen returned to England while Jack fought in the First World War. Jack was killed in 1916, so Allen returned to Canada as a widow with her two children, John and Jill, in 1919. They moved to James Island, near Victoria, BC, to be near her brother George. While on James Island, she was a correspondent for the Sidney Review, where she sometimes published poems and described plays that she wrote for the children to perform. In 1927, the family relocated to Oak Bay, Victoria. A lack of opportunities for illustrating turned Allen Biller toward landscape painting, and while in Victoria she showed with the Vancouver Island Arts and Crafts Society. In 1934, the family relocated once again, to Vancouver, so that her children could attend university. While in Vancouver Allen Biller took classes at the newly opened BC College of Art, studying with F.H. Varley, Jock Macdonald and Tonschek Ustinov. Between 1935 and 1947 her work was shown several times at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Allen Biller passed away in Vancouver in October of 1957.

Sources:
The Life and Work of Olive Allen Biller / Jaleen Grove
Catalogue Raisonne of Olive Allen Biller. / Jaleen Grove

June Binkert (née Barnish) was born in England and emigrated to Canada to work with B.C. Binning, head of the UBC Fine Arts Department. She was married to the sculptor Paul Binkert. June Binkert has been credited with developing the UBC Department of Fine Arts alongside Binning.

Bertram Charles Binning (1909-1976) was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta and grew up in Vancouver. Before pursuing his studies in Oregon, Greenwich Village, New York, and London, he later attended art school. He joined the University of British Columbia School of Architecture in 1949 after many years as an instructor at the Vancouver School of Arts. In 1955, Binning became head of the Department of Fine Arts, which he had helped establish. He resigned from the position in 1968 to devote more time to teaching and painting. Binning retired from the University in 1973. He was involved in the founding of the Department of Fine Arts, the development of the UBC Fine Arts Gallery, the initiation of the Brock Hall Collection of Canadian Art, the conception and direction of the Festival of Contemporary Arts, and the negotiations for the planning of the Nitobe Memorial Garden.

The Biological Board of Canada was established in 1912. It evolved from a management board in 1898 that established a biological station on the Atlantic Coast. During the 1920s, the Biological Board of Canada hired full-time employees and opened laboratories concerned with fishing and food processing. By 1937 the Biological Board of Canada became the Fisheries Research Board.

Born in Calgary, Alberta, Earle Birney was educated in British Columbia, Toronto and California. He lectured in English at the University of Toronto from 1936 to 1941 when he left to serve overseas. After the war, he worked for the CBC in 1945, and in 1946 he joined the Department of English at the University of British Columbia, where he taught the first credit course in creative writing offered by a Canadian university. During the next two decades, Birney added more writing courses and tutorials to the curriculum. In 1964 he became editor of the literary magazine Prism International and affiliated it with the creative writing programme. Birney retired from UBC in 1965 to become a writer-in-residence at Scarborough College at the University of Toronto – soon after he left, UBC officially established the programme he founded as the Department of Creative Writing.
He was a well-known poet and writer, publishing novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, essays and plays. His honours include the Governor General's medal for poetry (twice); the Lorne Pierce gold medal for Literature, the University of Ontario President's medal for poetry; and the Stephen Leacock medal for humourous writing (for his novel Turvey). Birney died in September 1995.

Esther Birney (née Bull) was born in 1908 in London, England, active in a Trotskyist group. She met Earle Birney in London while studying at the University of London (1935/36). She returned to Canada with him, and they were married in 1940. Esther Birney received a degree in Social Work from the University of Toronto. She remained active in this field until 1978. She and Earle Birney were divorced in 1977.

Mary F. Bishop (née Fraser) was born in Cobourg, Ontario on July 29, 1913, the only child of James Kenneth Fraser and Anna Beeman. In 1935 she received a Bachelor’s Degree in History and Literature from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She married Joseph (Joe) Bishop in 1937 and had three children: Charles Walter Fraser (Chuck) Bishop, Ann Josephine Louise Bishop, and James Kenneth Branson Bishop.

Over the following decades, the Bishop family relocated several times, corresponding to Joe’s duties within the Canadian Military. They lived in Washington, D.C. (1952–1962), where he served as Commander Canadian Army Staff and Canadian Military Attache, then in Vancouver (1956–1962) where he was Commander of the Canadian Army’s B.C. Area. Between 1962 and 1964, they lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where Joe served as a consulting engineer. While in Sri Lanka, Mary began what would become a long-term dedication to voluntary service in family planning movements: she worked as a clinic volunteer, and served on the national executive committee for the Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka.

After her return to Canada, Mary dedicated her efforts to groups concerned with reproductive rights, family planning, and population planning. She served on the board of the Planned Parenthood association of B.C. (PPABC) from the mid-1960s, and was its president between 1971–1973. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada (PPFC), was involved in the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and served on the IPPF Panel on Population Laws and Policies (Western Hemisphere Region). Her other volunteer involvements include the Canadian Institute of International Affairs; the University Women’s Club of Vancouver’s human rights committee; the University of British Columbia (UBC) Alumni Association heritage committee; Girl Guides of Canada (where she served as National Director from 1939–1949); and the Norman MacKenzie Scholarship Award jury at UBC. In 1984, Mary’s longstanding volunteer service was recognized when she received the Lifestyle Award from Hon. Monique Begin, Minister of National Health and Welfare in Ottawa.

Mary completed a Masters degree at UBC in 1971, her thesis titled “From ‘Left’ to ‘Right’: A perspective on the role of family planning in the West and in South Asia.” She subsequently worked as a research associate with the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology in the Faculty of Medicine, where she was later appointed an honorary lecturer. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Mary pursued a project of writing a history of the birth control movement in Canada, which she aimed to publish as a book. While her book project never came to fruition, she did publish several articles, including “The Early Birth Controllers of B.C.” (BC Studies, 1984), “The Politics of Abortion: Trends in Canadian Fertility by Larry Collins—Revisited” (Atlantis, Fall 1983), and an entry on “Birth Control” in the first and second editions of the Canadian Encyclopedia. She also contributed a chapter to Not Just Pin Money: Selected Essays on the History of Women’s Work in British Columbia on the life of B.C.-based birth control activist Vivian Dowding.

Mary died on November 1, 1997 in Vancouver at the age of 84.

Bitter Paradise: The Sell-Out of East Timor began as a film project with Elaine Brière's working trip to the former Portuguese colony in 1975: she was the last independent photographer permitted to enter East Timor before the Indonesian invasion in that year. Through a series of filmed interviews, seminars, and speeches involving Canadian business people, politicians, public servants, and activists, Brière uncovers Canadian participation with Indonesian companies in business activities in East Timor during 1975-1990. The documentary reveals the lives of East Timorese families and individuals who engage in the liberation struggle in East Timor, Europe and Canada. Finally, the feature engages members of western organizations (TAPOL, the East Timor Alert Network) that seek to bring awareness of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor to the world. Brière films rallies in Canada in support of the liberation struggle, attempts (unsuccessfully) to publicly question Canadian and Indonesian political and government leaders on the occupation, and sympathetically portrays young Timorese who employ stories and song, along with public speaking, to enlighten Canadian audiences (including labour organizations) regarding the extortion and destruction of the island nation, its peoples and cultures.
Elaine Brière is a Vancouver documentary-maker, photographer, journalist and social justice activist. Her documentary, Bitter Paradise: The Sell-Out of East Timor, won the best political documentary award at the Hot Docs Festival, North America's preeminent documentary film showcase, in 1997. In addition to her work on East Timor, which includes a published collection of photographs Testimony: Photographs of East Timor, (Between the Lines, 2004). Brière has directed a documentary on Canadian merchant seamen, Betrayed: The Story of Canadian Merchant Seamen (1997), and has produced photo-journalism and print articles for The Tyee, Briarpatch, Our Times, and other publications dedicated to labour and social justice issues. Brière's photographs have appeared in many publications including, Carte Blanche Photography 1 (2004); The Other Mexico: The North American Triangle Completed (1996), South East Asia Tribal Groups and Ethnic Minorities (1987) and The Family of Women (1979). In addition, her photographs have been featured in exhibits in Canada, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

Emil was born on October 10, 1918 in Wynyard, Saskatchewan to Paul Bjarnason and Halldóra Guðrun Jónsson. Emil attended elementary school up until grade 10 in Wynyard, and completed his high school in Vancouver at John Oliver High School. He won a Royal Institution Scholarship to go to the University of British Columbia. During his summers he worked for the American Can Company, packing tins. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1940 and won a scholarship to attend a Master’s program at Queens University. At the age of 50, Bjarnason enrolled in a doctoral program at Simon Fraser University.

Emil worked with the Dominion Bureau of Statistics in Ottawa, and during the Second World War was seconded to the Department of Labour Mobilization to be the chief statistician to conduct mobilization statistics. After the war, he resigned from civil service and moved to Vancouver to establish his own labour consulting service, the Trade Union Research Bureau. He served as director and president of his company for 44 years. As a life long Communist from a family of communists he dedicated his life to the betterment of working people world wide. Emil distinguished himself for his research on behalf of many unions including the International Woodworkers of America (IWA), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Mine Mill and Smelter Workers, United Fishermen and Allied Workers (UFAWU), and many locals of both the Firefighters and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). In 1973 he co-founded the Dogwood Foundation for Socialist Education to further the dissemination of labour-left works and ideas. He was also a member political organizations such as the Peace Council, the League for Democratic Rights, and became a co-founder of the Canada-Cuba Friendship Association in 1961.

During his career, Bjarnason published many pamphlets on topical economics and upon retirement wrote about his family genealogy back to the 900s. He wrote two more books, The Whole Truth, humorous episodes from his youth and a bilingual translation of some of the Icelandic Saga. Bjarnason was also the associate editor of the Icelandic Canadian Club of British Columbia (ICC of BC) newsletter for ten years and has contributed pieces to the Icelandic Canadian, and Lögberg-Heimskringla. He was awarded a Life membership in the ICC of BC. He died on October 12, 2006.

The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service was a weekly periodical with national and international distribution. It was the official newspaper and weekly periodical of the Black Panther Party. The newspaper was founded in 1967 by Huey B. Newton and Bobby Seale and published until 1980.

The newspaper focused on Black Panther Party activities, values, and ideology; police brutality, racial oppression in the United States; political prisoners, communism, and international revolutions. From 1968 to 1971, the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service was the most widely read Black newspaper in the United States. The back of each issue features original artwork from Emory Douglas, Black Panther's Minister of Culture and artist.

Blackstone Press was a letterpress that operated on Granville Island from 1996 to 2021. It was run by David Clifford and, starting in 2005, his daughter Yasmine Franchi.

Clifford began a six-year printing apprenticeship in London in 1951 at the age of 15. After several years in the printing industry, he moved to France in 1962 and worked at Imprimerie Meyerbeer before moving to Vancouver in 1970. Clifford worked as a graphic designer until 1996, when he founded Black Stone Press.

The press used primarily polymer type and operated a variety of vintage presses, including three Heldelberg Winmill presses, to produce their work.

W.R. Black was a poet and author.

Charlotte Scott Black (1902-1979) was born in Nelson, B.C., in 1902. She graduated from the University of Manitoba with a B.Sc. in Home Economics in 1925. She began teaching in Vancouver schools in that year. Black joined the faculty of the School of Home Economics at the University of Washington in 1941. Her primary responsibility was the establishment and development of the Home Management House. When the Department of Home Economics was established at UBC, she was invited to join the faculty and accepted. In 1946, she was made head of the department following the resignation of Dorothy Lefevbre. The status of Home Economics changed from a department to a school in 1951, and Black then became director until her retirement in 1965.

Edgar C. Black was the first member of the Department of Physiology, now the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences at UBC.