The fonds consists of the personal records of Gilean Douglas which were produced and received during her personal and literary activities . It includes manuscripts of poems, articles, short fiction and books ; material generated and collected by Douglas during her involvement with various organizations ; notes and drafts of various writings ; research materials ; an extensive professional, fan and personal correspondence; financial records ; legal records ; lists and inventories ; records of publication ; clippings. There are journals and engagement books dating from 1911, notebooks and address books, and scrapbooks containing clippings of Douglas' published articles and poems . There are also scrapbooks and correspondence generated by her parents dating back to the 1880s. There is a notable gap in records dating from 1929 to 1932.
Photographic records date from the 1890s to the I990sand include prints, framed portraits, slides, negatives and film strips. A large assortment of photos documents her family and childhood. Douglas started taking photographs as a child. By her early twenties she was an accomplished photographer, using her own pictures to illustrate her writings. Photographs taken by her during the 1920s through the early 1940s are for the most part found in the albums. Pictures taken in the 1950s and 1960s fall into 3 main categories : black & white photos of the B .C. coast taken during her trips on the boats of the Columbia Coast Mission, color and black & white photos of communities in B .C. and eastern Canada taken during her trips for the W.I ., and pictures of Channel Rock . Unfortunately the slides and pictures taken on WI trips are unlabelled and for the most part can only be identified as to general location and date. During the 1970s and 1980s the photographs are almost exclusively of Channel Rock. A representative sample of these is included in this series ; others may be found at the Cortes Museum and Archives.
Aside from Douglas' own photographs, there are several interesting groups of other people's pictures in this collection: an album with pictures of overseas service during World War I, a group of labelled photographs of Baffin Island, Pangirtung, etc. taken in 1926/27 by an RCMP officer, and photographs from a trip around the world on a freighter in 1919.
The records offer insight into Douglas' personal history and literary development . They document, in words and pictures, an unusual and interesting life which began at the turn of the twentieth century.
