Eight Seasons Strong

This Week in History is a weekly televised series that showcases British Columbia’s extraordinary history through two-minute information-rich episodes. Presented by the Royal BC Museum in partnership with CHEK News, these episodes explore the stories behind artifacts, specimens and documents from our collections, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the museum and archives. The show also allows us to reach a wide audience of people who may never have a chance to walk through our doors.

This September will mark the start of the ninth season, and once again, This Week in History will explore a wide variety of content. This content comes from many sources, including our viewers. When local author Dr. Nick Russell contacted CHEK News about a bird’s-eye-view watercolour housed in the basement of the BC Archives, it sparked a quest to learn more about the painting and its creator. Dr. Russell’s curiosity resulted in a fascinating episode in season 5, episode 9, about a remarkable, and virtually unknown, BC artist.

There are many other records of enduring value at the BC Archives, including court documents, birth decrees and newspapers. The Daily Colonist from January 1878 contains a notice for an auction of household goods. This auction list provided clues about how to restore the interior of the Ross Bay Villa, leading to another interesting episode. The Ross Bay Villa is one of only about 10 residences in

By Suzan Meyers

Sales Coordinator

the City of Victoria known to survive from before 1870. Look for this intriguing story in season 5, episode 23.

From newspaper articles to whale bones, season 7, episode 16, takes us to the west coast of Vancouver Island where, on April 20, 2015, a nine-metre grey whale washed up on Long Beach. Three days later, a team descended onto the beach to clean as much flesh off the bones as possible before burying them at the Tofino/Ucluelet Landfill. Three years later, we went back to the landfill to uncover the bones. Time, bacteria and fungi had done their work, and the bones were now perfectly clean and ready to be added to the mammalogy collection at the Royal BC Museum, where you will find them today.

These are highlights from only a few of the hundreds of episodes of This Week in History that have aired over the past eight seasons. The Royal BC Museum has a plethora of remarkable stories representing the millions of artifacts, specimens and documents in its care—enough to keep This Week in History airing on CHEK News for generations to come.

To watch new and previously aired episodes visit rbcm.ca/twih.