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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 series, namely Departmental files, Federal files, and General files.

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").

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.

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.

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.

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 item is a promotional film from ca. 1946 showing the route of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway from its southern terminus at Squamish to the Central Interior, and aspects of the area served by the railway. Includes footage of a voyage from Vancouver to Squamish on Union Steamship's "Lady Alexandra", with a stop at Bowen Island; sports and recreation at Alta Lake; cattle drive; wheat fields; placer mining; logging; PGE crews at work.

Includes footage of: Anderson Lake, Barkerville, Bowen Island, Bridge River, Clinton, D'Arcy, Lillooet, Quesnel, Seton Lake, Squamish, Wells, Williams Lake, Alta Lake, Birkenhead River, Lac La Hache, Rainbow, Vancouver, Cariboo Region, Cheakamus River

The collection consists of photographic negatives that mainly depict railway operations in western Canada, particularly British Columbia, from 1886 to 1966. The collection was accumulated from photographs shot or collected by Albert Paull, Roy Jennings and P.H. "Spike" Brown, as well as some other private collectors. These photographs document the history, equipment and operations of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian National Railways, Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, and Pacific Great Eastern Railway. A wide range of subjects is depicted, including locomotives (steam, electric and diesel), rolling stock, snow plows, stations, water towers, trestles, bridges, right-of-way scenes, and interior views. In addition, there is a small group of industrial subjects, including images relating to the National Harbours Board, various collieries, the Victoria and Sidney Railway, and a number of lumber companies on Vancouver Island. The negatives are organized in five alpha-numeric series, using prefixes that indicate the subject railways -- CP, CN, EN, and PGE -- and IND (for industrial and miscellaneous subjects). The collection also contain a small amount of textual material, including two copies of Bordertown's published "Catalog No. 1" and two typescript copies of the complete Bordertown collection index, prepared in 1979. (See "Finding Aids", below.)

The collection comprises 21 films shot or produced between 1931 and 1949, mainly by the Photographic Branch of the British Columbia Government Travel Bureau. It includes prints of ten early BCGTB productions -- one silent and nine with sound -- as well as some reels of silent miscellaneous footage shot by the BCGTB. The completed BCGTB productions include travelogues about Vancouver Island, Qualicum, the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan Valley, the West and East Kootenays, the Bulkley/Skeena Region, and the route of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, as well as films about BC's mining and tourism industries. Other reels show activities of the Canadian Scottish Regiment, based in Victoria; the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (1939); military parades in Victoria during World War Two; and outdoor activities such as hunting, skiing and trail riding.