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Item consists of one instructional video on the Ministry of Forests' seed centre. The video covers the work done in the seed centre following cone collection.

Documentary. "The scenes include a few brief views of Duncan on Vancouver Island in the early days, falling giant Douglas Fir with new chainsaws, bucking them into portable lengths, and the transportation of the logs by truck and railway. Good scenes at the base of the spar tree where the logs are being yarded out of the bush, tongs thrown about them with great skill, and the massive trunks lifted onto the rail cars by a steam donkey. Logs are loaded onto trucks by a gasoline donkey. There are scenes around the mill showing the arrival of the logs, the endless chain up onto the deck, the carriage which carries the logs through the circular saw, the edger, and all mill operations, including sorting in the lumber yard. A steam crane is shown working in the yard lifting and piling huge loads of lumber. A truck drives under the sawdust hopper and is loaded with sawdust which will be delivered to houses for stove fuel. And trucks leave the mill loaded with cut lumber. Also shown is an excellent tree-topping sequence with a high-rigger." (Colin Browne)

The item consists of an audio interview with Mollie Thompson recorded in Victoria, B.C. on August 10, 1984.

Tape summary:
Track 1: Mollie Thompson came with her mother and 3 siblings to Canada from England in 1921. Arrived at Montreal and took the train across Canada to Duncan. Family lived with Mollie's grandmother in Duncan but within a year her mother remarried and they moved to the Kootenays. Lived there until 1925. Describes her grandmother's home in Duncan. Mother had a car so they could get around in the isolated Kootenays. Moved back to Duncan, mother didn't think that the Kootenays were a safe place for a teenage girl to grow up. Relates some of her school experiences. Took domestic science in Duncan prior to moving to the Kootenays.

Track 2: Continues her talk about domestic science. Talks about her role as a woman. Only went to high school for 18 months until she got a full time job at a Catholic girls' school in Duncan. She married in 1926.

CALL NUMBER: T1085:0001 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964-11-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mr. Paddy Acland remembers a few anecdotes about hunting and hiking in the BC interior. He explains how he came out to British Columbia from England after serving with the British Army duri;ng the Boer War. He describes expectations of life in BC and offers comments on the background of his father, John Acland. He arrived in BC in 1908; he describes the appearance of Summerland. He discusses his first jobs in the Okanagan; building his first log cabin; an anecdote about digging a basement for "Old Johnson"; buying and pre empting land in the Okanagan. TRACK 2: Paddy Acland describes the development of his own property near Eneas Lake between Peachland and Summerland. He discusses his first impressions of the Okanagan Valley, coming into it via train and boat. He describes ;the sternwheeler "Aberdeen"; labouring for a tobacco farmer in Kelowna; working for a dairy farmer, the meanest man Mr. Acland had ever met; comments on another employer, named "Fluffy" Williston. Mr. Acland offers further comments on British immigrants who came to the Okanagan during this era.

CALL NUMBER: T1085:0002 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964-11-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Paddy Acland mentions his first jobs in the Okanagan, including lumber sorting and surveying. Mr. Acland returned to England for two months, and then returned to the Okanagan. He offers an; anecdote about a man being thrown into Lake Okanagan with all of his belongings, for making a pass at a local girl, and the "rough" justice of the era. More anecdotes about promiscuity between wives; of landed settlers and hired working men. Mr. Acland discusses his marriage to a girl from Summerland, and a digression on the different types of English immigrants, including the class that settled; in Vernon during the early decades of the century, which he found snobbish and pretentious. He describes the mixture of settlers in Kelowna during this era. TRACK 2: Mr. Acland offers comments about the Edgelow family of Kelowna, particularly Mrs. Edgelow, who delighted in shocking Kelowna residents prior to World War I. He comments on the background of the Acland family and offers anecdotes ;about his mother-in-law, Mrs. Hutton of Kelowna, an ardent Catholic convert who often entertained in her large home. He tells a story about an English orchardist who planted his trees upside down, an;d describes dances and social activities in the Okanagan Valley during this era. He describes the growth and development of Summerland during its early years and reflects upon the different currents ;of immigrants and settlers which have made up the fabric of Canadian society.

CALL NUMBER: T1085:0003 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964-11-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Paddy Acland discusses some early Okanagan Valley residents. He admits that he joined the Baptist church choir to meet young and single women. He discusses relations with the Indians in the reserve near Summerland; the story of Sam McGee; comments on how the capital of early settlers was used and misused; a recollection of J.M. Robinson; comments on the Manitoba farmers induced to come; to the Okanagan Valley by Robinson; comments on how young men made a living in the Okanagan during this era; a story about the fortunes of three young working men; and comments on the Dominion Experimental Farm at Summerland. TRACK 2: Mr. Acland recalls several characters at Cobble Hill, Duncan, and offers a comparison between Vancouver Island and the Okanagan Valley during the early years of t;he century. He discusses personalities and experiences at Thetis Island; then he tells a story about two young men who shot a policeman in the Okanagan Valley, and were hunted by posses throughout the valley. More comments on English settlers; the story of the Belleview Hotel; anecdotes about the antics at the Belleview Hotel, and a physical description of the hotel.;

CALL NUMBER: T1085:0004 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964-11-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Paddy Acland retraces early working experiences and life in the Okanagan Valley. He describes Okanagan Falls around the time of the First World War; the town of Kaleden; a story about Tom E;llis; stories about rattlesnakes; a story about competing in the long jump against an Indian at Penticton; comments about Penticton and Naramata; a description of Peachland; comments about settlements; on the west side of Okanagan Lake; J.C. Dun-Waters and the building of Fintry; dairy farming; comments about the simple funerals of several wealthy Okanagan residents; and an anecdote about the funeral of Matt Wilson. TRACK 2: Mr. Acland recalls his service with a military regiment in the Okanagan Valley; organizational and disciplinary problems with the Okanagan military regiment; military stories and training with different military regiments in BC and eastern Canada.;

CALL NUMBER: T1085:0005 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964-11-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Paddy Acland discusses military training and service overseas with a Canadian battalion during the First World War. He offers further recollections of aspects of military training in British Columbia. TRACK 2: Mr. Acland tells a story of bear hunting behind his homestead with a local Indian. He describes his service as a government weed inspector along Lake Okanagan, and tells a story; about entry into the military. He comments about training in the Okanagan and he traces his military career.

CALL NUMBER: T1085:0006 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1964-11-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Paddy Acland discusses further aspects of his military experience overseas during World War I. TRACK 2: Mr. Acland offers recollections about flying aircraft and training pilots during World War I; returning to the Okanagan Valley after the war; a story about losing his land after the war, and serving as a manager at the Eldorado ranch. Finally, he discusses hard times.

CALL NUMBER: T0845:0001 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1965-10-07 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Sir Philip Livingston recalls how his father [Clement Livingston] came to the Cowichan Valley in 1890; the family's home; game in the Cowichan Valley; Mount Sicker Copper Mine; Cowichan Valley Tennis Club; sports; doctors; schooling; childhood adventures; Tyee Copper Company; his career in medicine; the Livingston farm, Clevelands; transportation; their Chinese servant; weather; community life; "mud pups", remittance men; Maitland-Dougall; and Corfield family. TRACK 2: Sir Livingston continues with his recollections of the Corfield family; Robert Service; "mud pups"; social life; East Indians; Indians; Father Rondeault and the Stone Church; Mariner family; Indian living conditions; Quamichan Lake Private School.;

CALL NUMBER: T0845:0002 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1965-10-07 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Sir Livingston talks about his school life; World War I; P.T. Scrimshaw; life in Duncan; "long stocking period"; settlement at Cowichan Bay; the "Clallam" disaster; Maple Bay; Mount Sicker Mine; Tyee Copper Company.; Sir Livingston's father, Clement Livingston; Crofton; Quamichan Lake; Somenos Lake; Shawnigan Lake; and Cobble Hill. [TRACK 2: blank.]

Series consists of records related to the Sisters' teaching mission at Queen of Angels School in Duncan.

Queen of Angels School opened in September 1964 as a partial replacement to the aging St. Ann’s Academy in Duncan. The school was built on land purchased by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and was intended to be part of a ‘complete parochial plant’ which would contain a school, auditorium, church and rectory. Education of Indigenous children was integrated into the founding of the school, as the federal Indian Affairs Branch paid a percentage of the original construction cost. St. Ann’s Duncan was closed in June of 1964, and several of the Sisters transferred to Queen of Angels as teachers in the fall of that year.

The Sisters of St. Ann worked alongside priests and lay staff at Queen of Angels until their withdrawal in 1976. Sister Frieda Raab returned to the school as Principal in 1979 and resigned from the position in 1982.

The Sisters did not administer this school, and as such there is not as much documentation retained as with other Cowichan area schools. Records in this series include Prefect of Studies reports, staff evaluations, brochures, a letter to parents, sheet music and photographs.

Series consists of records of the Sisters’ work at St. Catherine’s Indian Day School.

While the school was built, funded and overseen by the federal government, the Sisters of St. Ann staffed the school and educated the students. When the school opened in 1939, it was expected that students would be transferred from Comiaken and Koksilah Schools as well as Kuper Island Residential School. Children from local Indigenous communities attended, including Quamichan (Kwa’mutsun), Qw’umiyiqun (Comiaken), Xwulqw’selu (Koksilah), S’amuna’(Somena), Lhumlhumuluts’ (Clemclemluts), Xinupsum (Khenipsen) and Tl'lulpalus (Cowichan Bay).

The goal of the school, as communicated by the Indian Affairs Branch, was to provide practical education, which included the promotion of gardening and creation of Cowichan sweaters. The school itself was located on Tzouhalem Road on the Cowichan Reserve, about 3 miles from the Duncan city centre. The Sisters left the school in 1969, with some teachers moving to Queen of Angels School.

The records consist of reports, chronicles, correspondence, a student newsletter and photographs. The chronicles within this series are different from others as they are predominantly about life at the school. The Sisters did not live at the school but at the nearby St. Ann’s Convent, Duncan.

Series consists of records related to the Sisters of St. Ann’s work at the Tzouhalem Road property in Duncan, BC.

The Sisters purchased, by Crown grant, 400 acres in Cowichan between 1864 and 1870. The first convent and school was built on that land in 1864 under the direction of Father Pierre Rondeau, who had established a mission in Quamichan in 1861. Two Sisters arrived in October of 1864 with the mission of establishing a school for Indigenous girls.

When the school opened, 21 girls aged 4-18 were registered, from six local Fist Nations: Quamichan (Kwa’mutsun), Qw’umiyiqun (Comiaken), Xwulqw’selu (Koksilah), S’amuna’ (Somena), Lhumlhumuluts’ (Clemclemluts), Xinupsum (Khenipsen) and Tl'lulpalus (Cowichan Bay). In 1876 a decision was made that Indigenous girls in Cowichan would be taught as day students only, which allowed for the Duncan school lodgings to be renovated and enlarged to accommodate orphans sent from the overcrowded St Ann’s school in Victoria, as well as from other regions where the Sisters taught, including Alaska. After the E&N Railway was completed, more children from middle-class settler families began to attend the Duncan St. Ann’s school.

The Sisters began teaching boys at the Duncan school in 1904, after the closure of St. Aloysius Protectorate in Victoria. Increase in student boarders led to a need for a bigger school building, and one was constructed in 1921. This building was designed by Sister Mary Osithe as architect.

The school closed in 1964, with Sisters transferring to the nearby Queen of Angels School to teach. The building was briefly used as a novitiate in 1968, and the land was leased out in 1969. In 1979, Providence Farm was established on the site, an organization which is under the direction of The Vancouver Island Providence Community Association. This is an active organization as of 2023.

During the years the Sisters oversaw the school, it was known by a number of different names internally and externally, including: St. Ann’s Boy’s School, Duncan; St. Ann’s, Quamichan; St. Ann’s, Cowichan; The Farm; St. Ann’s Indian School for Girls; and St. Ann’s Orphanage for Girls.

This series consists of three subseries: A) Convent subseries; B) St. Ann’s School, Duncan subseries; C) Farm subseries.

Records in subseries A include chronicles of the school and convent, financial records, Local House minutes, Official Visitation reports, a monograph and history of the school, as well as a scrapbook of Sisters’ art and photographs.

Subseries B consists of records related to the administration of the school, and includes school registers, student accounts, application forms, grades, tests, monthly attendance reports, and photographs. Only a small amount of ephemera relating to the school has survived, and includes two year books (1940 and 1957), a school newsletter (1964), a visitor’s book, and programs and invitations.

Subseries C consists of records relating to the farm on the Duncan property that sustained the school, and includes accounts, receipts and expenses.

The series consists of 11 photographs of Victoria and the E&N Railway through Duncan. The photographs are numbered and consist of the following:

1. Metropolitan Methodist Church, Pandora street, Victoria
2. Grocery store window display
3. Map: Fraser Valley and sign "[?] for good Coquitlam buys."
4. Horse and wagons hauling timbers: "First big timbers for Victoria's great breakwater Can. Puget Sound Lumber Co."
5. Horse and wagons hauling timbers
6. Horse and wagons hauling timbers
7. E&N track through Duncan
8. E&N track through Duncan
9. E&N track through Duncan
10. E&N track through Duncan
11. E&N track through Duncan

The sub-series consists of oral history interviews about the history of the Cowichan Valley area of Vancouver Island, including Chemainus, Cobble Hill, Cowichan, Duncan, and Shawnigan.

The series consists of letters describing life at the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School on Vancouver Island (Cowichan Station) in the 1940s. Consists of letters written to family, friends and colleagues by Mary Lenore Nichols, and some received by her, while teaching at the school from 1943 to 1948.

Minutes, Board of Directors, 1915-1959; minutes of annual general meetings, 1931-1951; reports of Matron to House Committee, 1923-1931; annual reports, 1947-1981 (some missing); patients' record book, 1927-1933.

King's Daughters' Hospital was built in Duncan, B.C., in 1910, by the local Order of King's Daughters. Administration of the hospital was taken over by the Cowichan District Hospital Association in 1931, and the original building was replaced in 1967. The records consist of minutes of the Board of Directors, of annual general meetings, reports of the matron to the House Committee, annual reports and a patients record book of the hospital.

Daily diaries kept by Maitland-Dougall as Chief Constable at Duncan, August 1, 1892 - January 31, 1897, and at Hazelton Police District, August 10, 1909 - May 8, 1911 (folders 1 and 2); notebooks kept as Stipendiary Magistrate, Duncan, October 25, 1916 - August 20;, 1923, August 21, 1923 - December 14, 1926, and June 11, 1931 - March 19, 1932 (folders 3-5). Loose correspondence and clippings re Maitland-Dougall's retirement removed from folder 5 and filed in folder 6 with loose material such as reports, correspondence and tailor's bill removed from other folders. Commissions as Police Magistrate, Cumberland, and Stipendiary Magistrate, Counties of Nanaimo and Victoria, (folder 7).

Presented by R.S. Bayne, Victoria, 1985.

Minutes, 1930-1936; accounts, 1929-1932; correspondence, 1928-1938; papers read at the Society's meetings, 1931-1934. Papers acquired by the Society, including records of the Cowichan Pioneer Society, 1887-1889, the Cowichan Literary Institute, 1893-1909, and a subscription list in aid of a celebration on the Diamond Jubilee, 1897.

Lists of monument inscriptions from St. Mary's Anglican Cemetery (Somenos Road, Duncan); monument inscriptions from All Saints Church (Westholme); record of headstones at Pioneer Methodist Cemetery (Maple Bay).

The Cowichan, Saltspring and Chemainus Agricultural Society was established in 1868. By 1910, the Society was known as the Cowichan Agricultural Society. It became the Cowichan Agricultural Society and Farmers' Institute before it disbanded in 1956.

Records include: minutes, 1868-1875, 1909-1960; account books; correspondence,1927-1959; and papers relating to property and exhibitions.

Letters, 1901, 1903-1904, written to his mother and sister in Duncan, from California, Arizona, Texas, the St. Louis Worlds Fair, Toronto and Winnipeg; diary, 1904, of work in Arizona, and trip to St. Louis and across Canada to Duncan. Prevost worked as a mine labourer, and on a dredge in San Pedro.

The file consists of a membership list of an unidentified organization, including names of members in and around Duncan.

John Frederick Corfield was born in 1884 in South Cowichan and died in Victoria in 1978. He pursued a number of different careers, including, draughtsman, salesman, and resort operator. During his lifetime, he operated the Deep Cove Resort (North Vancouver), Shoal Harbour Marine Service (Sidney), and the French Creek Lodge (Parksville).

Records include documents regarding his apprenticeship in San Francisco; army service in Palestine, 1917-1919; a letter from Robert Service, 1940; a letter to his brother Herbert from A.E. Robinson regarding the Corfield Athletic Club; and a Corfield farm ledger, 1883-1884. Photograph collection, mainly of Deep Cove (North Vancouver), Shoal Bay (Sidney) and Duncan area, transferred to Visual Records accession 197905-17.

Published material transferred to the BC Archives library: "Sub-division of Corfield Farm, Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island" (16 pages) Rotary Club of Vancouver, [Bulletin], number 42, 18 Feb 1921 Mutter, Jean, "Mud-Pup : a sequence in light verse" printed by Diggon-Hibben, Victoria, BC (2 copies) Lynn Valley Lodge number 122, Lynn Creek, BC, A.F. and A.M., B.C.R. (Announcement of meeting], 31 Aug 1945.

Series consists of original divorce decrees nisi, decrees absolute, orders, and judgements created between 1950 and 1976 by the Duncan Supreme Court registry. Records for 1969-1971 are missing. Between 1968 and 1985, a judgement by way of decree nisi required a three-month waiting period before a judgement by way of decree absolute could be applied for. During this time, a divorce was not legally in effect without a decree absolute. After 1985, divorce orders automatically came into effect 31 days after the divorce was granted, barring an appeal.

Orders, judgements, decrees nisi, and decrees absolute are filed together and arranged by case number, not by volume and folio or by date. This means that records of varying dates are interfiled. From 1950-1978, case file numbers were assigned chronologically and include the year a divorce was initiated. For example, no. 1/53 was the first divorce initiated in 1953, no. 1/54 was the first divorce of 1954, and so on. Later, case file numbers continued sequentially across years from no. 93 in 1971 to no. 430 in 1976. The records were scheduled for full retention under Court Services ORCS (schedule 100152) 51440-25.

This series consists of probate cause books from the Supreme Court of Duncan, 1940-1979.

This series consists of cause books from the Supreme Court of Duncan from 1937-1976. The books include divorce, adoption and other civil matters.