Item consists of a portrait photograph of a Cowichan man.

This series consists of correspondence, petitions, accounts, statements of population, and reports relating to land of Indigenous peoples in British Columbia from the Department of the Provincial Secretary.

The item consists of a photograph album that belonged to B.W. Pearse. The front page is inscribed "B.W. Pearse, Fernwood, Victoria, British Columbia, 1860.” The album contains 55 b&w photographs collected by Pearse that primarily depict Yale, the Fraser River, areas around the Thompson River, and views of Victoria. Several of the photographs are by Frederick Dally. Pages are numbered and nearly every photograph has a caption.

Series consists of records related to the Sisters of St. Ann’s work at the Tzouhalem Road property in Duncan, BC.

The Sisters purchased, by Crown grant, 400 acres in Cowichan between 1864 and 1870. The first convent and school was built on that land in 1864 under the direction of Father Pierre Rondeau, who had established a mission in Quamichan in 1861. Two Sisters arrived in October of 1864 with the mission of establishing a school for Indigenous girls.

When the school opened, 21 girls aged 4-18 were registered, from six local Fist Nations: Quamichan (Kwa’mutsun), Qw’umiyiqun (Comiaken), Xwulqw’selu (Koksilah), S’amuna’ (Somena), Lhumlhumuluts’ (Clemclemluts), Xinupsum (Khenipsen) and Tl'lulpalus (Cowichan Bay). In 1876 a decision was made that Indigenous girls in Cowichan would be taught as day students only, which allowed for the Duncan school lodgings to be renovated and enlarged to accommodate orphans sent from the overcrowded St Ann’s school in Victoria, as well as from other regions where the Sisters taught, including Alaska. After the E&N Railway was completed, more children from middle-class settler families began to attend the Duncan St. Ann’s school.

The Sisters began teaching boys at the Duncan school in 1904, after the closure of St. Aloysius Protectorate in Victoria. Increase in student boarders led to a need for a bigger school building, and one was constructed in 1921. This building was designed by Sister Mary Osithe as architect.

The school closed in 1964, with Sisters transferring to the nearby Queen of Angels School to teach. The building was briefly used as a novitiate in 1968, and the land was leased out in 1969. In 1979, Providence Farm was established on the site, an organization which is under the direction of The Vancouver Island Providence Community Association. This is an active organization as of 2023.

During the years the Sisters oversaw the school, it was known by a number of different names internally and externally, including: St. Ann’s Boy’s School, Duncan; St. Ann’s, Quamichan; St. Ann’s, Cowichan; The Farm; St. Ann’s Indian School for Girls; and St. Ann’s Orphanage for Girls.

This series consists of three subseries: A) Convent subseries; B) St. Ann’s School, Duncan subseries; C) Farm subseries.

Records in subseries A include chronicles of the school and convent, financial records, Local House minutes, Official Visitation reports, a monograph and history of the school, as well as a scrapbook of Sisters’ art and photographs.

Subseries B consists of records related to the administration of the school, and includes school registers, student accounts, application forms, grades, tests, monthly attendance reports, and photographs. Only a small amount of ephemera relating to the school has survived, and includes two year books (1940 and 1957), a school newsletter (1964), a visitor’s book, and programs and invitations.

Subseries C consists of records relating to the farm on the Duncan property that sustained the school, and includes accounts, receipts and expenses.