Infidels and the Damn Churches: Irreligion in the Archives

Guest Speaker: Dr. Lynne Marks, Department of History, University of Victoria

British Columbia was and remains a less religious place than the rest of the country. Featuring highlights from her recent award-winning book, Infidels and the Damn Churches: Irreligion and Religion in Settler British Columbia, Lynne Marks will discuss the range of archival sources that went into her research.

Lynne accessed a number of BC Archives collections including Lowery’s Claim, an infamously anti-religious and generally iconoclastic paper of the early twentieth century Kootenays, and the rich Imbert Orchard oral history collection, which provided crucial evidence for the book and inspiration for the book’s title. Church records were also consulted, most of which are held in the United Church of Canada, BC Conference Archives, Vancouver.