The fonds consists of records related to Simons’ writing career, travels, and personal life. Records span a period from Simons’ early years in university to 2012 and were created predominantly in Vancouver, British Columbia. Some records were created during Simons’ travels in England, France, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Burma. The fonds comprises the following three series: Literary Works; Professional and Personal Records; and Travel Records.

The Literary Works series features drafts of Simons’ literary works in various genres, particularly drama (stage, radio, and film) and fiction (for children and adults). Record types include publications, drafts (typed, handwritten, and hand-annotated), outlines, notes, research materials for projects, several recordings of Simons’ works, and large poster boards Simons used for plotting one of her fiction projects.

The Professional and Personal Records series contains records related to the administration and management of Simons’ literary career, particularly her attempts to submit work to various publishers and producers, mount productions of her dramatic works, and secure adequate financial resources to sustain her writerly practice. Administrative records are frequently mixed physically with Simons’ personal correspondence to family and friends. Record types include drafts of Simons’ curriculum vitae, grant applications, professional and personal correspondence, professional photographs, and contracts.

The Travel Records series aggregates records from Simons’ three major trips: Europe from 1959-1961; Japan, Hong Kong, and India from 1967-1968; and Hong Kong, Burma, India, and Japan in 1986. Simons attended many plays, conferences, and art shows while traveling and preserved programs as a source of inspiration for her creative work. Simons also maintained correspondence with friends and family during her travels. Record types include programs, personal and professional correspondence, personal photographs, and Simons’ notes on various activities.

The fonds consists of a copy of Pell's last will and testament, as well as one album containing photographs, prints, and crests collected by Pell documenting his travels in the 1870s. Many of the photographs are labelled by location, and place names include Aden, Alexandria, Batavia, Isle of Wight, Cairo, Hong Kong, Java, Marseilles, Naples, Rangoon, Singapore, and Suez. Also included in the collection is a page of crests of nobility, and two print portraits, one of Christine Nilsson and the other of Adelina Patti.

The fonds consists of correspondence, journals, legal documents, financial documents, printed drawings, watercolours, an order book, and personal and other documents created and/or accumulated by Edward Belcher and other members of the Belcher family. The majority of the Edward Belcher material is related to his naval career.

The fonds consists of two diaries which chronicle Sprague's 1906 trip from Edinburgh to Hope, B.C.

The fonds consists of diaries, scrapbooks, and correspondence spanning the period 1910-2003 and related to the professional and personal lives of three generations of the Bamford family—William Blackley Bamford, his son William Blackley Stanley Bamford, and his grandson William Huestis Bamford—as well as to members of the Lasell and Ord families, related by marriage to William Huestis Bamford. Diaries in the fonds include concise “five year” or “line a day” diaries, as well as more detailed daily journals and many cover aspects of the Bamfords’ professional and personal life.

Scrapbooks in the fonds, which contain newspaper clippings, ephemera, correspondence, photographs, notes, and other material, primarily reflect the Bamfords’ personal interests, but also interests their chosen professions and employers, including the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the Bank of Montreal. Beyond the incoming and outgoing personal and professional correspondence included in the scrapbooks, the Esther Adelina Lasell Bamford series contains incoming correspondence related to a branch of the Ord family living in New Zealand.

The fonds is arranged into four series by family member: William Blackley Bamford; William Blackley Stanley Bamford; William Huestis Bamford; and Esther Adelina Lasell Bamford.

The fonds consists of minutes, membership lists, financial records, correspondence and printed material generated by the Archaeological Society of British Columbia between 1966 and 1985. The fonds also includes a run of the Society's newsletter The Midden and a scrapbook illustrating the activities of the organization from 1966 to 1972.

The fonds consists of transcripts of documents from and pertaining to the Deutsche Groenland (Greenland) Expedition of 1930-1931 headed by Alfred Wegener and, more specifically, pertaining to his death while attempting to bring desperately needed supplies of petroleum from Weststation to Eismitte. There are also ten photographs.