History

Part 2: A Tale of Seattle’s Chinatown 

This Part 2 blog continues the exploration of a single letter from the Chung Collection, from small-town Saskatchewan to transnational impact in Seattle, exploring how objects and spaces hold stories of resilience, migration, and history.

Loo Gee Wing: The Forgotten Tycoon Who Helped Shape Chinese Canadian History

Loo Gee Wing (1861–1923) was one of the most influential Chinese Canadian figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, yet his name is scarcely recognized today. Despite his savvy business successes, Loo’s later years were marked by community disputes, financial woes, and legal battles. His once-vast estate dwindled, and his story faded from public memory. Yet, his buildings, like the Sun Ah Hotel and Chinese Theatre, remain landmarks of Vancouver Chinatown, and his legacy as a pioneer and community builder endures.

26 Above Bonanza

This blog post is part of RBSC’s new series spotlighting items in the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and the Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection. When Phil Lind’s grandfather, John (Johnny) Grieve Lind, arrived in what was then part of the Northwest Territories in June 1894, he first traveled to a mining […]

UBC, the UEL, and How They Got That Way

Anybody who has ever attended or worked at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus knows that it is not actually part of the City of Vancouver – despite the fact that its mailing address clearly states “Vancouver”.  Together with the University Hill neighbourhood and Pacific Spirit Regional Park, it actually forms an “unincorporated area” […]

Myth-busting the “Cows On Campus” Photograph

[This is an expanded version of an article originally published in Alumni UBC’s Grad Gazette in 2010] One of the enduring legends from the history of the University of British Columbia is that the Faculty of Agriculture’s dairy herd was once allowed to graze along Main Mall.  But did this really happen? It is true that, during […]

Point Grey’s original student hang-out – The Dolphins

[This is an expanded version of an article originally published in Alumni UBC’s Grad Gazette in 2010] Before The Pit, the Gallery Lounge, Koerner’s Pub, or any of the other popular student retreats on or around the UBC campus… there was The Dolphin. The Dolphin Tea House was located on Marine Drive, across from what […]

The early Chinese-Canadian presence at UBC

One of the projects undertaken by our colleagues at UBC Rare Books and Special Collections during the COVID-19 shut-down of on-campus operations  has been to develop a new on-line guide to Chinese-Canadian materials in their collections.  One of the subjects being researched for this project was the identity of the first Chinese-Canadian graduate of UBC. […]