Born in Calgary in 1913, George Philip Vernon Akrigg received a B.A. (1937) and M.A. (1940) from the University of British Columbia and his Ph.D. from the University of California (1944). He began his UBC teaching career in the Deptartment of English in 1941. The author of many scholarly articles and books, Akrigg continued his research in British Columbia history after his retirement in 1978. He died in 2001.

Helen Manning was born in Prince Rupert in 1921, grew up in Victoria and attended UBC in Vancouver for her third and fourth years. She earned a BA in 1943. At UBC, she met and married Philip Akrigg [1913-2001], who taught in the English Department. Akrigg wrote her Master's Thesis on the History and Economic Development of the Shuswap Area in 1964. The couple had three children, Marian, Daphne and Mark. They owned a lakeshore lot on Shuswap Lake at Celista and spent summers there.

The Akriggs co-authored 1001 British Columbia Place Names and two volumes of British Columbia Chronicle.