The collection contains materials related to Ian McDonald's Master's thesis research on the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local 213 “Class conflict and political factionalism: a history of Local 213 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 1901-1961," and related to the activities of his father, Les McDonald, a trade union activist who belonged to Local 213 but was eventually suspended for leading the Lenkurt strike of 1966. Les McDonald was also a multi-sport athlete, and is credited with introducing the triathlon into the Olympics; some materials in the collection relate to Les McDonald's involvement in various sport and environmental organizations, as well as some of his personal papers. In addition to what he received from his father, Ian McDonald was also given papers by former IBEW Local 213 business manager Art O’Keeffe and Barry Sharbo, a board member of the Canadian Union of Electrical Workers (UE), as well as Alfie Huston, the former President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 213 from 1985-1988, which are included within the collection.

The collection is largely comprised of newspaper and photocopied journal articles, correspondence between members of IBEW Local 213, legal documentation, newsletters and other printed ephemera related to IBEW Local 213.

The collection also contains sound recordings of interviews with numerous figures in IBEW Local 213 created by Ian McDonald during his thesis research. McDonald's thesis, submitted for the completion of a Master of Arts in History at Simon Fraser University, can be found in the Summit database: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/6361.

The collection also contains background materials accumulated by McDonald while writing his book “The Red Baron of IBEW 213,” including digital sound recordings of interviews, research articles, notebooks, consent forms, a draft royalty agreement, a draft chapter and a press marketing questionnaire.

Records, mainly in German, related to the writing and artistic career of Kurt Hutterli. Arranged and classified by Kurt Hutterli. The records span from correspondence with publishers, friends and fans about book-projects to notes and manuscripts from various stages of Hutterli's writings. In addition, the fonds contains notes, and materials relating to Hutterli's art-work. The fonds also contains personal records related to family matters and friends as well as Hutterli's job as teacher in Bern.

The collection is made up of 11 cassette tapes containing 12.5 hours of audio, of the interviews that Angela Codina conducted with the leaders of the Tiananmen Square uprising. The collection also consists of the following textual materials: written transcripts that were later made of the interviews (at the behest of Geraldine Bowman); materials for a book written by Angela Codina; newspaper clippings; periodicals and journals; and correspondence. The collection also contains 274 photographic negatives and 448 colour photographs.

The fonds consists of the incoming correspondence to Joan Gillis from a group of young Japanese Canadians she met while attending Queen Elizabeth Secondary School in Surrey. The fonds includes 149 letters and 10 small photographs, referred to colloquially as ‘snaps’ in the letters, sent from a total of 13 different correspondents. The majority of the correspondence took place during 1942 to 1946, with different friends writing from farms and work camps in Northern British Columbia, Manitoba, and Alberta. The letters provide insight into the Japanese Canadian internment, which occurred against the backdrop of a larger cultural context. Since the early 1900s Japanese immigrants and persons of Japanese descent living in Canada were subject to racially targeted legislation, including limits on immigration, limits on fishing licenses, and being denied the right to vote based on racial status.

In the spring of 1941 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) fingerprinted and registered all Japanese Canadians over the age 16, who were required to carry identification cards until 1949. Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941, Canada declared war on Japan. The Royal Canadian Navy impounded the fishing boats of the Japanese Canadian fishing community, and within two months 1,200 Japanese Canadian owned boats were sold. On February 24th 1942 the federal government authorized the removal of all persons of Japanese origin, and gave the RCMP the power to search without warrant, to impose a dawn to dusk curfew, and to confiscate all cars, radios, firearms, and cameras. Mass forced dispersal and dispossession ensued, with all Japanese Canadians being sent to internment camps, to work on farms, and perform other forms of hard labor, living in very poor conditions through the much colder winters of Canada’s interior.
The letter-writers discuss their day-to-day life at the camps, living and working conditions, their new schools and teachers, and ask after Gillis’ life in Surrey and the on-goings at Queen Elizabeth (Q.E.) secondary school.
Gillis kept the correspondence bound in twine or ribbon, which is also included in the fonds. A government censor opened and read many, if not all of the letters, and many of the envelopes bear a sticker or stamp marking this. Many of the letters are hand-written, some are typed, and some are written on postcards. Listed at the file level is the full name of each correspondent and his or her specific geographical location.

The fonds consists of records created and received during the period that the donor worked in the Slocan Valley and later. The fonds consists of a scrapbook and photographs documenting the lives of Japanese Canadian internees in the Lemon Creek internment camp during World War II and their reunions after World War II.

The collection consists of five scrapbooks with materials and photographs mainly related to the Canadian Pacific Railway and the career of E.D. Cotterell. One scrapbook is dedicated to the Quebec Conference in 1943, a high-level military discussion which included Winston Churchill, British prime minister, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and various Chiefs of Staff. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was host. In addition, the collection contains material related to the visit of the British King (George) and Queen in Canada in 1939, as well as other royal visits.

This fonds contains Ada Luise Richardson's research notes on music history and theory. Her research focused on Finnland and Russia and was conducted in the beginning of the 20th century. For her research Richardson collected Russian and Finnish folklore songs, as well as newspaper clippings and excerpts from contemporary literature. Richardson's research notes were meant to be the basis of papers on music history and theory. The fonds contains music sheets and some pieces of correspondence, as well.

Fonds consists of materials documenting the activities of the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) during four general time periods: the pre-redress period (including records by the National Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association before it became the NAJC), the birth and development of the redress movement in the 1980s, the implementation of redress following the September 1988 settlement (1988 – 1992), and the post-implementation period (1993-present). The fonds has been arranged in the following seven series: NAJC Presidents, NAJC Business, Conferences and Other Events, Finance, Communications, Community Development, and Reference Material.