Museum Mysteries: Dating the Smithers Panorama
“When was that taken?” If you’ve been in the Old Church, or the office of the Bulkley Valley Museum, you’ve seen it: a beautiful panoramic view of Smithers in its earliest days. Second Avenue runs up the centre of the image, with the snow-covered Hudson Bay Mountain behind. Stumps cover the ground, and the St. […]
Smithers’ Famous Photographer: Gilbert Clarke Killam
The following blog post was written by Dirk Mendel and Harry Kruisselbrink and originally published in the March 2016 edition of “Autumn Leaves”, the newsletter of the Smithers Senior Citizens Association. Early Life and the Klondike Gilbert Clark Killam was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on March 6th, 1863 to John and Lucy Killam. Gilbert’s […]
Behind the Scenes: Digitizing Oversized Records
One of the goals under the BV Museum’s Strategic Plan is increasing engagement with and access to our collection items in the digital realm. Digitization has been a primary focus of our Museum over the past few years, beginning with the launch of our Collections Online website in 2016 (thanks to funding from the Documentary […]
Museum Mysteries: Fire Photos
Burning Questions While browsing the Museum’s photo collection last summer, we came across a mystery: four photos showing the aftermath of a major fire. They had no associated information: no date, no donor, and no location aside from a note saying “Smithers BC”. There are many unidentified photos in the Museum’s collection. However, we found […]