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Series consists of 6 photographs depicting the first departure of the Pacific Great Eastern passenger train from Vancouver to Prince George, August 1956.

This series contains official correspondence, reports, briefs to cabinet, articles and messages, etc. accumulated during W.A.C. Bennett's tenure as premier. It includes files on Dominion-provincial relations, civil defence, centennial celebrations, railways and major business corporations. Also includes copies of congratulatory letters sent to senior citizens by Bennett's successor, Premier David Barrett. Photographs transferred to Visual Records Division; maps, plans, and printed material transferred to Library and Maps Section.

GR-1414 consists of a large number of records created and accumulated during the tenure of Premier William Andrew Cecil (W.A.C.) Bennett [1952-1972]. The records originally comprised the Central Registry of the Premier's Office. Included are letters from private individuals and business corporations, inter-departmental memoranda, copies of the premier's articles and messages, briefs to cabinet and other reports submitted for the premier's consideration. This unit also includes documents pertaining to Dominion-Provincial relations, as well as correspondence from federal politicians and foreign diplomats.

The records, which comprise this unit, were transferred to the Provincial Archives from the Premier's Office in November 1982. Ten years earlier-following the defeat of Mr. Bennett's Social Credit government-the records had been consigned to a vault in the basement of the Parliament Buildings. Sometime later they were placed in cardboard boxes and removed to a builders' shed in the Parliament Buildings precinct. There they remained, apparently untended, until 1982 when they came to the attention of the Archives.

When the records were transferred to the Archives a number of file folders were found to be empty. In most cases, the empty folders concerned cabinet ministers and the work of various government departments. Similarly, contemporary file lists [see Box 131, File 11] indicate that a number of folders were missing from the original series of files. No files marked "Anonymous," for example, were among the boxes received by the Archives, despite the fact that files containing anonymous letters inward were maintained over the years by the Premier's Office. Nor were any "Confidential" files included with the transfer, although they were part of the Premier's filing system. These files may have been removed when W.A.C. Bennett left office in 1972, or they may have been removed sometime after 1976 when W.R. Bennett became premier. [In her interview (taped in 1978) Mrs. Mylrea noted that Premier Bennett asked her to "go through" the correspondence files on 31 August 1972, the day after his party's electoral defeat. Mrs. Mylrea spent the next two weeks reviewing "every piece of paper in those files." "I did not find one thing that nobody else could have looked at" she related, "there was nothing that anybody need be afraid that anybody could see, opposition or otherwise." Nevertheless, some of the files were removed and were taken by Mr. Bennett to his Kelowna home. [SMID 3236:1-2, pp.16-17]

Researchers should also note the absence of W.A.C. Bennett's constituency files in this collection. According to the premier's secretary, records dealing with the South Okanagan riding were maintained separately in the premier's Kelowna office. After his death in February, 1979, the Bennett family donated the records to the Simon Fraser University archives. [SMID 3236:1-1, p.17]

Despite the absence of certain files, GR-1414 is a remarkably rich collection of executive records. The evolution of the Social Credit Party can be detected in many of the memos and reports in the collection; public attitudes towards government policies can be seen in much of the correspondence inward, while the province's economic growth can be discerned in files devoted to industrial development or to particular companies. Federal-provincial relations are also well documented, as are the activities of local chambers of commerce and sundry community groups throughout the province. Indeed, as a source of documentation for British Columbia in the 1950s and 1960s, GR-1414 is unrivalled.

This series contains correspondence and briefs submitted to the Executive Council. It includes applications and appeals pertaining to the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, Seaboard Distributors Ltd., Blunden Harbour Land Company Ltd., and sundry miscellaneous organizations.

The series consists of five reels of amateur film created by the Billwiller family. Includes scenes of Britannia Beach townsite and the surrounding area, as well as a trip on the PGE Railway, building a road to Britannia Beach, May Day celebrations at Britannia (including crowning of the "Copper Queen"), Cub Scout gatherings, sports day events, and family scenes (Christmas, babies, children, friends and neighbours, fishing trips, etc.).

The fonds comprises 27 film or videotape titles produced by or for BC Rail Ltd. and its predecessors, the British Columbia Railway Company and the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE). The larger part of the material is 16 mm film, including original footage, printing elements, sound tracks and workprints and/or release prints for 19 productions. There are also 10 video titles, some of which duplicate the films. Other than two films made for the PGE in 1945-47 and 1964, most of the productons date from 1974-1987 and document the activities of BC Rail and the British Columbia Railway.. There are a number of training films produced for internal use, as well as films meant to promote the company. Many of the films were produced in the 1970s by Art Grinke, who was BC Rail's Supervisor of Audio-Visual Instruction.

The series consists of records created or used by Einar Maynard Gunderson between 1940 and 1980. They relate to his time as Minister of Finance for the Social Credit Government; Vice President for Pacific Great Eastern Railway, as well as Trade Minister for the Vancouver Board of Trade. The records include speeches he gave in numerous roles in both Canada and overseas; itineraries, photographs, negatives and ephemera from a trade mission to Japan, and as part of the Canadian Pacific Airlines' inaugural flight to Lima, a large scrap book containing newspaper clippings about the Pacific Great Eastern Railway; and a document with a seal appointing Gunderson to the post of Finance Minister in 1952.

The series consists a survey of resources of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway lands undertaken by the Government of British Columbia, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the Canadian National Railways. The contents include maps, drawings and photographs.

This series consists of incomplete general Railway Department correspondence files, incoming and outgoing of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, 1919-1951. Files include topics on Vancouver-Squamish bridges, Car barge and transfer ferry, Directors records, personal freight accounts, Orders-in-council, Location surveys for the Quesnel-Cottonwood revision, Right of ways, Proposed changes of route, Completion of line at Cottonwood-Prince George, tariffs, water licenses and Squamish dock & harbor improvement.

Series consists of 16 files of black and white prints created in the process of arranging and describing this series. Files are arranged according to subject, annotations, and size. Many files consist of photographs of railway bridges under construction, with annotation on the verso describing the image, location, and date. File list is as follows:
Marine Drive Bridge 1922 : 11 b&w prints
Capilano Bridge 1920 : 6 b&w prints
New Westminster Bridge 1920-1924 : 13 b&w prints
Pacific Great Eastern Railway mile 345 : 11 b&w prints
Dolly Varden Mines railway : 8 b&w prints
Whistler to Squamish section of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway : 6 b&w prints
Lillooet-Seaton Lake Pacific Great Eastern Railway : 4 b&w prints
Quesnel, Williams Lake, Lac la Hache Pacific Great Eastern Railway : 6 b&w prints
Miami Logging Corporation Alouette River crossing : 5 b&w prints
Various unattributed and log railway bridge : 5 b&w prints
Patullo Bridge construction 1936-1937: 20 b&w prints
No. 5 and 6 heating units Anderson Lake : 2 b&w prints
Capilano Bridge Pacific Great Eastern Railway 1918 : 7 b&w prints
New Westminster Bridge : 2 b&w prints
Miami Logging company overhead crossing : 1 b&w print
New Westminster Bridge : 1 b&w print

The series consists of three financial ledgers created by the British Columbia Railway Company and its predecessor, the Pacific Great Eastern Railway Company, between 1918 and 1984. The ledgers contain financial records relating to road and bridge construction. The series also includes a 1919 publication created by the B.C. Department of Railways called general locomotive rules.

This series contains official reports and correspondence accumulated during the administrations of Premiers Tolmie, Pattullo, Hart, and Johnson. It includes Departmental, General, and Federal files, plus separate series of documents on Pacific Great Eastern Railway (1917-1945). It also includes applications for employment, petitions, press releases, speeches, and vouchers.

The records which comprise this unit were stored for many years in a maintenance shop adjacent to the Parliament Buildings. Storage conditions were less than ideal and in 1982 arrangements were made with the Premier's Office' to transfer the records to the Provincial Archives. It was a signal event, for the records provide documentation on virtually all facets of provincial life over a thirty-five year period. Additionally, the documents which make up GR-1222 provide a valuable record of the administrations of Premiers Tolmie (1928-1933), Pattullo (1933-1941), Hart (1941-1947) and Johnson (1947-1952). The records fall into three main categories or sub-series:

A. Departmental files
B. Federal files
C. General files
D. Railway files

Personal papers; subject files consisting of newspaper clippings, notes of interviews, drafts of articles, correspondence, and photographs relating to LeBourdais' interest in the history of the Cariboo district. Louis LeBourdais was born in Clinton in 1888 and died in Quesnel in 1947. He was the son of Adalbert LeBourdais, telegrapher and postmaster at Clinton and Eleanore LeBourdais. Louis LeBourdais also became a telegraph operator. He worked in Kootenay and Okanagan districts for the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Dominion Government Telegraph Service, before settling in Quesnel, apparently in the early years of World War I, as telegrapher for the Dominion Government Telegraph Service. In 1937 he became an insurance agent for the Confederation Life Association. He was elected to the provincial Legislature in 1937 as the liberal member for Cariboo district, and was re-elected in 1941 and 1945. LeBourdais was keenly interested in the history of the Cariboo district and the Central Interior in general. He wrote and sold articles on the past history of the region and on current economic trends to a number of magazines and newspapers, and was a correspondent for the Vancouver Daily Province. His topics included gold mining and the "back to the land" movement. The records were accumulated primarily in connection with LeBourdais' historical interests. Records include: papers and newspaper clippings of general interest, and subject files arranged alphabetically. The subject files consist of newspaper clippings, handwritten and typewritten drafts of articles, notes of interviews, correspondence and photographs. The bulk of the records date from the 1930s and are concerned with old timers, mining, particularly the resurgence of gold quartz mining, and the "back to the land" movement. Some subject files contain photographs. Printed material transferred to the North West Library Collection is identified in the finding aid. Approximately 450 black and white photographs, 75 black and white negatives, and nine glass negatives of various subjects, and approximately two hundred lantern slides of the Cariboo-Barkerville area were transferred to Visual Records accession, 198501-11. Mining maps of the Central Interior of British Columbia have been transferred to map registration numbers: 12916-12928. A list of maps is available at the end of the attached finding aid. Related records in MS-0361.

This series contains records relating to map production, map distribution, personnel and staff salaries. It includes miscellaneous memoranda on resources along the route of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (1936-1942) and a memorandum by F.C. Green on the Post-War Rehabilitation Council, 1943. This unit also includes three notebooks of G.G. Aitken, Chief Geographer, on map production, survey instructions, accounts, and acreages of streams and rivers in British Columbia.

This series consists of records of the Commission on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, 1924. The records consist of letter patent appointing the commissioner, Provincial Secretary's correspondence file Pi 9/24 (which contains the petition requesting the inquiry), transcripts of evidence presented at proceedings and the commissioner's original signed report. Also included are several Provincial Secretary files, 1914, relating to the following railways: Canadian Northern, Canadian Northern Pacific, Kettle Valley, Pacific Great Eastern, and Dolly Varden.

Gerald Grattan McGeer was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on January 6, 1888. Shortly afterwards, his parents, James and Emily McGeer, moved to Vancouver, where his father ran a dairy business in the Fairview district. McGeer attended school in Vancouver, leaving high school to apprentice as an iron moulder. When he completed his apprenticeship, he decided to become a lawyer. He articled as a law student in Vancouver and then attended Dalhousie University and was called to the bar of British Columbia in 1915. In 1917 he married Charlotte Spencer, the daughter of David Spencer of Victoria. They had two children, Michael and Patricia. In 1922 he was appointed King's Counsel. McGeer first ran for election in 1916, when he was elected Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly [MLA] for Richmond electoral district. He did not run in 1920; between 1925 and 1930 he contested three federal elections unsuccessfully: Vancouver Centre in 1925, Vancouver North in 1926 and Fraser Valley in 1930. In 1933 he was elected MLA for Vancouver Burrard. He resigned from the legislature in September 1935 to run in the riding of Vancouver Burrard in the federal election of that year. He was successful, and was re-elected in the same riding in 1940. He sat until the dissolution of the nineteenth parliament and was appointed senator on June 9, 1945. McGeer was also active in civic politics, twice being elected mayor of Vancouver, in December 1934 for the years 1935 and 1936, and in December 1946 for the years 1947 and 1948. McGeer made a name for himself in the early 1920s as counsel for the government of British Columbia during the province's attempt to have freight rates equalized. In the 1930s, he became interested in economics and monetary reform and wrote a book, The Conquest of Poverty, and a number of pamphlets and articles on the subject. He died in Vancouver on August 11, 1947.

The records include correspondence, subject files, speeches, manuscripts, published material and clippings. The correspondence files, which cover the years 1927 to 1947, are arranged in four groups: letters filed chronologically; letters filed by the name of the sender; letters received as mayor, 1935 and 1946-1947; and letters relating to the McGeer family. The chronological group contains a number of letters relating to McGeer's interest in economic reform, including some from Maynard Keynes. The letters relating to the family consists mainly of letters of condolence written to Mrs. McGeer at the time of McGeer's death. Additional correspondence will also be found in the subject files, which are generally composed of memos, reports, clippings and letters.

About 300 photographs were transferred to Visual Records accession 198207-007. Cartographic records, including maps of the Ripple Rock area, were removed from Box 13, Folder 6 and transferred to the map collection, Map Accession M89-029, map registration numbers 24105B, 24106B, 24107A, 24108A, 24109A and24110A. A number of books and pamphlets received with the records were transferred to the Legislative Library, and a list of pamphlets is in volume 22, folder 7. The Legislative Library transferred some of these pamphlets back to the BC Archives in 1994 and 1996.

The series consists of correspondence, 1913-1916, that was originally a part of the Provincial Secretary's Central Registry. The records include grant applications from charitable organizations (e.g. Salvation Army Rescue and Maternity Home, Vancouver); petitions from various citizens groups and trades organizations (e.g. re: Pacific Great Eastern railway, prohibition, and Weekly Half Holiday Act); plus files on diverse topics such as the Belgian Relief Fund (which was administered by the Provincial Secretary), the Progress Club of Vancouver, the provincial coat-of-arms, prohibition, half-day closing, the Provincial Archives and W.W. Walkem's "Stories of Early British Columbia".

This series consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence files, 1912-1915, between the Premier's Office and Railway Department relating to the Pacific Great Eastern Railway ("PGE exhibits, Sir Richard McBride's correspondence").

This series consists of incoming and outgoing general correspondence files, 1912-1953, concerning railways operating in British Columbia. Includes extensive correspondence files on the Westminster Bridge (the Fraser River railway bridge at New Westminster); the British Columbia Electric Railway; correspondence relating to common carriers and industrial railroads; legislation affecting the Railway Department, etc. Box 14, Files 1 to 28 are Minister of Railways: general [correspondence] and Box 14, Files 29 to 38 are miscellany.

The series includes correspondence and reports concerning the construction, equipment and operations of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway from 1911-1929. It also includes papers about water licenses on the main line, and maps and plans. Many sections of the files are missing thus the series is incomplete and not fully representative of the railway for the period spanned by the papers. A technical drawing of the line of the PGE from Squamish Dock to Fort George drawn in 1920 was added to the series in 2021.

This series consists of records of the Railway Department, 1904-1952. Records include agreements regarding running rights over Fraser River bridge at New Westminster; certificate regarding the amalgamation of the Howe Sound and Northern Railway and the Pacific Great Eastern Railway; contract for PGER locomotives; and leases for land and equipment.

Records of Britannia Mining and Smelting Company and related companies, including annual reports, correspondence, accounting records, exploration reports, engineering plans, leases, contracts and agreements. The related companies include: Britannia Copper Syndicate, Britannia Smelting Company, Chelan Copper Mining Company, El Potosi Mining Company, Howe Sound Company, Howe Sound Exploration Company, Howe Sound Power Company Also included are records of Barbara Theatres and Britannia Beach Community Club.

Private and official correspondence, speeches, accounts, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, reports, memoranda and miscellaneous items. The papers consist of 84 document boxes [volumes 1-84] of private and official correspondence, inward and outward, speeches, accounts, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, reports, memoranda and miscellaneous items. Among the papers is correspondence inward and outward of John Oliver and John Duncan MacLean relating to Liberal party affairs. The Pattullo papers divide into two series. Series I [vol. 1-61] contain papers related to private and public activities of Pattullo from 1892-1956, but contains only five volumes [54-58] of papers related to the years 1933-1941 when Pattullo was Premier of British Columbia. Pattullo's filing system, based on subject categories, has been maintained. Papers within each file are arranged in chronological order. A few files contain papers for more than one year. For instance, a file relating to one insurance policy might cover the years 1929-1933. All such files have been placed in the volume for the earliest year. A list of the dates, form and subject of each file is given in the finding aid below. Series II [vol. 62-84] contains papers related to Pattullo's tenure as Premier. Material within files is in chronological order. Most of letter analysis is given unless the entire file relates to one subject. In Series II it is not possible, as it is with Series I, conveniently to begin and progress through the papers year by year because the whole body of papers 1933-1941 is filed exclusively on a subject basis, hence more: than one year's correspondence may be in any one file. The filing system is that devised by the Premier's Office. Files are: classified as C" - Confidential [vols. 62-65], "D" - departmental [vols. 66-67], "F" - federal [vols. 68-71] and "G" - general [vols. 72-73]. Volumes 74-76 contain alphabetical files. Volumes 77-84 contain newspaper clippings related to the years 1933-1941. Most of the pamphlets from the Pattullo papers have been removed and catalogued in the British Columbia Archives Library. Many of the remaining pamphlets are duplicates. Restriction: Researchers are requested to use the microfilm for conservation reasons. [reels A-01796-A01811, A01959-A01963]. Files containing oversize material were filmed at a later date and are on reels A01959-A01963. The text of a radio speech delivered on 19 Feb 1941 in Prince Rupert was presented by UBC Library in 2008 (box 65, file 14).

The Royal Lethington "Pat" Maitland family papers are composed of Maitland's personal correspondence, speeches and addresses, Logs of the House (Legislative Assembly of British Columbia), scrapbooks, etc. Also includes correspondence, notes, etc. of Maitland's wife, Ruth Hildred Mills, as well as correspondence of their children Robert Reid, Elizabeth Ruth, William John and Norah Kathleen.

In 2025 a scrapbook and a portrait were found in collection. The scrapbook belonged to Bettie Gentles and the portrait is of her. Annotations indicate that she was engaged to "Bill" (William John Maitland) until he was killed in action in 1943. The scrapbook includes photographs, correspondence, and newspaper clippings related to him and to their relationship. It was added to this fonds in 2025 under the William John Maitland sub-series and placed in container 000469-0002.

The series consists of photographs primarily documenting the professional and personal life of Einar Maynard Gunderson from around 1910 to 1975. The photographs consist of loose prints, framed prints, photo albums and negatives. Most photographs are black and white, but there are a few in colour. The majority of the photographs were taken by professional photographers documenting the professional activities of Gunderson, particularly those of the Premier W.A.C Bennett government. There are photographs of several trade missions undertaken by Gunderson, including to England and Japan. Additionally, there are several photo albums of personal family photographs. Included within the series are a collection of oversized certificates, speeches and scrolls.