It’s Canada Book Day today (also World Book Day and Copyright Day, or International Day of the Book) and Library and Archives Canada has posted a note about searching its Electronic Collection. There are some British Columbia digitized books there – and even among the dry government reports included are some research gems, like the Canada. Royal Commission on Indian Affairs. Report of the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia. — Victoria : Printed by the Acme Press, 1916.

The Library and Archives Canada Electronic Collection offers a search by title, subject, etc. and also a full text search. Publications are not always in the most readable format, but many are in easily downloadable .pdfs.

I quite like this publication, a Vancouver Tourist Association booklet c. 1905, full of photographs and ads. Library and Archives Canada has some of the book covers from its collection on Flickr, including this. Specially attractive to me inside was the ad for this Victoria hotel, the Dominion, very convenient location, across from Victoria’s Carnegie Library (1904), convenient to “free busses” (still is convenient), but alas, they welcomed tourists, but only “business men”.  If the name of this hotel rings a bell from your family research, some of the hotel’s registers are in the BC Provincial Archives (CA BCA MS-1148)

For more about “Carnegie’s Canadian Libraries|, see Historic Places.ca

     M. Diane Rogers, BCGS Editor