William Huestis Bamford (17 Sept. 1930- ) was at born at Grace Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, to William Blackley Stanley Bamford and Amy Lauretta Huestis. Bamford attended Kerrisdale Elementary School from 1936-1941, Point Grey Secondary School from 1942-1945, and Lord Byng Secondary School from 1946-1949. In 1950, Bamford had a job with the British Columbia forestry sector in Vancouver for one year before joining the British Columbia Regiment on 7 May 1951. Bamford then served with Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) from 17 March 1952 until 15 April 1954. Bamford acted as a driver mechanic, attaining the rank of Lance Corporal, and spent one year overseas in Korea before returning to Vancouver in December 1953. Upon leaving the armed services, Bamford worked briefly as a taxi driver before becoming an employee of Canada Post in June 1956. Bamford served as a letter carrier and later a supervisory letter carrier in Richmond and Vancouver until his retirement in 1972. After retirement from Canada Post, Bamford spent time working on various collections, including an extensive stamp collection, coin collection, book and record collection, and medal and badge collection, as well as various home improvement and garden projects. Bamford was an avid diarist and kept page-a-day diaries for at least 36 years. While working as a taxi driver, Bamford met Esther Adelina Lasell Blyth, a dispatcher for North Shore Taxi. The couple married on 15 July 1957. Bamford was step-father to Esther’s four children from a prior marriage, Lynne, Sharon, Roy, and Verne.

Anna Banana was born on 24 February 1940 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is an artist known for her participation in the Mail Art network, performance art, writing, and work as a small press publisher, producing the almost 50 year running Banana Rag, VILE magazine from 1974-1984, International Art Post, and various artistamp editions. She has lived in and operated out of Victoria, San Fransisco, Vancouver and the Sunshine coast. She has also toured internationally on a number of occasions, predominantly through Europe and North America. She herself considered her work to be “a costume and the creation of a character,” and called herself an “incurable collector.”

After graduating in 1957 from Victoria High School, she attended the University of British Columbia from 1958-1963 and graduated with an elementary academic teaching certificate. After this, she taught for five years, in public schools for two and then at the Vancouver New School for three. At Vancouver’s New School she was first called Anna Banana by students, and she noted that the name stuck after falling into a crate of bananas at a party. In the late 1960s she became disillusioned with her life as a wife, mother and teacher, and relocated to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for a period of 18 months, where she learned massage.

After her stint at Esalen, she moved back to Victoria, supporting herself through massage workshops and batik making. In August 1971 she “went bananas” and declared herself the Town Fool of Victoria, continuing to hold this post until 1972. During this period she would often go to schools with painted rocks and set up voluntary arts and crafts instruction for students, under the Anna Banana pseudonym. She would issue degrees in “Bananology” (i.e. the art of being bananas) to participants, and this continued for many years to come. During this period she wrote an article for Maclean’s magazine which describes her rejection of consumer culture in these years, living in a cabin with no running water for $35 a month, on an income of around $25 a week. She began to publish the Banana Rag newsletter in 1971 in order to contact, involve and inform the general public about her aims and activities in Victoria at the time. One of these reached some Vancouver based artists who had begun to correspond within the network, and Banana was quickly introduced to the International Mail Art Network by artist Gary Lee Nova (AKA Art Rat), beginning her decades long engagement with mail art. Her first requests were that mail artists send her banana related items, including images and general information – of which she collected more than 1200 over the course of her career. Networkers who provided these items were awarded a Masters Degree in Bananology and a note.

By August 1973 she had moved to San Francisco, landing a job at the SF Bay Guardian. In her time in San Fransisco she organized the first Banana Olympics in 1975, explored performance art alongside a number of Dadaist compatriots, and published VILE magazine in February 1974 in response to a comment made in FILE magazine saying that mail art was “Quik-Kopy Krap”. VILE would eventually have 7 editions, with Bill Gaglione, her partner at the time, publishing 3 of them, culminating in a special issue called About VILE in 1983. Anna and Bill Gaglione would go on to tour Europe with their “Futurist Sound” performances, from September to December 1978.

In the mid-1970’s, Anna began to create her own stamps, in response to a mail art invitation. When, in the 1980s, she wanted to begin monetizing her activities, she requested that networkers pay for her Banana Rag subscription in order to maintain contact with her. By 1986, she began to look to stamps as a way of increasing the income generated from her activities, producing multiple editions of various artistamps, into the mid-2000s, under the issuing authority of a fictitious “Bananaland”. While working in production department of Intermedia Press from 1983 to 1985, she learned full-colour printing, which she would go on to use to issue International Art Post, which ran from 1988 to 2011.

In 1981 she moved back to Vancouver, British Columbia, around the same time divorcing Bill Caglione (an event which she would call the “Banana Split”). In 1980 she held the 2nd Banana Olympics in Surrey, British Columbia, and in 1985 she legally changed her name to Anna Banana. This period stands out for her production of artistamps, although she remained an avid networker and performance artist. She curated performance art shows such as Artropolis, and engaged in performances such as“Wild Women” and “World Series”, as well as other performance art shows on tours through North America and Europe.

In the 1990s, she began the Special Research Insitute, where she performed goofy dada-esque research projects, such as “Proof Positive That Germany Is Going Bananas” (1993), “A Survey of Banana Culture in Victoria BC” and “But Is It Art?” (2011). She led the institute under the name Dr. Anna Freud Banana. In 2001, she began creating Artist Trading Cards, and would continue to trade these at various events throughout the 2000s.

Anna moved to the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia in 1995, where she currently lives.

William Orson Banfield was born in Vancouver, the son of John J. Banfield. John J. Banfield arrived in Vancouver in 1891 and operated a real estate and insurance office. He also served on many civic bodies, including the School Board, the Hospital Board, the Exhibition Association and the Broad of Trade. William Orson Banfield graduated from the University of British Columbia with a master's degree in 1923. He worked briefly as a chemical engineer before joining his father's business. In 1934, Banfield formed his own firm, Norwich Agencies, Limited. He sold the firm in 1956 and retired in 1960. Banfield was active in civic affairs. He was elected president of the Vancouver branch of the Red Cross in 1946, president of the Vancouver Rotary Club in 1947, president of the Civic Non-Partisan Association in 1956, and Chairman of the Board of Vancouver General Hospital in 1957. In 1961, he was elected to Vancouver City Council as an alderman.

Playwright, theatre director, and professor of theatre, literature and writing, Douglas Henneck Bankson (May 13, 1920, to July 14, 2015) was born in Valley, Washington. After earning a BA in journalism from the University of Washington in 1943, Bankson enlisted in the US Navy and served as an officer on a sub-chaser in European and Philippine waters. While in the service, he married his high school sweetheart Beverly Carson (1922-2009) of Tacoma. After his discharge after the war, the family moved to Seattle.
Bankson worked for the Seattle Post Intelligencer while pursuing his Ph.D. in Victorian literature at the University of Washington. He served as the first Research Director of the Frye Public Art Museum in Seattle (1951/52). While living for a year in Sicily, he co-wrote an unpublished novel with fellow English graduate Wallace Graves. Bankson spent two years teaching English and humanities at the University of Idaho before moving on to the University of Montana, first as an assistant professor of English (1957-1959) and then as associate professor of drama, associate director theatre and resident playwright (1959-1965). He also served as the Masquer Summer Theatre director in Missoula, Montana (1961-1965). While at Montana, his colleagues in the Fine Arts Department included Walter Hook, Jay Rummell, and Rudy Autio, which helped nurture Bankson's artistic interests. Throughout his lifetime Bankson produced wooden sculptures that have been exhibited in public museums and private galleries in the US and Canada. However, he preferred to create for private collectors and his enjoyment.
In 1965, Bankson accepted an invitation to join UBC's new Department of Creative Writing. He taught drama and writing for stage and radio from 1965 to 1985. In addition to teaching, Bankson wrote prolifically. Many of his plays were produced and broadcast in Canada and the US during this time. While at UBC, Bankson became involved in campus and community affairs. Bankson participated in the University's Contemporary Arts Festival and as a drama editor for Prism International. He was also a governor for the Dominion Drama Festival. In 1970, he co-founded with Sheila Neville the New Play Centre (NPC), which, based on writing techniques used by Bankson, provided a forum for developing, producing, and promoting original plays. The NPC fostered several recognized theatre stalwarts, including Sharon Pollock, Margaret Hollingsworth, Leonard Angel, Tom Cone, Sherman Snukal, Sheldon Rosen, John Lazarus and Ted Galay. It maintained a steady stream of productions for more than twenty years.
Bankson replaced Robert Harlow as head of the Creative Writing Department in 1978 and remained until his retirement in 1985. In recognition of his significant contributions, Bankson was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award by the Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance in 1984. He and Beverly moved to Gig Harbour, Washington, where Bankson continued writing and sculpting after his retirement.

Sir Frederick Grant Banting was born in Alliston, Ontario, Canada on November 14, 1891. He was a physician who with Charles H. Best was one of the first to extract the hormone insulin from the pancreas. Injections of insulin proved to be the first effective treatment for diabetes. Banting was awarded a share of the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his achievement. He died on February 21, 1941 in Newfoundland.

Barbarian Press was founded in 1977 by Crispin and Jan Elsted. They both received M.A. Degrees in English at the University of British Columbia in 1975, and after a year of teaching in the English Department, they travelled to England to work toward Ph.Ds at King's College, London. The Elsteds established Barbarian Press on their return to B.C. in 1978. Settling at Steelhead, north of Mission, the Elsteds have published continuously since then, producing both commercial work (stationery, cards and other job printing) and fine presswork: illustrated monographs, miniatures, pamphlets, broadsheets and keepsakes.

James Barclay was born in Gourock, Scotland. After receiving his education in Scotland he worked in Shanghai, China as an engineering assistant. In 1928 Barclay decided to join his parents in North America. Leaving China, he arrived at the port of Seattle and from there made his way to Vancouver, B.C. After working in Trail as a draughtsman for Consolidated Mining and Smelter Company of Canada, Barclay moved to Vancouver where he became a member of the Canadian Professional Engineers. Thereafter, he worked on a number of construction projects in the city, including the Burrard Street bridge.

N.L. “Bill” Barlee, 70, was born October 6, 1932 in Grand Forks, British Columbia. He grew up in Rossland and spent his formative years, 1950-1970, traveling through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah and British Columbia developing his knowledge of old historic towns and mining regions. He has 38 years experience in researching and writing about ghost towns and historic mining camps of the far West, and has published two books on these subjects; the most well-known being Gold Creeks and Ghost Towns, which was published in June of 1984.

Barlee has had a varied career as a high school teacher, writer, publisher and Minister of Small Business, Tourism, Culture and Film in British Columbia. He was one of seventeen Ministers of the Crown and a member of the cabinet charged with governing the province; a position he held from 1991 through 1996.

Over the past few decades Barlee has amassed a vast collection of Old West records and artifacts. Parts of his collection have been placed on display in the Museum of Civilization, Canada’s National Museum; and exhibited in other museums around the country. Pieces have also been used in CHBC TV’s award wining series; “Gold Trails and Ghost Towns”, which ran from 1986 to 1996 on five different networks within Canada, and was hosted by Mr. Barlee.

For the past few years Barlee has been working on completing his latest manuscript on South Central British Columbia and doing research on a manuscript on the state of Idaho’s silver belt, the renowned Couer D’Alene district.

H.G. Barnett was a professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon.

David (Dave) Barrett was born on October 2, 1930 in Vancouver, BC. He was the youngest child in a family of three children born to Samuel and Rose (nee Hyatt) Barrett. He completed his primary education in Vancouver and graduated, in 1948, from Britannia High School. Barrett then earned his Bachelor of Arts, with a major in philosophy, from Seattle University in 1953. In 1956, Barrett completed the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work which was conferred on him by St . Louis University. The same university awarded him an Honourary Doctorate of Philosophy in 1974. In the course of completing his education, Dave Barrett married Shirley Hackman in 1953. Together they have three children : Dan, Joe, and Jane.
In 1960, Dave joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and in September of that same year, he was elected as an MLA to the BC Legislature for the Dewdney Riding . Dave was re-elected as an MLA in 1963, 1966, and 1969. In 1970, Dave Barrett became the leader of the BC provincial NDP party, taking over from Thomas Berger and, at the same time, he became the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Dave Barrett lead the NDP to victory in 1972 becoming the first NDP premier in BC. The NDP were defeated in 1975, after which Barrett stayed on as leader of the NDP until 1983. He retired from the legislature in 1984.
In June of 1984 Dave Barrett signed a contract with radio station CJOR to do his own radio show. Additionally, Barrett began to do weekly interviews for CKVU and he established Barrett Communications Ltd. Dave Barrett left CJOR in January of 1987 after which he engaged in a number of activities such as writing an autobiography, and lecturing at universities such as Harvard and McGill. Dave Barrett returned to politics in 1988 when he was elected MP for the Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca district. He remained an MP until 1993 when he ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the NDP, after which he retired from political life.

David Barrett was a social worker who joined the Commonwealth Cooperative Federation in 1960, after being dismissed by the Attorney General's office (under whom he was working as a probation officer) for his union and political activities. In 1960, he was elected MLA for Dewdney. In 1970, he succeeded Thomas Berger as leader of the New Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition in B.C. In 1972, Barrett led the NDP to victory in the provincial election and became Premier. The NDP was defeated in 1975. In 1983, he resigned as leader of the NDP and retired from the legislature in 1984. The following year, he began a new career as a radio talk-show host in Vancouver. In 1988 he was elected Member of Parliament for the riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, and served until 1993 when he lost the election to Keith Martin.

Sir William Fletcher Barrett was born to English parents on February 10, 1844 in Jamaica. His family moved back to their native England in 1848 and in 1855 moved to Manchester where Barrett was educated at Old Trafford Grammar School. He subsequently took classes in chemistry and physics at the Royal College of Chemistry, London. In 1863 he became an assistant to John Tyndall at the Royal Institution, where he met and was influenced by Michael Faraday. He received a Master’s of Science from International College and became a lecturer in physics at the Royal School of Naval Architecture in 1869. From 1873 to 1910 he was a professor of physics at the Royal College of Science, Dublin.

He is best known for two lines of inquiry: his early work on ‘sensitive flames’ and his later studies on the electrical, magnetic, and thermal properties of iron and iron alloys. In 1899 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, in addition to already being a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Royal Dublin Society. He was also knighted in 1912.

Barrett is remembered principally for his leadership in the founding of the Society of Psychical Research (SPR), an interest inspired by his experiences with mesmerism in the 1860s. In September 1876 he gave a paper before the anthropological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science outlining some of his experiences. With spiritualist E. Dawson Rogers he founded the SPR in January of 1882.

He died suddenly of heart failure on May 26, 1925 at his home in London, England.