A few of over 40,000 digitized images from the Canadian Letters & Images Project, spearheaded by VIU history professor Dr. Stephen Davies. (Canadian Letters & Images Project)

By Alex Rawnsley

tireless work

‘Seems to be no end:’ Nanaimo professor honoured for history-preserving project

Jun 4, 2025 | 12:44 PM

NANAIMO — A Vancouver Island University professor hopes provincial recognition for his work will help a passion project honouring the past continues thriving.

VIU history professor Dr. Stephen Davies was honoured recently by the B.C. Historical Federation with their Award of Recognition for his work with the Canadian Letters and Images Project, spanning around 25 years.

Davies told NanaimoNewsNOW he found out about the honour in mid-April and was “quite surprised and very pleased” to be celebrated by peers, but took the award as recognition for not only him but his team whose preserved over 40,000 individual letters, photos, diary entries and more.

“I think [the recognition is] going to help increase the profile of the project, hopefully bring more users into the project, perhaps find some funding as well so I think it’s really a testament not to myself, but to the materials that the project holds and the importance of the project has for Canadians generally.”

Starting as a project for his students at the turn of the century, Davies hoped to borrow 100 to 200 letters from around the First World War for his students to collect, digitize and work on.

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The material didn’t stop after 200, with countless families offering their keepsakes on loan to be digitized then safely returned.

“We’re literally bringing materials out of closets and attics, they’re stories of ordinary Canadians. These are people that most people would not hear about, but their stories are important, it helps put a face to the name on the cenotaph, and tell us that these are real people and how important every story is.”

What started as a learning opportunity, evolved into the largest archive of its kind in Canada.

“It’s amazing what families are holding on to, and sometimes they’re single letters, sometimes it’s hundreds of letters, but we have just barely scratched the surface. People are after 25 years of just finding out about us and want to participate and want to lend us those materials.”

Davies said funding is a constant struggle.

The project has “never had a cent of government money”, according to Davies, and relies solely on fundraising to keep things progressing.

He used to be able to hire five or six students to help with the work, however he now just has one.

“Before we had a lot of [First World War] collections, which we’re still getting in, but now [Second World War] collections are starting to come as that generation of veterans has died, as the families have these materials now, and want to do something with them. There seems to be no end to what will be available to us, our difficulty is being able to process it.”

Davies added the scope of material is changing as well, which could form a challenge for future historians focused more on the late 20th century and beyond.

“The letter writing culture changed after Korea, and so for Afghanistan, for example, communication was very much by email, cell phones, where some of those records don’t exist anymore. The problem is trying to reconstruct that experience based on modern technology.”

Donations to the project are tax deductible and can be made through the VIU Foundation on their website.

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