Burnaby historical reference collection series
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/museumdescription18928
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Date
- 1950-1992, predominant 1950-1973
- Collection/Fonds
- Burnaby Village Museum Film and Video collection
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 3 film reels + 20 videocassettes + 1 avi
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of a reference collection of films relating to the history of Burnaby. Films include CBUT News footage "Burnaby Mountain Sod Turning"; a documentary film "Cabin" about the building of a log cabin at Burnaby Village Museum; a documentary film "A Friend at the Door" about the work of …
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Collection/Fonds
- Burnaby Village Museum Film and Video collection
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 3 film reels + 20 videocassettes + 1 avi
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of a reference collection of films relating to the history of Burnaby. Films include CBUT News footage "Burnaby Mountain Sod Turning"; a documentary film "Cabin" about the building of a log cabin at Burnaby Village Museum; a documentary film "A Friend at the Door" about the work of rural social workers in British Columbia; historical film footage from B.C. Transit Centennial of the B.C. Electric Lower Mainland trams and home movie footage created by the Handel family.
- Accession Code
- HV971.30
- BV005.8
- BV005.48
- BV012.37
- BV014.39
- BV016.37
- BV017.11
- BV020.5
- Date
- 1950-1992, predominant 1950-1973
- Media Type
- Moving Images
- Notes
- Title based on contents of series
Irwin family photographs series
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/museumdescription21424
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Date
- [1925-1939] (date of originals), copied 2004
- Collection/Fonds
- In the Shadow by the Sea collection
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 64 photographs (tiffs)
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of copies of photographs pertaining to the Irwin family and the Barnet Lumber Company while Henry Stanley Irwin worked for the Barnet Lumber Company and the family lived on site. Many of these photographs were published in the book "In the Shadow by the Sea: Recollections of Burnaby…
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Collection/Fonds
- In the Shadow by the Sea collection
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 64 photographs (tiffs)
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of copies of photographs pertaining to the Irwin family and the Barnet Lumber Company while Henry Stanley Irwin worked for the Barnet Lumber Company and the family lived on site. Many of these photographs were published in the book "In the Shadow by the Sea: Recollections of Burnaby's Barnet Village".
- History
- Henry Stanley Irwin (1890-1966) started work at Barnet mill in 1924. Henry and his wife Elsie May Irwin (Taylor) Irwin (1894-1985) first lived with their two daughters, Eleanor (Nelson) (1924-2005) and Louise (1927-) in a worker's cabin before moving to the Barnet Mill's managers' residence. The household included Elsie's mother, Elizabeth (Shephard) Taylor (1868-1950). The family resided at Barnet until they moved to Vancouver in September 1939. Louise and her older sister Eleanor attended Barnet School like other children in the Barnet area. After the mill closed in 1931, Henry was unemployed for two years. During this time, he hired a horse and driver and cut logs from the slopes of Burnaby Mountain to support his family. The Barnet Lumber Company also known as the Barnet mill was in operation between 1925 and 1932. The mill was located on Burrard Inlet in the neighbourhood of Barnet and was one of the most successful local employers in Burnaby until the 1930s when the Great Depression resulted in a strike at the mill. The City of Burnaby eventually assumed control of the site including all of the homes when the company failed to pay it's taxes. The city then dismantled the mill and sold the property in two parts - the eastern section would become the Kapoor Sawmills Limited and the western portion, the McColl-Frontenac Oil Company.
- Accession Code
- BV019.32
- Date
- [1925-1939] (date of originals), copied 2004
- Media Type
- Photograph
- Related Material
- See also, City of Burnaby Archives: Burnaby Historical Society fonds - "In the Shadow by the Sea subseries"
- Notes
- Title based on contents of series
Kapoor Singh Siddoo series
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/museumdescription21422
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Date
- [1940-1947] (date of originals), copied 2004
- Collection/Fonds
- In the Shadow by the Sea collection
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 31 photographs (tiffs)
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of copies of photographs pertaining to the family of Kappoor Singh Siddoo and the Kapoor Sawmills Limited that were published in the book "In the Shadow by the Sea: Recollections of Burnaby's Barnet Village".
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Collection/Fonds
- In the Shadow by the Sea collection
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 31 photographs (tiffs)
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of copies of photographs pertaining to the family of Kappoor Singh Siddoo and the Kapoor Sawmills Limited that were published in the book "In the Shadow by the Sea: Recollections of Burnaby's Barnet Village".
- History
- Kapoor Singh Siddoo was born in 1885 in the Punjab village of Kharaudi, India. Kapoor was one of the pioneer South Asian Canadian Sikhs who first immigrated to America in 1906, arriving in San Francisco in 1906 with twenty illiterate compatriots seeking employment. As the only one among them with a formal education, Kapoor acted as their interpreter, manager, and accountant. They worked along the Southern Pacific Railway line near Marysville, California, as it inched toward Reno, Nevada. At the same time, Kapoor was asked to help raise funds for a mining company in British Columbia founded by a Punjabi spiritual leader. Kapoor attempted to join the company in British Columbia (attracted partly by stories of the province’s natural beauty), but was turned back at the international border at Blaine several times before entering via Victoria in 1912. Once settled, he operated a successful dairy, invested in various businesses, and socialized with other South Asian immigrants interested in politics. However, emotions of those around Kapoor began to heat up; frustration among opponents of British rule in Indian grew intense. Kapoor left the explosive situation for Ontario in June 1914, determined to find a place for himself in Canadian society. He tried homesteading in the “Clay Belt” of northern Ontario, but like others found the extreme winter conditions intolerable. He returned to British Columbia in 1916, invited by a group of Sikh sawmill workers to help them manage the accounts at a Fraser Valley sawmill they had leased. Kapoor found his niche in the sawmill industry. Fraser Valley timber sat on land granted by the Dominion government to railways to help finance their construction. South Asian workers could get timber rights on these lands, unlike on Crown Lands elsewhere in the province. Kapoor and his new partners, particularly Mayo Singh, looked for other promising “railway belt” locations for another sawmill and found an ideal location on Vancouver Island near Duncan. Kapoor and his colleagues opened a large, modern mill in 1918 and despite various setbacks, prospered for the next decade and a half. In 1923, with a change in immigration laws, Kapoor arranged for his wife, Besant Kaur, to emigrate from India. Besant came to Canada with Kapoor’s older brother, Bhagwan. Kapoor and Besant had two daughters while in Duncan: Jagdis Kaur Siddoo (1925) and Sarjit Kaur Siddoo (1926), both of whom eventually became physicians. Kapoor’s lumber business on Vancouver Island flourished until 1935, when a fire destroyed the original mill. He moved his family to Vancouver, although retaining interest in another Vancouver Island mill. In 1939, he purchased a large piece (45 acres) of the former Barnet Mill in Burnaby, recently acquired by the Municipality as payment for tax default during the Depression. Kapoor named the mill Modern Sawmills and finalized the purchase though a business agent to get around Burnaby’s bylaw prohibiting the sale to a non-White person. Eventually he changed the mill’s name to Kapoor Sawmills Limited. The mill received timber in log booms from Vancouver Island, and once processed, the wood was then shipped via the Canadian Pacific Railway that ran past the mill, and still does today. Kapoor’s younger brother, Tara, who had earlier worked with Kapoor in other sawmills, joined the venture as a shareholder. Tara and his wife, Beant, took up residence in Barnet from 1943-1945 with their family: sons Lakhbeer, Gurdeb, Gurcharn, Baldev, Hardev and daughters Harjeet (Sangha), Runjeet (Basi) and Buckshish (Sarai). Tara oversaw the regular delivery of logs from Vancouver Island to the Barnet mill. He also became known as a local Burnaby philanthropist, donating to Burnaby General Hospital. The Kapoor sawmill prospered but burned to the ground on January 14, 1947. A smaller mill was rebuilt on the site and remained a successful financial operation until 1959. When he retired in 1959, Kapoor Siddoo was one of Vancouver’s most influential men in the South Asian Community. He was a leading businessman, but had also fought to give South Asian Canadians the right to vote. The year he retired, the family set up the Kapoor Singh Siddoo Foundation and with help from his wife and daughters opened a hospital in the Punjab village of Aur. In 1964, Kapoor died in India at the age of 79 years.
- Accession Code
- BV019.32
- Date
- [1940-1947] (date of originals), copied 2004
- Media Type
- Photograph
- Related Material
- See also, City of Burnaby Archives: Burnaby Historical Society fonds - "In the Shadow by the Sea subseries"
- Notes
- Title based on contents of series
Pixie McGeachie photographs series
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/museumdescription18934
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Date
- [between 1939 and 1949] (date of originals), copied 2008
- Collection/Fonds
- Pixie McGeachie fonds
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 24 photographs (tiffs) : b&w
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of photographs from a McGeachie family album documenting a time that Jack and Pixie McGeachie spent at their log cabin on Mount Seymour. Jack McGeachie, Maurice Skinner and Jack Gannon built and maintained the cabin with friends on Mount Seymour from 1938 until after the Second Worl…
- Repository
- Burnaby Village Museum
- Collection/Fonds
- Pixie McGeachie fonds
- Description Level
- Series
- Physical Description
- 24 photographs (tiffs) : b&w
- Scope and Content
- Series consists of photographs from a McGeachie family album documenting a time that Jack and Pixie McGeachie spent at their log cabin on Mount Seymour. Jack McGeachie, Maurice Skinner and Jack Gannon built and maintained the cabin with friends on Mount Seymour from 1938 until after the Second World War.
- Accession Code
- BV008.17
- Date
- [between 1939 and 1949] (date of originals), copied 2008
- Media Type
- Photograph
- Notes
- Title based on contents of series