Series consists of records generated or collected by the Sisters of St. Ann while working at Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The Kamloops Indian Industrial School was built by the Federal Government in 1890, on 200 acres of Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nations land near the town of Kamloops. The Sisters of St. Ann had been missioned to Kamloops since the construction of St. Ann’s Academy, Kamloops in 1880. Early in the operation of the Industrial school, the Sisters were called on by Bishop Durieu to staff the school, and two sisters took up education of the girls in 1891. Conflict with the principal of the time caused the Sisters to withdraw from the school until the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) took over administration in 1893.

As with other residential schools, the Federal Government provided funding for the school. At KIRS, the OMI were administrators of the school, and the SSA taught students, generally teaching all students but sometimes only responsible for the girls' education. In 1968, the Federal Government took over the administration of the residence and the name changed from Kamloops Indian Residential School to Kamloops Indian Student Residence. By September 1968, five Sisters remained on staff, but ended their ministry at the school in 1970.

The series is comprised of two subseries: A. Convent subseries, B. Residential school subseries. Records within the series includes history of the school, chronicles, local council minutes, official visitation records, reports, financial records, a list of teachers, event programs and documentation, photographs and a school patch.

The fonds consists of records of the Kuper Island Indian Industrial School and includes correspondence, daily journals, pupil progress reports, punishments books, a clothing issue register, agricultural work record book and a trades instructor memorandum book, quarterly reports and accounts and stores records books.

Series consists of records created by the Sisters of St. Ann relating to their work at Kuper Island Residential School.

In 1890, Bishop Lemmons requested that The Sisters of St. Ann assist the de Montfort Fathers in administering the Kuper Island Industrial School, located on what is now Penelakut Island. The Sisters operated under the de Montfort Fathers until 1957 when the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) took over administration of the school. The OMI remained until 1973, and the Sisters until 1975.

The Sisters were responsible for educating students, and their work included planning lessons, teaching, planning religious celebrations and organizing extracurricular activities for the girls. Primary classes of boys were taught by Sisters, but all other aspects of the lives of boys at the school was supervised by the male religious order.

This series consists of two subseries: A) Convent subseries and B) School subseries. The convent subseries consists of the records relating to the activities of the Sister’s of St. Ann’s Convent/Local House and includes chronicles, local house minutes, accounts, a monograph, a history of the school and personal photographs. The school subseries consists of records relating to education of students, and includes correspondence, student art, photographs and ephemera.

While the chronicles are intended as records that document the happening at the convent primarily, the chronicler would also document students and school activities, though inconsistently.

Series consists of typed minutes recording the thirteenth British Columbia Conference of the United Church of Canada held in 1954, through to the thirty-fourth conference held in 1958. As well as the regular minutes of conferences, this series includes appendices which contain special reports to Conference of secular and ecclesiastical items of contemporary interest.

This accession consists of the typewritten minutes and appendices for the British Columbia Conferences of the United Church of Canada from the Thirtieth Conference in 1954 to the Thirty-Fourth Conference in 1958. The Thirtieth Conference minutes also can be found in MS-2693. The appendices contain the complete reports submitted to Conference, often reflecting the Church's concern with secular societal problems such as unemployment, alcoholism and liquor abuse and nuclear energy. The minutes of the Thirty-Fourth Conference in 1958 have no appendix but the Report of the Executive acts in its stead.

Obituaries of clergy are found in the appendices by year.

The fonds consists of records relating to the missionary work of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI). Most records were created and accumulated by the administrations of various OMI provinces that have operated in British Columbia: St. Peter’s Province, St. Paul’s Vice-Province, St. Paul’s Province, and OMI Lacombe Canada. Additionally, the fonds contains some records created by the administration of the Vice-Province of Whitehorse. Other records pre-date the establishment of OMI provinces in Canada. Materials mostly relate to Oblate missionary work in British Columbia and the Yukon, but the fonds also includes some records pertaining to Oblate work throughout Canada, as well as records pertaining to foreign mission work (such as materials related to the OMI’s Provincial Delegation of Peru).

The fonds is divided into the following series:
● MS-3396 – Mission and school records
● MS-3397 – Personnel records
● MS-3398 – OMI archives files
● MS-3399 – Writing and research
● MS-3400 – Provincial administrative records
● MS-3401 – Indigenous affairs subject files
● MS-3402 – Multi-media [currently being processed]
● MS-3403 – Publications, grey literature, and manuscripts

Series consists of reports created by the Provincial Superior in her inspections of schools, hospitals, missions and local houses where the Sisters of St. Ann lived and worked. Included in these reports are visitations of residential schools.

Official visitations for Catholic congregations are untaken by a superior in the congregation who visits each separate mission to ensure the residents there are maintaining faith and discipline in accordance with the mandates of the Church and the congregation.

For the Sisters of St. Ann, official visitations were made yearly by the Provincial Superior of St. Joseph’s Province. She was accompanied on these visits either by the Prefect of Studies or the Provincial Bursar, who also wrote reports. They visited each mission, a trip that generally took several weeks. Some of the more remote missions, particularly in Alaska, were visited less often. The Superior General, usually based out of Lachine, QC, was expected to visit all houses within the various Provinces at least once during her term as Superior General.

This series consists of the reports written by both the Provincial Superior of St. Joseph's Province and the General Superior. These are handwritten descriptions of her observations at each mission including: Adherence to the Rule, discipline, health of the Sisters, state of the building and classrooms, finances, and relationships with local clergy. In 1959 the report became a form with the following fields: Spiritual life, Religious Discipline, Poverty and Common Life, Chastity and Safeguards, Obedience, Fraternal Charity, Works, Lay Teachers, Lay Help, Statistics, Administration and Financial Report as well as recommendations.

Assorted material from Okanagan Baptist College, Summerland, including register of pupils, 1907-1908; calendar of studies, 1913-1914; three copies of "Okanagan Lyceum", March 1909 and May and December 1912; "The Western Outlook", June 15, 1913; and "The Summerland Review", Vol. 1 No. 1 (Aug. 8, 1908).

Loaned for copying by Ruth Dale, Summerland, Muriel Mclanty, Penticton and Mrs. J.H. Stapleton, Penticton, 1979.

The series consists of records created or retained by the office of the Prefect of Studies for the Sisters of St. Ann, a role that was established in 1890 to facilitate the organization and placement of teachers and to supervise all educational aspects of the schools. The role was also responsible for the Sisters' post secondary education and professional development, both religious and academic.

The Prefect of Studies maintained the records of her office alongside inactive school records routinely sent for permanent retention from each of the schools with the exception of Indian Residential Schools, which would usually be considered federal government records.

The series is comprised of five subseries: A. Administrative records; B. Sisters' education and qualifications; C. Student records; D. Prefect reports; E. Photographs.

Printed minutes of the Synod of British Columbia for the years 1902 to 1925 inclusive, except for 1904, 1905, 1906 when the two western provinces combined to form the Synod of British Columbia and Alberta, reverting to individual provincial synods in 1907. The minutes include officers of Synod, Rolls of Synod, brief committee reports on ecclesiastical and secular issues, and obituaries, as well as regular business. These minutes are the precursor of the minutes of the British Columbia Conference of the United Church of Canada which commence in 1925.

The collection consists of records related to the creation and function of the Sisters of St. Ann in St. Joseph's Province, which covers the geographic area of British Columbia, the Yukon, Alaska, Oregon and Washington State. The SSA Archives acquired records created by the Sisters and the Corporation, as well as associated bodies such as parent-teacher organizations or alumnae societies for the schools they were involved in. The collection is currently arranged into 53 fonds, with the records created by The Sisters in one main fonds (PR-2415) which is comprised of approximately 140 series. The additional fonds are records created by external related bodies, such as the St. Joseph's Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae, Providence Farm in Duncan, and the Friends of St. Ann's Academy.

The Sisters of St. Ann were involved in education and healthcare throughout British Columbia as well as in the Yukon and Alaska, and the records in this collection represent those activities, as well as the place of the congregation in the broader Catholic landscape of Western Canada. Records reflect the Sisters' presence in parochial and residential schools as well as hospitals, but also their relationship to their motherhouse in Lachine, Quebec, and the reporting structures of a congregation of women religious. There are many series that are related to a specific institution where the Sisters worked, but additional information about that institution will be held in administrative series such as the Provincial Bursar records or the Provincial Superior records.

The records in this collection are on numerous formats, including textual, photographic, audio and visual recordings, artworks, published library materials, objects, and digital records.

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.

Series consists of records related to the training and education - often called formation - of aspiring Sisters, at the Novitiates in Lachine and Victoria, and Juniorates in Victoria, Ottawa and Edmonton.

To become a Sister, a woman would write a letter of intention to the Provincial Superior, fill in a questionnaire, obtain a letter from her parish priest who would vouch for her moral character and suitability for religious life, obtain a letter from a doctor attesting to her physical health, swear to consecrate herself to God in writing, and provide a dowry to the Community. The duration and process of religious "formation" can vary though much is decreed by Canon Law and the specific congregation's constitution. Generally the aspiring Sister goes through the following stages: aspirancy, postulancy, novitiate, temporary vows, and finally perpetual vows/solemn profession. At any time in the process, the aspirant can choose to change congregations or withdraw.

Until 1889, all aspiring Sisters received training at the Motherhouse in Lachine.

Records in this series consist of registers, histories, exams, reports, official visitation reports, vows and renewals of vows, instructions, admission forms, promotional material, prayer books, chronicles, correspondence, policies, meeting minutes and photographs.

The series is comprised of five subseries: A. Novitiate subseries; B. Juniorate subseries; C. Formation subseries; D. Edmonton subseries; and E. Photograph subseries.

The item is a copy of a thesis by Katsumi Imayoshi titled "The History of Okanagan Baptist College, 1907-1915." 1953. v, 62 p. Thesis (B.D.), McMaster University, 1953. Bibliography: p 60-62.