The BC Archives holds a significant number of records relating to Indigenous peoples and communities. Many are provincial or colonial government records created by settlers about First Nations, but we also have a number of records that contain first-hand Indigenous accounts, including audio recordings of songs and ceremonies, photographs of communities and people, and transcripts of interviews with Indigenous people.

Records relating to Indigenous people are held in both the BC Archives and the Royal BC Museum’s Indigenous collections. For an overview of what types of records are held by each department, please see the Indigenous Research Guide.

At this time, we hold no records created by Indigenous communities or organizations. In our journey of reconciliation, we are actively pursuing ways to redress the balance of voices in our collections and we welcome offers from First Nations groups who wish to donate records, histories or cultural knowledge to the BC Archives.

Links

To learn more about the materials held at the BC Archives, see:

• BC Archives: Collections by record type
• Residential School Records

To search the collections held by the BC Archives and for online resources see:

• Search our Collections

To learn about Indigenous Genealogy, watch our joint workshop presented with Library and Archives Canada:

• Indigenous Genealogy Workshop:

Some current projects that seek to highlight Indigenous voices include the following: