George Gee was born on July 22, 1908 in Virden, Manitoba, where he lived with his parents and 9 brothers and sisters. After his father's death in 1909, the family's financial situation worsened until foreclosure forced the family to scatter across Canada in search of employment. Gee stayed in Manitoba working as a labourer until the stock market crash of 1929 forced him into the ranks of the unemployed. He then moved to Princeton, British Columbia to join his brothers. While in Princeton, Gee and his brothers supported themselves with odd jobs and George increasingly came under the influence of his brother Bill, who had joined the communist party in 1932. He also became affiliated with well-known communist organizer Arthur "Slim" Evans while helping with the Tulameen Coal Miner's Strike in 1933. In March of 1934, Gee married Lillian Smith-Mitchell of Princeton, B.C. Gee left Princeton in 1935 and took a job with Peterson Electric in Vancouver, B.C. Soon after, Gee was laid off and joined the communist party. In 1936, he left Vancouver for Seattle, Washington where he found steady work and joined the Local 77 chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (I.B.E.W.). In 1937, Gee moved back to Vancouver and worked for B.C. Electric. This same year, George and Lillian had their first daughter, Joyce. The Gee family welcomed their second daughter (Shirley) in 1939. On August 4, 1939, he began his career with the Local 213 of the I.B.E.W, where he went on to serve as a business agent from 1946-1955. During these years, the Gees had two more children, a daughter (Bonnie) and a son (James). Gee was expelled from the union in 1955 due to his political affiliation, where after he returned to his job at B.C. Electric (from which he had taken a leave of absence from 1946 on). After only working a half-day, Gee was fired because of his expulsion from the I.B.E.W. Five days later, close to 300 electrical workers walked off the job in protest to Gee's dismissal. From the date of his firing in 1955 until 1957, Gee made a series of attempts within the I.B.E.W. to be reinstated. The attempts all failed and were eventually followed by a trial in the Supreme Court, which rejected Gee's charges against the I.B.E.W. After Gee's defeat in The Supreme Court, he ran a small heating business called G&B Heating until 1960, when he, his wife Lilian, and their son James moved to Edmonton, Alberta. He worked there as the western representative for The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (U.E.). In 1967 Gee moved back to Vancouver, B.C., and continued to fulfil this position until his retirement in 1974. By 1974, The Gees purchased property in Davis Bay, Sechelt. Gee was actively involved in political affairs, civic affairs and was one of the founding members of the Sechelt Communist Party.

The office of the German Consulate General was established in Montreal, Quebec in 1909. In 1937 the office was moved to Ottawa, but a German consulate remained in Montreal to handle commercial matters. Its offices were at 317 Keefer Bldg, Montreal.

Douglas Coupland was born December 30th, 1960 on the NATO base in Baden-Söllingen, West Germany. After Coupland’s father completed his military service in 1965, the family settled in West Vancouver. There, Coupland attended elementary and high school. After graduation, Coupland moved to Montreal to study sciences at McGill University. Returning to Vancouver a year later, Coupland entered the Diploma of Fine Arts program at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD). Studying three dimensional art, Coupland also compiled and wrote several editions of ECIAD’s experimental student newspaper exhibited his first art installation entitled Wave Particles and Beams in an ECIAD student space. In 1984, the first published piece of writing by Coupland appeared in the short-lived weekly, Vancouver Voice. After graduating from ECIAD, Coupland won a scholarship to study Japanese business science at the Japan America Institute of Management Science in Honolulu. He earned an honors degree after this one-year course and returned to Vancouver briefly in 1986.

Although best known as a novelist, Coupland is also an accomplished graphic designer, journalist, visual artist, playwright, and filmmaker. After Coupland’s year of study in Hawaii, he moved to Japan in 1986 and worked as a designer and researcher for the publishing company, Magazine House. Returning to Vancouver in 1987, Coupland was hired as a writer for Vancouver magazine. Coupland’s first-ever article about “Generation X,” defined as the generation of people born – after the baby boomers – in the 1960s and 1970s, was published Vancouver in September 1987.1 Also in 1987,the Vancouver Art Gallery hosted Coupland’s one-person art exhibition entitled A Floating World. Later that year, Coupland began writing for Western Living Magazine and The Vancouver Sun. In 1988, Coupland moved to Toronto to write for the alternative business magazine Vista. Along with other articles, Coupland developed a regular “Generation X” column and comic strip, animated by Paul Richove. Having read these pieces, literary agent Peter Livingston embraced Coupland’s concept and helped sell it as a book proposal to the American publishing company, St. Martin’s Press.

Originally intended as a non-fiction “handbook” for Generation X, the novel Coupland wrote while living on an advance in Palm Springs can be considered trendsetting in a number of ways. In addition to the main narrative, the book introduced elements of graphic design, pop-art and wordplay to the novel genre. The book attained critical and popular success over the summer of 1990, and by the end of the year, the Generation X concept had become a major cultural phenomenon. Since Generation X, Coupland has published seventeen major literary works: ten fiction and seven non-fiction. In the 1990s, Coupland also began writing, producing and appearing in various experimental film and television projects. He produced 6 short moving image art pieces in 1994 that aired on MTV. Also in 1995, Coupland helped to write a documentary about himself entitled Close Personal Friend. Since then Coupland has been involved in more than a dozen film, television and theatrical productions.

In the past ten years Coupland has returned to visual arts, utilizing diverse media and experimenting with various forms. In the late 1990s, Coupland developed a website entitled Coupland.com. The website combined elements of Coupland’s prose (lesser known articles and journal-style postings) with scanned collages and other digitally rendered multi-media images. Arguably one of the first ‘blog’ projects undertaken by a well-known writer and artist, Coupland.com was well received in the nascent web-design community of the mid-1990s. The visual elements of Coupland’s website marked the beginning of Coupland’s return to three-dimensional and visual art forms. Around the year 2000, Coupland developed a series of furniture pieces for the furniture company Pure Design. Also in 2000, Coupland created an art installation entitled Spike. The installation, which featured human-sized plastic objects debuted in Vancouver and was later shown at the Totem Gallery in New York. Since then, Coupland has created or contributed to more than twenty major visual art projects, installations and exhibitions. While working in various capacities over the course of his career, Coupland has maintained consistent creative focus in two areas: 1) literary works with a strong visual sensibility 2) visual art (particularly sculptural) projects that challenge aesthetic conventions.

Coupland has earned a number of awards and distinctions since the 1990s. In 2001, Coupland’s Alma Mater (ECIAD) awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. Over the course of the 2000s, three of Coupland’s books (City of Glass, Terry and Souvenir of Canada 2) were nominated for BC Book Prizes, awarded by the Association of B.C. Booksellers. In 2005, Coupland was awarded a Vancouver Arts Award for his writing accomplishments. In 2006, the Leacock Association short-listed JPod for its annual Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Finally, as part of British Columbia’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2008, the Royal British Columbia Museum named Coupland one of the 150 most influential people in British Columbia’s history.

Stefan Arnason, son of Arni Jonatansson and Gudrun Jonsdottir, was born August 17, 1882 at Fagriskogur in Eyja Fjordur, Iceland. The eldest of 12 children, he was educated at the Gagnfraedaskoli at Mofurvollum in 1900. He immigrated to Canada in 1904 and spent time in Tantallon, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, Manitoba, before homesteading in Pine Valley (Piney), Manitoba in 1908. He married Gudrun “Sigurbjorg” Einarsdottir (born 1889, Hallson, North Dakota) in 1911, who had settled in the Pine Valley area with her parents.
The Arnasons took over Sigurbjorg’s father’s farm at Piney and had 12 children. Amongst the first settlers in the area, they were active in the community, helping build the first high school and hall. Stefan Arnason was on the school board, and worked for the municipality. The Arnason family were forced to move to the Vancouver area during the depression due to lack of employment opportunities. They moved thirteen family members (the eldest daughter stayed in the Piney area for 2 more years) in a one and a half ton Dodge truck to Burnaby, in April-May 1937.
Stefan Arnason passed away in 1956.
Sources:
Biographical information provided by Richard Arnason. Available for consultation in the accession file

The Trans-Himalayan Aid Society (TRAS), formerly the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society, is a not-for-profit international development organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia. TRAS was founded by author George Woodcock and his wife and Inge after they visited India and met His Holiness, the Dalai Lama in the 1960s. TRAS became an official Society of British Columbia in 1962.
Originally, TRAS operated under the following administrative structure. The position of Chairman was a honourary appointment. The Vice-Chairman was responsible for administration including the general running of the entire operation. There was also a Board of Directors which conferred with the Vice-Chairman on all aspects of the running of the Society. All of these persons were volunteers. Professor George Woodcock was the Vice-Chairman of TRAS from 1962-1970. Professor John Conway was then Vice-Chairman from 1971-1981. When Professor Conway resigned from the position of Vice-Chairman, the Society decided that the office work was too much for volunteers and a professional secretary was hired to run the office. The name of the Society was officially changed on May 14, 1990 to the Trans-Himalayan Aid Society. The original acronym, TRAS, remained the same.
In 1970, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) agreed to provide the organization with matching funds. Realizing that Tibetan refugees would not be leaving India anytime soon, TRAS expanded its scope of activities to help adults and children cope on a longer-term basis. As Tibetan settlements reached self-sufficiency the organization extended its reach into the trans-Himalayan region. TRAS works with partner agencies and individuals in India, Nepal, and Tibet to identify communities in need. Proposals come from partner organizations to TRAS’ Board of Directors. The Board of Directors decides which projects to raise and distribute funds for; funds are raised through individual donations and fundraising events. Partners are responsible for implementing their own projects. Areas of work include: education campaigns; building settlements, schools and homes for children and elderly; vocational training; environmental, agricultural and health programs; and the preservation of arts and culture.
Sources:
Trans-Himalayan Aid Society. http://www.tras.ca (accessed March 13, 2010).

UBC Library Vault is an initiative of the UBC Library Development Office which aims to showcase rare and special images from the holdings of UBC Library through an online gallery and print publications such as bookmarks, promotional items and gift cards. Images are often drawn from the collections at Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia Archives, UBC Asian Library and Woodward Biomedical Library.